Haiti Reflection # 4

In the midst of extreme difficulty, hope is resilient. I met this young woman and her child in Citie Soliel. The little girl saw I had a camera and wanted her picture taken. I couldn’t resist. I am moved as I sit here and look at the picture I took. It could be a picture of any mother and daughter. Without the context - it would be. However, it is what you don’t see that changes everything. You don’t see the poverty. You don’t smell the burning acrid garbage. You don’t hear the cries of the small girl that sat a few feet away – alone, hungry and covered in sores. You don’t feel the oppression of hopelessness that imprisons this whole community. Instead, all you see is a beautiful young mother and her little girl – smiling. Throughout Haiti I met amazing, smart and beautiful young men, women and children who in spite of living and life conditions that would crush you and I – stand tall, laugh and find small sanctuaries of joy and love. Most are not looking for a hand out, but a hand up. They want, they pray, to provide for themselves, for their children, their community. In so many ways, by our standards, the “hand-up” needed is a small amount. They are looking for help to send their little girl to school, or to start a small family business that would move them closer to self-reliance. These are hard working, industrious people with little to do but do what is necessary to survive today. It is so ‘foreign’ to my experience. I cannot even imagine who or what I would be if the shoe were to be on the other foot. How is it that just because of where and when I was born that I live with relative comfort and ease? How does God see this? Do I have a responsibility and obligation that goes beyond simple benevolence? I see so many of the parables of Jesus in a new light: Haiti is the wounded man in the story of the Samaritan when reference is made to “who is your neighbour”. They are the lost lamb in the story of the 99 and 1; they are the lost penny coin that widow cannot stop searching for until it is at last found; they are ones that need to hear and see (Luke 4:18-21) through us. They are the ones that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 25 when the question is asked, “Lord when did we see you, feed you give you drink”.
I do not want to be the rich man in the story of Lazarus, only getting it when it is too late (Luke 16:19-31). God is seeking that we not be moved by guilt but by compulsion; not by manipulation but by motivation; not by pity, but by compassion. But move we must! It must infect our whole being, not just one aspect of it. It affects how we do our work at Christian Horizons. How we live with our families and community lives. How we function and participate in our church bodies. How we look at the resources that God has placed within our hands and discover – they are not ours, they are His – 8.’ Freely you received, freely give’. (Matt 10:8b). We are to respond in and with freedom that God has given us. It is not something that we can do once and be done with it. We must find away to make this part of our words and actions -- our life in and for Christ.
Prayer: O God, please help us see the whole picture. Help us to respond freely and openly by Your grace.

Anyway, I was just thinking.

Neil