What would you cling to if you lost everything?
Imagine your world crumbling around you: in 23 seconds, the city you live in shaken to rubble and dust. The cries of wounded and dying people in the streets with no where to go lasts for days and weeks. The streets are no longer streets, but mounds of rocks, dust, trash and yes, even dead bodies. Everywhere you look is disaster. It seems hopeless to even begin to clean up, and how do you even know where to start if you wanted to?
That was Port-au-Prince just 7 months ago. No one was unaffected by the earthquake. Haiti is a poor country. The buildings here are not made of good quality concrete and therefore the destruction caused by the earthquake was greater than it would have been in a more wealthy area.
Everywhere you look there are reminders of the earthquake: tent cities housing hundreds of thousands who lost their homes, collapsed buildings that still remain to be cleaned up, a mass grave the final resting place of two to three hundred thousand (200,000 to 300,000).
The news stories and headlines have passed and the rest of the world may hardly think of the earthquake in Haiti, but the reality of it remains a part of the people and the lives here every day.
Our ministry has been greatly varied this month, but every one of them has shown me a little more of the desperation in this country. We have done a mobile outreach medical clinic, where people sit and wait all day for just a few minutes with a doctor. I’ve been in the burn clinic as much as possible and the people come there not just for burns, but everything from broken bones to STDs. This week we have been painting houses that Global Outreach has built in the community for those who have lost homes in the earthquake. The local church then chooses the families that will receive the homes.
Yesterday, after spending the day painting we went to a tent city to give out food. I’ve always been aware of the needs in other countries, it is a big part of why I’m here. To see it first hand pierced my heart.
We had one thousand 1 lb. bags of pasta. You can go to any grocery store in America and buy one for less than a dollar. The people swarmed to our truck, pushing, shoving, shouting. I saw pleading eyes everywhere I looked and I knew we did not have enough for everyone. I handed a bag to a young boy only to see it torn from his hands by a middle aged woman. When we had finished, some people had 2 or 3 bags of pasta, while others had none.
In the Dominican Republic the small village we were in was poor, but they shared with their neighbors. When one had and the other had not, they would gather together knowing the next week the situation may be reversed. In Haiti there is no fellowship, no sharing. The people look out for their own needs, taking from their neighbor if it means feeding themselves.
As we drove away I stood in the back of the truck looking over the tent city and cried. I asked God where He was for these people, Jehovah Jirah, God the Provider. In my own understanding I was left weak, but God assured me of His love for the people. And truthfully He has provided for them, not in abundance surely, but they live and breathe and so they have been provided for. And wasn’t it He who provided the food we had just handed out? I am proof that He cares for them, my teammates are proof that He cares for them, our supporters are proof that He cares for them.
I know it had been hard for all of us. On the ride home someone began to sing worship songs. As we continued the drive I saw a soccer game, a little girl dancing and a couple arm in arm. Life somehow continues, there is still beauty. Somehow even in despair and desperation always there is LOVE and HOPE.
This country and these people need your prayers and your love.
