To Haiti and Back Again

We’re home!  And in answer to the first question that naturally comes to anyone’s mind- “How was your trip?”- the answer is:

hard… amazing…… overwhelming….fun… heartbreaking… wonderful…

I have struggled to begin writing this post, as there is so much that I want to convey…

And while I know a picture is worth a thousand words…

There are some things that even a picture cannot truly describe…

The juxtaposition of  joy….

and pain….

The fun…and the laughter….

against the hunger and the smell…

And there are stories that I want so much for you to know…. At one meal, we gave Wisly a fried chicken drumstick.

He took 3 or 4 bites from it, and then went to the stairs and passed it up to Tomas (another boy about his age),
who took a couple bites, and who then passed it up the steps to another child, who took
a couple bites, and then passed it on again, to another child.  Wisly ran back up to his chair,
grinning.  Where he took a handful of rice and went back over to the stairs, and began to pass out
grains of rice.  He got just as much pleasure out of sharing it, as he did eating it, I think.

In fact, he couldn’t sit at a meal, without going to share some with the children peeking over the stairwell.

When Pastor Rigaud took us to the ice cream parlor (that looked like a place in an
American mall… air conditioned, even!), the kids saved most of their cookies to share
when they got back, and even insisted on wrapping up the left over ketchup to bring
back for other kids to have a taste.

I wish I could explain the feeling of sitting in the church service, listening to the background
music being played. Upon realizing I knew the tune, I began to sing along quietly to myself.
Then I noticed what I was singing… “Give thanks, with a grateful heart.  Give thanks….
And now… let the weak say I am strong… let the poor say I am rich… because of what
the Lord has done… for us…”

I started to weep sitting there.  In this room full of several hundred Haitian people, one of
a small handful of white people, I saw this song was the cry of their hearts… and I was humbled
to think that I had sung those very words before… but they had not cost me what those words
cost these people.  Another powerful juxtaposition... the weak… truly strong.  The poor… truly rich.

These mixed pictures are tightly woven together in my mind and heart.  The bucket shower,
the non-flushing toilet, the heat, and the smell, are so closely intertwined
with the joy, the friendship, the laughter, the love, and the worship,
that I can’t see the appalling without the lovely.

In Haiti, where I was never fully wet or dry, my heart both broke, and expanded.
I felt humbled, and honored.  I was a stranger, and I was family.

How do children who are not yours, become so deeply yours?  To where you can
be physically ill and heartbroken to walk away, and enter the airport without them?

So honored to have been chosen to mother these special boys.

Will you pray them home with me?