I always want to blog about haiti but i can never find the words. So i am going to borrow what my friend wrote because I think she did a great job explaining it....
God’s love is abundant enough for every man, woman and child on this Earth, spreading as far as the eye can see, and even further. His love reaches all the way from the US full of the rich and famous, all the way to Haiti full of poverty and sickness.
You will never know the feeling of seeing the hope of Jesus Christ in the eyes of a starving Haitian child, unless you see it yourself. It really makes you wonder what you are really living for. Now at home, as some have said before, my heart truly aches to go back to Haiti. To see Jesus everyday through people who have nothing, and I literally mean nothing. When you don’t have the distractions of everyday life you really get the opportunity to think about your relationships. Your relationships with the people that you miss back at home, the people that you have to spend the next nine days with, your family and friends. But mostly it opens your eyes to your relationship with Christ. I feel more connected to Christ in Haiti then I ever have in my entire life. Every night during devos I can feel Him speaking to me, and in the mornings waking up to people talking loudly doesn’t even matter. Because stepping out that door is literally walking into a living Hell. Everyone forgets his or her differences, disputes, and annoyances when it really mattered. We all worked together to do something much bigger than ourselves. We went out to share the love of Christ to people, and some of them could have probably given us some pointers.
I feel an overwhelming sense of longing for Haiti, to go back, to be with the people. I feel like God is telling me what I need to do, through all the images that I constantly see in my head of the kids who have red hair from worms, and the kids who have yellow jaundiced eyes. I can’t stop the thoughts of the kids living by themselves in a hut, because both of their parents died, or the thoughts of the mothers who have to watch their babies die because they caught pneumonia from the cold and rain. I still remember freshly in my mind about the little boy who ran up to me with his younger sister on his hip and pointed to my feet and then to his little sisters feet. He could have been up with all the other kids his age getting candy and small toys, but instead he was asking for things for his baby sister.
It really makes me wonder what kind of person I am.
I know for a fact that if I were a seven or eight year old Haitian child I would be up there getting candy for myself. Just recently I actually pushed a young girl out of the way, at a wedding, to catch the bouquet, and I didn’t even end up catching it. I don’t think I ever realized how greedy I am, and I don’t think that I will ever realize how greedy I will always be.
Until you are put into a situation like the Haiti teams are put into every year, you will never fully understand the feelings and emotions that continue to run through our minds, even after we go home. Here I am on the 28th of July, 22 days after we left our homes to go to Haiti, and 14 days since we have gotten back from Haiti, and I still feel like I’m there. I may not be there physically, but everyday I am there. I pray daily that God helps us keep these feelings and memories for the rest of our lives, and that we never forget the bonds that we have made while we were there.
I know that this sounds corny, but I have left my heart in Haiti, and this time I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back. I left it with the older woman who dropped to her knees in prayer and raised her hands into the air thanking Jesus for his gift of clean water. And I left my heart with little boy, whose sister I gave a pair of flip-flops that were way too big. And I left my heart with all the little children who would act all cute and nice and give me hugs, and then ask for “one sweet.” I will never be able to, even if I tried, be able to forget what I have seen, felt, and learned on my trips, and yes I will say it again, I have left my heart in Haiti.
That my friend is my, my good friend Kelsy. I hope now you can see why i have such a huge passion for this place.
