Back breaking work from dawn until dusk. Hot, sweaty weather that seems to only take a break for a few select hours every morning. Determined individuals who know that the reality of life is not something to joke around with, that living means working, living means hardship, living means putting on armor and getting through the battle that is everyday. Women who are 50 who’s arms are defined and muscled because of hand washing clothes and taking care of their children alone. Men supporting their families from Brazil or Chile because there is no opportunity in their small villages. Children who run around naked and dirty. Kids who never hesitate to jump into my arms, tracing my nose and tugging at my blonde hair as they hold it up to their heads and marvel at the contrast. Beautiful, big, brown eyes and smiles that stretch across little ones faces showing pearly white, crooked teeth. Tattered clothing, houses with no doors but sheets and curtain’s blowing in the wind in their place. Trash littering the streets, mainly small plastic bags in which treated water is sold. Colorful trucks with covered beds that have painted words like patience, love, and independence plastered in bright yellows and reds. An economy that has been plundered and ruined because of a devastating earthquake. A currency that has deflated in the last 7 years because the American dollar has entered the country as a form of payment.
Poverty. Intense need. Families who love their children but physically can’t provide a safe home. Lack of medical care in almost every village we enter. Market places that are loud with yelling and bartering and honking. Women walking along the white gravel roads with buckets of water on their heads. Children pumping water from the wells in town because they have no running water at home. Stories of death because of injury, because of health, because of acts of the voodoo faith that dominates too much of Haiti.
And in the midst of all of this, in the midst of life for these people who are in need of everything, and in control of nothing…happiness. Joy. Smiles that light up a room. Laughs that inspire more laughter. Encouragement. A mentality that even with the struggle of supporting a family, family still means everything. Determination, and more thankfulness then I have ever had the privilege or the opportunity to witness. Ambition. Tales of faith and reliance on the Lord. Testimonies that shatter everything I thought I knew about the image of dependence on our Father. Women weeping in front of me as we sit in their almost empty cinder block houses as they tell me they lost 6 children out of 8, and yet they KNOW that their God is good, and their God is merciful, and their God is kind. Unbelievable and heartbreakingly Inspirational. Life changing, ever growing, unrelenting, and actively rising up for Christ.
Welcome to Haiti.
