Serving

We began our morning with water delivery in Cite Soleil.   Because of the current unrest there, we were only able to deliver one truck of water, Sadly, that wasn’t enough for the long lines of people waiting with their buckets for water, but some days we have no choice.

From there, we headed up to Titanyen, Haiti, for a tour of Grace Village.  It was nice to show our first-time team members around the beautiful complex and especially the buildings that Reiser Relief has helped to fund.   We also stopped and visited some of the elderly people in the village and brought them food and juice.

Our third stop was at the mass graves where over 300,000 Haitians were buried after the 2010 earthquake.  I was tearing up behind my sunglasses listening to our Haitian guides share their personal stories about the earthquake with our group. 

Our final stop of the day was at Juno’s Orphanage.  What a delight that stop proved to be.  We played board games, made balloon animals and jewelry, jumped rope and did the limbo.  We also had brought puzzles in varying degrees of difficulty, and to my delight, our adult guides enjoyed putting the puzzles together as much as the kids did.  It appeared to be one of the first times they had worked on puzzles, and it was great fun to watch the intensity they put into completing the one they chose to tackle!  One child was sweeter than the next, but there was a small boy with big eyes there that melted my heart.  I never did learn his name, but after our two-hour visit, it was haunting to see his beautiful eyes watching me as we drove away.  How difficult must it be for these kids to have teams like ours come in to provide a couple hours of  “Christmas” for them and then drive away, many of us never to be seen again?  I’m just now starting to realize that dealing with orphan care is such so much more complicated than it initially appears.

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Haiti, and it will be our day of rest.  After attending morning Mass, we will be going to a beach—a new experience for me and for most of my team!  On our way back to the guesthouse, one of our team members asked how we all felt about our experiences now that our days of serving were complete.  I thought back over our fulfilling week and came to the conclusion that I would be just as content spending our last day serving the people of Haiti as I would be going to the beach.   

With each day we are here, I feel less intimidated by the things outside my normal comfort level and more “one” with the Haitians.  We all have the same dreams and we all strive to follow God’s word.  We all serve God here on earth, and we all hope to spend eternity in His presence.  We are in solidarity with one another.  So perhaps we shouldn’t be looking at what we did this week as serving, but rather, as working together with the Haitians to strive for the same goal.

“When we touch the sick and needy, we touch the suffering body of Christ.”

-Mother Teresa

Blessings,

Ann