I have this annoying trait of wanting to post things in chronological order. I may be months and months behind on posts, but by golly, they will be in order. Weird. So who knows when I will get all of my pics and post up from my last trip to Haiti? (But don't let that stop you from asking me about the trip...oh how wonderful it was to those faces again!).
Although this goes against all of my orderly ways, I wanted to post something while it was fresh. This past Sunday, my friend Emily & I shared in our Sunday morning class at church about the trip. The topic was how it changes us. It was very low-key, conversation type of discussion. Yay! (But why must my face still turn an instant splotchy red when people are staring at me?)
So to prepare, I put together the following thoughts and want to get them documented here to remember:
I have to start by saying I have no idea how to talk about Haiti anymore. When I came back and people asked me how the trip was, my default answer was to smile, nod, and say “It was great!” Even today, I wish that we could be up here and tie a pretty bow on the package of mission trips, poverty, and the hundreds of thousands of orphans across the world. But that would be misleading. Probably just as misleading as when I gave my default, smiling answer.
This was my 3rd trip to Haiti. Logically, I assumed that each time I went it would get easier. The initial shock of seeing the extreme poverty would be gone. In fact, the dirt, the smells, the sweat had already become normal to me. But I’ve realized my logic was terribly flawed. It has not gotten easier. It has gotten harder and more challenging. Not necessarily harder being there. But harder being back here.
I knew this when three days after being back, I was at home, with my toddler in front of the TV more than he should’ve been, while I aimlessly walked around in a daze. I couldn’t concentrate on any one task at hand. I went to wash the tennis shoes I wore all 5 days in Haiti that were once a dirt colored-brown tinge. When I pulled them out of my washing machine looking sparkly clean, I about lost it. Removing those pieces of dirt and soil from my shoes felt way too dramatically symbolic. It felt like the sweet faces that I had just days before kissed and smiled with were already being washed away from my memory. Yes it’s laughable now, how melodramatic that scene in my laundry room was.
This was when I realized that going back is not going to be easier, and now I find myself living in the tension.
The tension of not wanting to forget, but honestly, not wanting it to be true. Not talking everyone's ear off about the trip, but not forgetting to tell the story of these real kids with real names. Not bursting into tears during every conversation, but not becoming comfortable with what I saw. Not preaching at my own kids about how good they have it, but not encouraging indulgence. The tension pretty much stinks.
So if it stinks, why do I do this?
Please hear me say that I don’t think we’re called to go and serve only so we can come back and be grateful for all of our blessings. In my opinion, that is exploitation. I think we’re called to serve. The blessings that result in that are the relationships we form, and that we are changed. I have thought often of the lyrics to a song, Awake My Soul, and the words seem to ring true:
How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
I struggle to find any truth in your lies
And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know
My weakness I feel I must finally show
In these bodies we will live,
in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love,
you invest your life.
Awake my soul.
I have been awoken. And I now know where I am to invest part of my life. But again more than just in a way where I can say thank you for all the things I have. I am awoken to even just an ounce more understanding of what Jesus meant when he said in Luke, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” I am awoken to the realization that there are 31 precious children several hundred miles away, who have just as much purpose for their lives as my own children. I am awoken to all of the times Jesus says that we are to show compassion, to feed, to clothe, to serve, and to love.
As I have settled back into my fast-paced life at home, I realize that it is becoming harder because now after 3 trips, I really know these kids. They aren’t just unnamed orphans on the other side of the world. They are real kids with real names, personalities, and likes/dislikes. They are real kids who I’ve seen grow older. Real kids, who truth be told, have their biggest struggles ahead in the next few years when they are too old to live in an orphanage.
If you’ve ever read the author Ann Voskamp, you know how beautiful her writing is. So I can take no credit for her words, but they so perfectly express how I feel, more than even I can. I’ll end with a blog excerpt she wrote after she returned from a trip to Haiti last year. I clung to every word on the screen the first time I read it with a huge lump in my throat realizing, this is echoes my tension. She writes:
“Once we have seen the poor, we are responsible — we will make a response. As long as your heart is beating, there’s no such thing as unresponsive. We all look into the face of the poor and it’s either Yes, I will help. Or no, I won’t. There’s no getting off the hook. Faith cannot have a non-response. We’re either responding with indifference or with intercession, either with apathy or aid.
Why would we rather turn a blind eye to the needy than turn to the needy and be like Christ?”
Referencing Job 29:14, where he said “justice was my robe and turban,” Ann continues: “In the family of Christ, we wear justice for the poor. In the Body of Christ, our lives should be clothed in caring like our bodies are covered in clothing.
When you are born again into the family of Christ, how can you ever again forget your kin? Part of the solution to poverty is doing whatever it takes to get your heart to stay with the poor. There may be miles between the rich and the poor, but how can there be distance in the family of God.”
And there you have it. The tension. It’s rough around the edges, not tied up in a pretty package tension. And honestly, as hard as it is, I pray that the Lord keeps me here.
