Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
May 5, 2011
(A Brief Reflection after my arrival in Haiti more than a year after the earthquake)
An overwhelming sense of humility floods upon me. I now recall why I keep coming back to Haiti--I need a shock to my worldview and system of values. Our lifestyle is so extravagant and wasteful. Why do I spend my money the way I do? What could I be doing differently?
It is all too easy to sink back into the norms and values of the American way (system) and forgot or neglect the values of God. I need a dose of realism to remind me that I an not the center of reality.
Every time I visit Haiti my heart and spirit is torn apart by the misery and hardship faced by so many Haitians. How should I respond? What can I do? What should I do? Do my norms, values, lifestyle change as a result of what I see here and how it affects me today?
Should I allow what I see to prompt me to move towards some deep-seated change? Is it at all possible? Or do I allow myself to merely be a Christian tourist? Come to Haiti--see the heartache--go back to American--feel pitful today--but settle back quickly into the relative ease of indulgence and luxury??
NO!! I do want to be affected! I want to be continually reminded that I have friends, associates in The Salvation Army, brothers and sisters in the Christian faith who are effected each day of their existence by the hardships of Haitian life.
The ever-present question is how can I make a difference??
I felt the same way when I went to Haiti and that was long before the earthquake...I can only imagine it now! Our existence is so often our reality. I find it difficult to keep the frame of mind, the one that cries out when we see how others live. A similar difficulty as when we come off of the spiritual mountaintop experience and quickly forget what it was like....it makes me feel unreliable before the Lord!
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