Time of My Life

Dezyem Jou {Second Day}

January 15, 2012..."God is at work. In my heart, in this team, this orphanage and in Haiti. I can't thank the Lord enough for bringing me here."

That was scribbled after one of the more emotionally intense days spent in Haiti. After breakfast, we all piled in two vehicles and made our way to a local church. Along the way our senses were completely and utterly overwhelmed by the poverty. Of that ride I wrote, "Everywhere we go it's just more and more poverty. Real poverty. Nothing is clean and safe. Survival of the fittest is a rule that is etched on every one's faces." You just couldn't get over it.

Worship at Port-au-Prince Fellowship was simply beautiful. Very real and genuine. We were reminded once again that no matter where a person goes on this earth, God is still the same...and as we worshiped together it was a telling glimpse of what heaven will be like. So wonderfully overwhelming and refreshing.

After church and grabbing a bite to eat, we made our way around Port-au-Prince, getting a snapshot of city. And it's here that I'll let my journal pick up the remainder of the account..."We headed toward downtown, snaking our way long the dusty roads crammed with people, trash and makeshift buildings. My heart broke. I've never seen anything like it in person. So much despair and devastation. People lying on the streets, children running here and there, filthy with swollen bellies...and to think that this is the "normal" to them. This is how they exist. Life just keeps going on with little to no change, and there are very little signs of repair."

You just see need after need pass you by. The enormity of the situation overwhelms, leaving a burden that can quickly lean toward depression. Where do you start? How do you best meet the pressing needs? As we toured, it struck me how "American" my response was. Not a perspective I necessarily thought I would have to deal with as much. I mean, here's a girl that travels, devours missionary biographies, National Geographic and follows countless blogs written by missionaries in destitute places all over the globe. This American ideology shouldn't be so ingrained, should it? I quickly realized my blind spot. Our first world viewpoint shelters us with the thought that everyone must/wants to be like us. I had bought into it to some degree and found that as one takes in the evident plight of the people there is this sense of urgency to respond and alleviate. It seems only natural to desire the "less fortunate" to possess the things/opportunities we do, and in some ways that is still perfectly fine... but, as the week unfolded my preconceived notions (however noble they might be), were upstaged by a slightly different vision, one that indeed addresses pain and suffering, just in a non-mainstream way. One that I pray is more Christ-like and less American.