Haiti Memories

It has been 10 years in March that I was privileged to get to travel with a group of college students from Harding University, to Cap Haitian, Haiti. Cap Haitian was just north along the coast from Port Au Prince, if I remember correctly.

I cant believe it has been that long ...the memories are still fresh, but more alive this week then they have been the past 10 years. I remember so vividly experiencing the poverty of these sweet people.

My heart is hurting as I see the pictures of their lives now ...devastated beyond our understanding. I have thought about the individuals that I met during my week there, children in the orphanage, older women who were caring for their homes, older men who were bed ridden with some unknown illness, elderly who had old bandages grown into their wounds from lack of care..yet all of them were quick with a smile and a often a hug.

I could have brought every one of the children home from the orphanage we stayed at ..I wonder how they all are now. I wonder about the preaching students we visiting who were so excited to be learning and teaching of the Gospel. I remember a preacher who took us to a site where he hoped to build a church, and had us pray over the ground ..I wonder if that church is still standing today?

I remember seeing those hills covered in shanties ..I was amazed that people actually lived there. I see pictures of those hills now, and they are nothing but rubble ..how could they not be?

My heart is so full for those woman who have lost children, some of them all of their children, aside from all their meager earthly existence.

I have thought about how lucky we as Americans are ..because if an 7.0 earthquake hit Summerville, SC today (we do live on an active fault line) I know that chances are good that my family would survive thanks to our engineering standards, we would be rescued thanks to services that are provided to me as resident here. If our home tumbled to the ground, there would be hope for rebuilding, insurance money to help, friends and family from across the country and world who would send assistance and break their backs to help me. There would be no thought to our future beyond the initial recovery, of course we would survive this and we would be okay. Our resources are basically unlimited, compared to those people in Haiti.

And, even though I am remembering my brother today I still cant help but consider the loss that so, so many of them are suffering now. One mother lost 4 of her children in the quake and the last one immediately afterwards in the hospital. He was brought home with dignity and buried as a hero, many (so many) of them are piled in the street like garbage waiting for a space to be cleared for a mass grave to be created for them.

My heart is hurting for those people who have lost so much, and have so little to look forward to.

Thank you, God for the country we live in, the material blessings we share, the resources we have been born into. Bless those people and cover them with your love, comfort and peace in a time where all those thing seem so far from reach.

(The pic was taken by a fellow Haiti campaigner and dear friend ..my scanner is not working, but I am looking at my own shots tonight and wishing in some way I was there to comfort them!)