As I began this post the emotion that I am feeling is quite abstract...so if it doesn't appear to be of quality writing technique than please "pardone" me. Our family of 7 has spent the last 5 days in the country of Haiti, primarily in the city of Port Au Prince! Our adoptive daughters, Rebecca Gabriella and Francesca Elizabeth, live here in a orphanage called His Home for Children. This is family week and we along with 13 other families are visiting our children and staying at a hotel together. I have attempted to attempt to write all week but each time I begin I feel so overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, and emotion that I find it impossible to do. As a friend who is staying with us posted on her facebook "it would be good for all to have a dose of this global reality."
When she says "global reality" I do believe that she is meaning the conditions of this country and so many others in this world that we live in. The disease, the malnutrition, the poverty, the conditions...of not just some of these beautiful Haitian people, but most of them. We are enclosed in a cement block wall in the Hotel but this does not keep out the realities of the outside. From the constant cries of the children that can look through the gate at the back of the property begging us every time we step out of our room for food, to the young man that somehow managed to get into the hotel gate and spent two whole days with us until we caught on that he was posing as a missionaries' friend. We fed him, we played with him and we talked Bible with him. His favorite verse that he could quote from heart was Romans 14:10-12. Once the truth came out, we found that he to was a street urchin who spent his time trying to gather food for his mother and his family of nine children. Through the time we spent with Smith Jean, we learned much about faith...faith that God would provide, faith that God would forgive him for the deceptions of twisting the truth to bring food to his siblings, and faith that someday things would be different...how, he does not know...but the Bible speaks this clearly to him.
I have not even begun to talk about the sites that we have seen and the people that we met outside the walls as we traveled to a local public beach and the baptist mission in the mountains. These sights and stories, I suppose, will be for another post if it is possible. Depends on the conditions of my heart I guess.
Today some of the visiting families are leaving and so the tears began among all of us...not just those departing. It is a painful time...it is a beautiful time...it is a God filled time and we praise Him who knows all things for allowing us to experience it. Is it easy...? Not even close! In fact the pain is so great that you feel you could burst with the emotion of the heart and bleed for the rest of your lifetime. However, there must be strength... so that the children do not see...so that the mind does not break down as well as the heart... and so that you can come again! If you allow the pain and the moment to overcome you, it is to much! As I am typing this I overhear one mother say to another, "If we do not wait... we can not learn and we are not being obedient."
So that is the way it will be...among this grief stricken country and a city in desperation and sin we will leave our children. To go back to the lives that they lead among cholera, cockroaches, and concrete rubble. But lives that are still much better off than most human beings in the city. We will go back to our lives of luxury, leisure, and laughter, but situations that ensue stress that most Haitian cannot even imagine! We will pray for our children, we as adoptive families will pray for each other, we will pray for Hal and Chris who run the orphanage and we will pray for a great revival to come over the country of Haiti. And of course....we will pray for our children to come HOME! Until then we will follow the scripture of Smith..."Why do you pass judgment on your brother? or why do you despise your brother; for we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, "As I live , says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God."
"So then each of us will give an account of himself to God."
In the words of a Haitian Prayer~
"Sentespri a se chef nou.
Nou konnen kese selman li menm
ki sonje chemen Jesi te fe a.
Donk, nou konnen se selman li menm
ki ka montre nou menm cheman sa a."
"The Holy Spirit is our boss.
We know that He alone remembers the route that Jesus walked.
So we know that only He can show us the same way."
Written with love in dedication to Natasha, Marc Eley, Fritzner, Kerlundi, Juvens, Wadley, Johnneau, Derline, Roselove, Sophie, Jamie, Kelly, Bethiana, Ashley, Jeffery, Bethany, Rebecca, and Francesca!
Mwen renmen ou- we love you!
