Remembering Haiti

It's not okay with me that approximately 200 people a day are diagnosed with cholera in Haiti, and over 7,000 have died since the outbreak began shortly after the earthquake.  It's also not okay with me that, 2 years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and killed an estimated 315,000 people, over 500,000 people are still homeless and living in tent cities, with limited access to clean and safe drinking water.  Both times I have visited Haiti I have witnessed living conditions that are not okay with me--rubble piles strewn throughout the streets, garbage mounds as high as two-story buildings, 30+ children in an orphanage run by a pastor and his wife with only 2 bedrooms for all of the children.  While there is no denying that some progress has been made, the people of Haiti still have many mountains to climb in this journey to sustainability, jobs, and proper living conditions.

 However difficult the journey ahead may be for the people of Haiti, I have personally witnessed that through God all things are possible.  Sharing the love of Jesus & praying together put a smile on the faces and hope in the hearts of the children we had the pleasure of interacting with this past July.

I will leave you with an experience from July that deeply affected me.  After Bible study one day we asked if any of the children would like to pray.  A teenage girl stood up and began to pray in Creole, and one of our translators repeated her prayer in English for us to understand.  Instead of asking God for things, her entire prayer was filled with thanks.  She thanked God for us, for the pastor and his wife, for the food in their bellies, and God for sending Jesus to save us from our sins.  She proved to me that even when faced with conditions that most of us could not even begin to imagine, she thanked God for what she had, instead of asking for what she did not.  She is a part of the future of Haiti,  and it is our responsibility to pray for the people of Haiti and show them the glorious truth of God's love for them.

Marie Sill has volunteered down in Haiti the last two summers