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This is the question I have heard over and over in the last few days. It is a reasonable question. A normal question, one that is usually easily answered after a vacation or weekend getaway. However, for me, it is not so easily answered after a trip to Haiti. Every time someone asks I hesitate. What do I say? Do they really want to know the roller coaster of emotions that we experienced? Do they want to hear how deplorable the living conditions are or the number of children in orphanages or the unimaginable poverty that 90% of Haitians live with all their lives? Do they want to know the poor condition we found our boys to be in or how difficult it was leave them or how Mackenson and Mackenzie did not want us to go this time? Maybe some people want to know but for the most part I think not.

I think people want the short, sweet version. The one that doesn’t push them out of their comfort zone too much. Don’t get me wrong, there were amazing and wonderful parts of our trip. Watching Pappa bond with his 3 boys for the first time, seeing the sheer joy on their faces when they would count to 10 and jump into our arms in the pool, dancing around the room with them each night and hearing them giggle until they couldn’t catch their breath or the moment when we were all in bed, lights out and Paul and I told them each that we loved them in creole (something we did every other minute since they arrived) and for the first time they each responded with the same. How do you share all of this in a brief passing? How do you NOT share all of this. See my dilemma?

Adjusting to being home this time was,for me, even more intense. Having worshipped in Haiti just a week before sitting in our church was a profound experience. It was also a frustrating and painful experience. Looking around at the worshippers in Port Au Prince and knowing where they come from each week just to give praise to their God, seeing each of them give an offering when you know they have NOTHING and then looking around our church on Sunday, hearing our pastor preach about giving to the world, I had to leave in tears, it doesn’t compute, it is so difficult to keep from jumping up and shouting, wanting everyone to know what suffering is out there. I WANT to make people uncomfortable, I WANT to yell and scream about how good we all have it, how selfish we can be, how we need to wake up and LISTEN. Yet I don’t, I can’t, it’s not OK , it’s not in The Comfort Zone. Frustration, that’s what I am feeling. That’s what I am working on getting through.
SO, do you REALLY want to know? I believe you really SHOULD want to know and then you really SHOULD want to do something to make things better. I believe that is God’s mission for us as His people, to reach out to The World!

Filed under: Reflection

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