Faith to Endure Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and a Cancer Diagnosis

What resonated with me most about Jennifer wasn't the cultural experience from her years in Haiti, but rather her posture when she said, “If my faith depended on me, it probably would've failed.”

We sat together twice this summer via Zoom. Jennifer and I often work together, writing newsletters for an international ministry. In this instance, we scheduled a second meeting. I was having trouble condensing her story for readers of my blog on Christians around the globe. While the cultural aspects of Jennifer’s life might intrigue, it’s the human elements we remember.

Originally from the Midwest, Jennifer married a Haitian man and interacts regularly with people from other cultures. Jennifer is fluent in Creole, and when she speaks it, I can somewhat recognize the French in her words. I recognized, too, from our conversation, her reliance on God.

In Jennifer’s five decades she’s encountered grief and goodbyes. Some of that I’ll write about, yet first, I want to note how God and heaven became real to Jennifer at a young age. She grew up going to church, singing songs about Jesus. These years formed her as she learned of God’s character—his love for his creation, his holiness—and then she came to rely on God as good and just. It’s a comfort to weather life with certainty of God’s care and affection.

During college, Jennifer worked in a cemetery for three summers. She maneuvered a ride-on mower through rows of gravestones and she swept grass clippings from the names of Minnesotans who lived and died. I asked her if all that time in the cemetery widened her theology. She said maybe. Being alone in a cemetery never really scared her. She isn’t easily frightened, and describes herself as adventurous, probably more so than the average person I know.

After college, Jennifer taught middle-school biology. Her schedule left space for travel. She visited China with her church. She went on a short-term mission trip to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, sparking her interest in the mission field. You could do this, she thought, as she ventured outside the classroom. At the same time, she knew her work with students was important. Should I stay in Minnesota or travel overseas—perhaps to Africa? Jennifer wondered.

Later, a close friend said, “Most people don’t want to pack up and leave for Africa.” Another friend prodded, “Maybe God is asking you to do something.” Then a third friend shared Jennifer’s name with their church denomination’s mission org. Jennifer joined a group of missionaries in Gressier, west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. There, they lived amid a community affected by a recent earthquake.

Haiti is a two-hour flight from many US churches sending short-term missionaries. Fifteen teams visited Haiti in one summer, and Jennifer hosted the visitors, saying she loved bringing together people with different skills. For the earthquake survivors, Jennifer had no experience in trauma care, but she knew how to lead a small-group Bible study from her years as a church member in Minnesota. Her career as a middle school teacher shaped her to believe good teachers are facilitators. Jennifer embraced the role of facilitator and friend to many Haitians for almost a decade, till her life in Haiti was rerouted.

When the Haitian government collapsed and gang violence took over, Jennifer’s missionary team was sent home. However, her tie to Haiti would endure when Haitian pastor, Jean, also a cultural advisor to the missionaries, texted Jennifer. In the US, Jean had undergone cancer treatment. With him were his two teenage children, adapting to US culture and to loss—Jean’s wife had died suddenly two years previous. As Jean’s cancer treatment looked victorious, he thought about Jennifer, wondering if she might consider sharing a future with him. They exchanged messages during the summer, then Jean invited Jennifer to a celebration in Florida. Four months later, they married.

Jennifer never imagined how short their life together would be. Soon after the wedding, Jennifer received a cancer diagnosis of her own. Next came a difficult stretch of cancer treatments. She described how one day she was just sobbing and Jean asked her why. They knew the cancer loomed, yet they’d hoped to defy its timeline. Jean’s cancer continued to grow. Just as Jennifer’s cancer treatments ended, Jean entered hospice.

Jennifer reflected on Jean’s death as we sat together. Seemingly alone, she had many friends and family supporting her. Jennifer knew God accompanied her, although her solitude as a widow left her feeling “afflicted in every way” (2 Cor. 4:8, ESV). She said her cancer in remission felt strange as Jean did not experience healing.

Jennifer described the hope she has for the future. Jesus’s return will usher in healing and renewal for Jean. And this is true for everyone who looks to Jesus. Jesus’s own death and resurrection initiated the possibility. People counted as righteous, restored to God, renewed. God calls us new creations, and one day we will be fully new—healed and whole—dwelling with God who made and loves us.

“Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day,” (2 Cor. 4:16) decade by decade, in Jennifer’s case, who said she’s confident in God, as “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also” (4:14).

I appreciate the strength Jennifer exudes. Her strength comes from a deep theology of knowing who God is and trusting he supplies us faith to trust him. This includes faith to believe in a future resurrection when Jesus will return and restore creation.

Jennifer embraces her role as stepmother to Jean’s teenagers who are now young adults, and her role with continued, remote missionary work to Haiti through her church denomination. Through this endeavor, we collaborate seasonally to write newsletters. I’m grateful Jennifer shared more of her story with me. I hope readers of my blog will recall how present God is and might become in each of our lives.

Jennifer told me about her wedding with Jean. They designed everything around the theme of restoration, from the image of a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly decorating the program, to the Bible passages they chose for the Scripture readings during the service. Jennifer and Jean shared a hope that spanned beyond their current moment.

Knowing Jesus gives you hope as you encounter loss. The hope, at surface level, seems elusive when cancer devastates and natural disasters destroy, yet "looking up is not ignoring the chaos; it's lifting my eyes to my Heavenly Father who is exalted over it." * And God will one day restore all things, perhaps even soon. As Jennifer reminds us, when we are afflicted, we are not crushed.

*Quote from a sermon by Ross Harrison on Psalm 46, Hope Church Dubuque, June 28, 2026.

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(Photo on Unsplash by Claudia Altamimi)