Whenever I travel to Haiti I am usually overcome with emotion. I know that this is my children's country, their home, and home to the beautiful people I hope they grow to love and raise up as their own. I want my children to have a sense of Pride about where they come from, to say HAITIAN and KNOW what it means. Every time I go to Haiti, I take a little bit of it with me back here and leave a little bit of myself there.
When I go to Haiti I often go with the American mindset-life here is hard, the economy is hard, I am crabby at the person in front of me in line blah, blah, blah. When I leave Haiti I begin to see how petty and little MY problems really are and how everything around me is rich in American wealth, even the poor people here are wealthy by Haitian standards.
I saw a 15 year old mother begging for money, selling herself to anyone who came by, to feed herself and her starving child. She and her child had a hunger like I have never felt. We spoke to this mother about what the Lord can do for her and how if she came to the creche she could set her child up for adoption, or at least get her a few good meals, medical tests and schooling for herself, no strings attached. We, and I mean me and the Orphan teens and Claudette, gave her money and the address to the Creche and spoke to her about what the Creche was and how it could help her and her child...begged her to make the decision to at least come and check it out.
You see, at first I passed her off like every other beggar type person who comes to the window anytime you stop. But when the teens and Claudette took note of her, we heard her cry and beg us to help her baby, it made me take notice. For Orphan teens to dig into THEIR wallets to give to her made my world get smaller as I listened to her explain what she had been doing to feed her young baby.
The mother was thin, hair was somewhat orangish, but she was beautiful under all the sadness and hunger. Her daughter was sweet as well, but very skinny, little chicken legs poking out from the long shirt she wore. Her head was mostly bald except for a few patches of orange tufts poking out....Kwashiokors is not far off for her, this little girl was starving to death. She lay listless across her mothers shoulder and stared at us like we were not there. I wanted so desperately to take a picture of them, to show them to you and to remember her forever, but I would not ask...fear that I would come off as an American tourist clicking my camera at her sadness. Instead I hold her face, and the face of her daughter in my soul.
I hope and Pray that she comes to the Creche, that she begs for the Lord to help her and that he will hear her, and she will hear him.
She, and all of Haiti remind me of the quote on my blog by Bono~Where is God~ He is indeed in the slums.
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