Brilliant yellow flowers had fought their way out of the crumbling concrete wall.
I was struck by the display of such beauty against the decaying rubble, the contrast of radiant life amongst lifelessness, newness juxtaposed to death. It seemed miraculous that the lifeless wall could sustain such loveliness.
Again and again I am surprised by the beauty that emerges in a city where death is so heavy.
I’m not going to lie, this month has been hard for me.
Poverty is ugly.
I’ve always known that, but somewhere between national geographic pictures and anthropology classes it had formed an idealized impression in my head.
It's especially ugly in Haiti.
It takes the form of tons of trash mixed with human feces on every corner, overcrowded, suffocating city streets, fly infested markets, ear-splitting honking and shouting, children covered in filth, the constant odor of urine mixed with smoke and rotting trash.
It repulses me and breaks my heart at the same time.
But still, magnificent yellow flowers grow in the concrete…
The pure joy in the eyes of a small boy who kicks a soccer ball with you, the stomach-deep laugh of a man swinging his daughter around, the obvious affection a young girl shows her brother, the stunning sunsets that fall on the roof tops of a broken city, an old man's pleasure as he reads his poem to a crowd.
Amongst the evil there is great beauty in Haiti.
The Lord is here,
and wherever his Spirit goes freedom follows.
Our work in Haiti has taken an conglomeration of different efforts.
The first week we went door to door telling families about our pastor’s school that is free for children. I was stunned by the number of children who don’t go to school because their parents cannot afford the registration fee.
The next week we went around the city praying over families and sharing the Gospel of hope. This week the pastor asked us to put on a “revival” at his church. Every evening we preach in front of a crowd of people. We tell them that in the midst of their hardship, there is hope.
The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I, the Lord will answer them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.
I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive…. so that the people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it.
Isaiah 41
