This is not the post I had intended to write as the next of my series. However, here I am. Words on my brain, Haiti on my heart, tears in my eyes and passion in my soul.
Our trip to Haiti wasn't a let's-show-the-Haitians-the-way-we-would-do-things-in-America type of experience. It wasn't the intention from the start. That way of thinking never crossed our minds. We immersed ourselves in Haitian ways of life for eight days, no questions asked (except for the cold showers). This trip was not a fix-it-quick mission.
Our trip was about loving people right where they were, no matter the circumstance. Please don't get me wrong...we fixed and helped where we could, when we could, how we could. We took baby formula for infants with sick or deceased mothers. We bought food for an orphanage. We provided an orphanage with a water filtration system. We made connections to fix a well pump so the children at an orphanage wouldn't have to haul via 80 feet out of a well with rope and a bucket. We put a roof on a dining hall. We made connections for a baby with a cleft palate to have surgery. We sat up a makeshift NICU and cared for a tiny baby that, by all odds, shouldn't have lived through that day let alone another week.
Yesterday we received word that twins part of our team visited during the trip passed away. They were healthy which makes their deaths suspicious. It is speculated they were poisoned under the care of a witch doctor. I am told this common in families involved in voodoo. We will never know whether it was intentional or accidental.
I mentioned the baby, Julie, with the cleft palate. If I recall correctly surgery is tentatively scheduled for April. Today we learned Julie and her mother are both hospitalized with cholera. In Haiti cholera is deadly.
So today I thought a lot about Haiti. I thought about how much I wanted to fix it. I want to fix voodoo. I want to fix cholera.
I can't fix these things. They are not fixable. They ARE lovable.
The uncle of those twins is being loved on right now. He is a Christ follower. If you and I love him through prayer God will take care of the rest. Those twins are resting in the arms of Jesus. Their uncle has an opportunity to witness to an entire family. I cannot fix it, but I can love.
I cannot fix sweet, tiny Julie and her precious Momma. I can love them, by petitioning my God, the Great Physician to heal them.
We cannot box up all of our American ways and conveniences and dump them in Haiti. It will not fix anything. We can love Haiti let God do only what He can do to bless these people right where they are at this very moment.
Please join me in loving Haiti. Go if you can. Give financial support if you can. But most of all pray! Pray for God to touch the Haitian people in a mighty way!
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people." Acts 2:17
Love it sister!!!
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