Learning about community

              

           "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."

 Frederick Buechner

          The above quote sums up so many of my feelings about this incredible country I live in now. Haiti is a complicated country where beautiful and terrible things happen daily. Too often the narrative for Westerners coming down here is “oh, those poor people and all the suffering they endure!” And there is surely suffering here, but richness thrives here as well in ways we can miss when we become too focused on our initial impressions. I feel strongly about sharing the stories of hope and the redemptive things that are going on in this country I love, rather than focusing on the things that I, as a Westerner find odd or abnormal.  

          A couple of the areas where I have recently been seeing the richness of this country include how Haitians people treat family and live in community. This is a much more communal culture than America. I have been saying those words since I got here, but I think I am just barely beginning to scratch the surface of how these differences play out in day to day life.

        If you spend much time in Haiti, you tend to hear a number of stories of neglectful or abusive parents and families here in Haiti. Don’t get me wrong, mind-numbing tragedies and horrible stories do exist, but they are not the only, or dare I say, even the dominant story of family life in Haiti. Rather, there are cousins who take on raising five little ones, the youngest just born, when a mama dies after childbirth. There is a family that travels over an hour into the mountains to bring home a little girl who was being neglected. That same family then takes this precious little girl to multiple clinics seeking appropriate treatment for the consequences of that neglect. There is a grandma who takes in and raises a little boy after his parents abandon him. I see the people behind these stories and others like them often in the clinic, and I believe that some of these stories need to be known.

         Listening to the little bit of their lives that these people share with me, usually in the context of explaining how and why they ended up at my clinic that day, is such an incredible privilege. The caretakers are not relaying these stories as something to be proud of, just as the facts of their lives.When I sit and listen to them, when I see the lengths they go to for these little ones, I am reminded of the words of James 2 where we are told the poor of the world are the ones chosen to inherit the kingdom of God. I think perhaps this is part of what James meant. Will you join with me in praying for the families I have mentioned as they face the very real struggle of carrying out the responsibilities they have taken on? Will you join with me in prayers for health, and daily bread and grace to rain down on these precious people and the others like them throughout this country? Thank you.