My daughter Sophie and my Mom and I just returned from Haiti last Friday. Little did we know we would be just a few hours away from the worst disaster in the country's history. It was the first time Sophie and my Mom had been there, but it was actually my 10th vistit. As I sit here in the comfort of our home in Knoxville, I'm overcome with a terrible guilt that I'm not there doing something to help. It's always difficult for me to make time to do mission trips to Haiti each year, especially since my business is so far off what has been considered normal, in the last ten years. But it's important for me to go there for a number of reasons.
First, I like what it does to me. I'm a typical 45 year-old fat white guy with good insurance, pretty much living the American dream. I'm self-employed, and have some measure of freedom over what I do each day. Haiti is a very uncomfortable place to be, even for a week. It's hot, most of the country lacks power so you spend most evenings talking by candle-light or a newer fancy LED headlamp. There is no noise from AC units, no sounds of traffic or cars in rural Haiti as there are only about 5 vehicles in our village at this point. You see the stars, which we are robbed of in most places in the US because we create so much light pollution. Instead, you fall asleep in real blackness to the sounds of mosquitoes buzzing, the faint sound of the Boucan-Carre River flowing in the distance, the wind, and roosters crowing and dogs barking and fighting. You hear goats and only occasionally, babies crying.
Morning comes early and you just wake up with the sun, especially in the summer heat. You can try to lay in bed for a while but once you start sweating, that loses all of its luster. Your needs are broken down into the most basic: what to eat, when to use the bathroom (if there is one), and what do do that day. We usually have projects lined up so that we are working on something when we're there. It's a good feeling to know that you contributed something more than just the carbon footprint of your airline travel for the 9 million people there.
Second, my faith is always renewed, even if I'm doing OK when I go down there. I have always told people that you get to see the gospel in color in Haiti, rather just in black and white. The gospel of Christ is exposed in raw form there every day. You are struck almost every moment with intense suffering of the people. They are hungry, have little or no healthcare, most have some evidence of malnutrition, and almost all of them are very thin. Most are not super healthy, owing to the fact that clean water remains to be elusive for most there. It is possible to visit the sick, those in jail, pray over the dead, and share your food and clothing with others all in a 12 hour time span. It's possible to live out Matthew 5:3 right in our little village in an afternoon. Yesterday a reporter asked me if my faith had been shaken by the tragedy that is unfolding in Haiti. My response was immediate and certain: "no!" It's actually swinging the other direction. The Haitians may have nothing of monetary value compared to us, but I know in my heart that is is we who are starving spiritually. We are suffering mightily in ways they would have trouble understanding. I go back again and again to learn their faith in God, to try to get into their hearts, and to learn about the true meaning of the word hope. I try to understand the mystery of Job from the old testament, and how through intense suffering it is possible to experience an intimacy with God through the worst of times. It's almost laughable to call ourselves missionaries when in reality, it is we who are schooled when we encounter this very special people who are filled with grace and dignity in the midst of their extreme poverty.
The story that I hope will be told somehow is that Haiti was a tragic catastrophe of epic proportions long before the first earthquake hit this week. It's sad that it might take this massive loss of human life to finally get our collective attention as a human race, and try to finally repair the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. We all should take seriously our responsibility to give not from our excess, but from where it hurts us deeply in the coming weeks and months. We have a responsibility to ourselves as human beings to look out for those who need what we have: safety, wealth, education, a future that holds promise, and to help our brothers and sisters someday arrive at the dignity God had always intended for Haiti. We all need to look at our finances and make contributions not just in money but in deep, long term, and sustained prayer.
The reality is that it is Jesus himself that is buried under all that rebar and concrete. It is He who suffers, it is He who lies covered by a bedsheet, dead in the gutter of Delmas Ave in Port au Prince. But it is also Christ that digs through the rubble, and yes, scribbles a number on a check to offer at the church f your choice.
This month would be a fantastic time to set aside all those things that we hold as different from one another in terms of our faith perspectives, and lean more on how we share the same faith in the basic goodness of people. We need to pull together if we are going to meaningfully offer solutions and much needed change for Haiti. I pray that each of us will do that in the coming months, for the Haitians offer us something huge right now: the chance for our professed faith to cease to be nominal. it is a special opportunity that we don't want to miss out on. There are no two countries that need each other more than Haiti and the United States. We are obese, they are starving. We are rich, they are poor. We get our teeth cleaned, they get theirs extracted. They have faith and grace, and we have nice homes and cars. We are really desperate for each other.
May we all realize our interconnectedness as one family on earth and do the right thing as opportunities to give and pray present themselves in the near future. Let's dare to be the America that we should be rather than the one we are.
-deacon patrick
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