This blog was written in the course of 24 hours at the end of our first month in Haiti. If you’re going to read the beginning you have to commit to reading the end.
Today was our second day at this horrific orphanage. Again, tears flowed as we watched the scene unfold. Haiti is a difficult place as it is; striking poverty is around every corner. This isn’t my first “developing" world voyage. (I’m not exactly sure what is “developing” here.) From Calcutta, to Kenya, to all over Latin America I’ve walked the dusty roads of developing nations, but I’ve found hope and even contentment in many of these faces of poverty. As we bobble down the pitted, dirt, roads of Haiti I search the darkened faces of the people we pass for any glimpse of hope I can find. Four weeks and many miles later, I am still searching.
We’ve been to some great schools, churches, and orphanages and seen smiles on the faces of the future of Haiti and glimpses of hope. Through Convoy of Hope, they are getting at least one meal a day with a full days worth of vitamins, water filters, latrines, and soon to come gardens. While here, we go in and educate them on the importance of clean water and the danger of drinking water that is untreated. We joke with songs in Creole and French about diarrhea, because diarrhea is funny in ANY language! But the worst-case scenario of consumption of dirty water is cholera and it’s no laughing matter.
I’m pretty sure you could ask any of our elementary students in the US, “what is cholera?” and not get any raised hands. When you ask it here, hands shoot up.
In our country, you ask 1st graders what they want to be and among dreams of professional baseball careers you’ll hear, doctors, firemen, teachers, nurses, and movie stars! One time I asked my 3 yo Sunday school class what they wanted to be and one little blonde boy said “a combine” we asked, “you mean you want to be the man who drives the combine because you can’t be a combine?” Indignantly he crossed his arms and said with confidence, my grandfather said I can be anything I want to be and I want to be a combine!” At three he had hopes and dreams that could NOT be stolen from him! There are no dreams to steal in Haiti.
Here they may know what cholera is, but you get blank stares in every venue when you pose the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up!?” It leaves my mind reeling about the Jeremiah 29:11 plan for their lives, the hope and the future that is promised them, right now the only glimpse I can see of that, is a soon and coming King or the sweet rescue of death. To say I’ve overwhelmed at the plight of these people would be a gross understatement. I can’t see hope for them!
Tonight in church I saw hope. As we sang in Creole, Chris Tomlin’s “Our God,”
Into the darkness you shine out of the ashes we rise there's no one like you none like You!
Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
I suddenly realized they had hope, that there are Haitians who know God and they have hope in the face of hopelessness, when all the odds seemingly appear against them they sing at the top of their lungs with confidence and assurance, "If our God is for us who can ever stop us!?" What I could not see, they had faith to see, HOPE. The greatness of God.
Sometimes I need to step back from a problem to see how clear the solution is, if I hold my problems so close and examine them to a microscopic degree, I am blinded by their vastness and I cannot see the enormity of my God. God is not the author of confusion, His plan for the people of Haiti is one for their good, one to prosper them, not to harm them. They are the apple of His eye. He has not forgotten them. We also sang tonight, "nothing is impossible with You," over and over and over and I thought about the impossibilities I had seen throughout the day. And realized these people don’t SEE the needs I see, they EXPERIENCE them, they LIVE them, day in and day out, yet they stand in here and sing with all their hearts, "NOTHING is impossible with You!" To say that their faith is greater than mine is a gross understatement.
Tonight’s verse was Psalm 23:6 “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life & I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” “Amens!” all around from the Haitian congregation. My mind was left reeling, as I thought cynically to myself, “Really!? Have you taken a look around?! Goodness and Mercy? All the days of your life? Do you know the definition of these words?” I began to think about MY definition of these words, and how it may very well be shallow and conditional. I am awed tonight by how big my God is and how great the faith of these Haitian believers is!
It’s been over a month since I wrote this blog entry. I keep asking myself would I be a believer if I had been born to Haiti and not to American soil? If my most basic of needs were not met on a daily basis, would my response be worship? I honestly can’t give myself an answer, but instead of continuing to toy with the question or to squander all that God has given me and move into a tent in north Springfield, I’m choosing to be more and more thankful everyday for everything! I’ll never know if the end result of my being born to impoverished Haiti would be worship, but I can decide that it WILL be the end result of my being born into the great USA, a blessed nation indeed!
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