Everyone made it home safely. First I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support. This was a learning experience for all of us. We had to depend on God every step of the way because nothing we did was something within our power to control.
I want to share one personal experience from the trip. After we made it back from the second Saint Marc trip with the food and the overheating vehicle, I had some downtime and was hanging out with the kids of the neighborhood. They all wanted me to take their pictures and wanted me to get my picture taken with them as well. There was one boy who was a little introspective and asked me the following question. He asked, "Why are you taking our pictures?" I responded with, "So that the people back home will know who we were working with and so that I will remember you." Then he said, "You will look at the pictures, and you will remember, but you will not come back to Haiti." It literally broke my heart because I don't know for certain that I will be able to go back to Haiti. Even worse than that is that for someone his age to have that ingrained cynicism must mean no one has been there for him throughout his entire life. I hope that we can show them that there is someone who will always be there for you.
He's the young guy in the hat on the left.
Now we have to start the difficult task of sorting through these experiences and deciding what our next step will be. There is so much need and we can't even begin to fulfill it all. We can only do the task that God calls us to do and let Him worry about the results. At the same time, we have to figure out how to help without crippling them even more by making them dependent on our American money and resources. As the American church, we think we can solve the world's problems by writing a check or sending someone some food, building a church, or new houses. More often than not, this just breeds dependency. I think what is needed more than money and resources is to spend time discipling the young men of Haiti so they can grow into fearless warriors for Christ. The people of Haiti have a strong willingness to worship God in song and spirit. They also have a strong hunger for biblical teaching that is not being met. I think that this may be the key to them raising up a new generation of leaders that will have the potential to change their country.
As we consider our next steps to reach out to Haiti, we have to ask ourselves what is our end goal. Is it to raise the social status of the people of Haiti, or is it to support local churches so that more people can come to Christ? I can assure you that buildings, money, and jobs are not necessary for the latter.
These issues are divisive and painful to sort through, but if we really want to align our outreach to these people with scripture, we must consider them carefully.
To say that I was changed by this experience would be a huge understatement. I have a strong desire to serve these people in any way possible, but know that we must temper that with a cross-cultural approach that doesn't impose our society's expectations on their lives.
Housekeeping:
- Pictures will be showing up on my Picasa web album as I get them uploaded http://picasaweb.google.com/jeremysa
- My writing isn't nearly as good as Kandy's so I'll apologize for that up front
- Here is the team picture we took Friday night
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| From Haiti - Jeremy's Pics |
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