Skip to main content

Haiti 2013

The gates opened to reveal a crisp set of two-story buildings at the base of a lush, towering mountain. To the right of a green courtyard stood the new straw-thatched gazebo that last year’s team gave money to build; to our left, a new elongated concrete planter complete with ferns and a bench for rest. Whether its members were coming for the third time or seeing it for the first, the team that traveled to the Hands and Feet orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, discovered that day the result of God’s people coming together to serve. They found a place of comfort for orphans; they found a place of provision for Haitian staff; and they found a place of purpose for short- and long-term missionaries alike.

Throughout that week, in fact, our team found ourselves fulfilling very real needs. Having purchased a large piece of land behind the orphanage proper, the missionaries there plan to build homes for the orphans who have become adults, a step that will ease each orphan’s transition into the world of work or study. Consequently, we were charged with the task of digging and building. We helped lay a dirt road along one side of this land so the missionaries could install a clean-water well; and we moved rocks, dug, and passed cement to Haitian workers as they built a new wall.

We found, however, that there were other, more subtle forms of building taking place in the orphanage. Indeed, those who had come for the third time noticed a stark difference in the behavior of the children. No longer clinging to us at every moment, the children seemed to be at greater peace than before. Stephen, the director, told us that this was because the children were now living in a family-style atmosphere, with a housemother and two or three children, together completing chores and eating meals. In short, the children were experiencing inside the orphanage a sense of the family that they had lost outside it.

This was to us just one example of the broader good taking place in Haiti. In fact, while we had come to serve physically, we witnessed a God already at work spiritually. He is, we learned, a God of building and restoration, and more than any other, it was this lesson that reminded us that the work he is doing in the lives of Haitian orphans is the same work he wants to do in us.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
2 comments
Read more

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...
Post a Comment
Read more