I heard this saying so often growing up: life isn't fair. It was meant as a "well pull up your boot straps and get over yourself Kimmy." But having been in Haiti, I hate that there is injustice in the world.
Yes, I have been to Haiti before, and yes, I have been to 9 countries so far on the Race, but poverty is just now hitting me. I am surrounded by conditions that are inhuman but yet people are living in it. Steve Cobrbett, the author of "When Helping Hurts" describes it quite accurately.
"Foul smells gushed out of open ditches carrying human and animal excrement. I had a hard time keeping my balance as I continually slipped on oozy brown substances that I hoped were mud but feared was something else. Children picked through garbage dumps looking for anything of value."
One of my teammates met a women who doesn't know her own name or age because she is considered a slave to this family. Another girl in our ministrie's bible study was sold as a sex slave at age seven to a voodoo village and finally ran away ten years later. I had a conversation with a 12 year old girl who has a normal sized head but a body fit for an eight month old baby. She is transported in a baby stroller, sponsored to go to school and spoke perfect English. Some children eat once a day, some once a week. They eat the mangos that fall off the trees around the village, the fuzz off their shirt, and even rotten pieces of fruit off the main street.
When we were at an orphanage leading a Bible study, one of the leaders had everyone raise their hands if they had gone to bed hungry and I raised my hand, solo.
God, these kids parents have died or they were abandoned and yet they don't feel they are hungry. I am constantly praying that I would get more protein and would be satisfied, and yet they live with a smile and exude joy.
When I see this going on around me, how do I process it? I thought I would try to sit with the Lord and pray through it in my hammock, listening to music on my phone and journaling on my computer. Not even two minutes into it, I hear "Blan" (white person in Creole). Kids are pointing and watching us as they peek under the security gate of our living space.
I know I shouldn't feel guilty, but I do. I have the first world out of date electronics from the 21st century and they are living in the 1800s. They are working as stone crushers and charcoal sellers from sun up to sun down, hoping to make the average wage of two dollars a day.
And things keep popping in my head. They can't afford diapers or feminine products. There are no hospitals around when people are ready to give birth and women have to stay home when their periods hit which takes them out of school and work.
And here is the kicker for me. Giving a kid a dollar is SO Easy. Heck I could hand a family the 20 dollar bill that is currently in my wallet and it would not really affect me financially. I would feel proud that I helped save someone and could go on my mary way. But in the long run, that would help for a few days and then they would be back hungry and depending on the "rich missionaries." In the long run, I would hurt them. I am learning that poverty is so much more than the quick fixes but about sustainability and relationships. Even though I am learning insight of long term fixes, it doesn't make it any easier to grasp the fact that there are hundreds of malnourished and starving children all around me….
