I pray for Haiti and anyone who is willing to help

Bela was hungry long before the earthquake hit Haiti. If she survived — and I can only hope she did — I can't imagine how dire her situation has become.

She'd be a teenager now, if she has even managed to live through the poverty and the disease that have for so long afflicted Haiti.

I met her when she was 4, when I traveled to her island nation with Healing Hands for Haiti. The Utah-based group, founded by Dr. Jeffrey Randle, was making that particular trip to finish and then open a clinic dedicated to physical rehabilitation in a country that too often has shunned those with disabilities as being broken and unfixable.

I have been lucky, in a journalism career that has spanned three decades, to visit several countries in search of stories. But the trip that is always with me, that helped to shape me, is that trip to Haiti.

It was a trip of stark contrasts: beautiful, spotless people picking their way over piles of garbage. They were the poorest people I'd ever seen, even compared to the homeless I'd covered for years in Salt Lake City. They were also among the kindest and most joyful.

Bela was one of dozens of children who had been abandoned by parents who may have seen that as their child's best hope for a life that included basics like food. The orphanage was packed with such children, some genuinely orphaned and others abandoned.

It seems almost unbelievable that such devastation can overtake a land already long-burdened with problems like political corruption, poverty and disease. There's a cosmic cruelty to this earthquake that's almost unfathomable.

I have, from this distance, no way of knowing what happened to my friend Gina or to Dieuferie. I met him at a Catholic orphanage. His parents died when he was young, and as a young adult he returned to teach math and offer hope to other orphans. We are sporadic e-mail pals, and I can only wait to hear from him.

The suffering in Haiti was intense long before the earth roared and the walls fell. A decade ago, I saw trash piled hip-deep on streets where garbage trucks had long been absent. The island's infrastructure has been mauled repeatedly by despots and official indifference. But the people were hopeful and helpful and lovely in spite of all that.

When you view a natural disaster from a distance and you don't know anyone involved, there's a human tendency to shudder and write a check to a charitable organization that can provide some relief, or to just move on.