My home for the next three days
Tomorrow morning I fly again into Haiti. I’ve been to Haiti three other times, the last time was shortly after the January 12th earthquake. Last time I came to Haiti I stayed on the roof of the World Concern offices and brought in my own food and tent…this time I’m actually sleeping in a refugee camp with 22,000 other people.
This time I’m coming down to Haiti to capture stories for Forward Edge International, a ministry based in Vancouver, Washington. It’s a quick trip – just three days – but already I can feel myself being anxious. I’m not anxious about staying in a tarp city or about the inevitable lack of sleep I’ll get by living next to so many people with nothing but a tarp between us. I’m getting a sense of anxiety because I know that on Monday I’ll be getting on a plane and flying back home to my comfortable life in Wilsonville, Oregon. How will I feel about that? And I have other questions: What will I say to the Haitian people I interview when I leave them, knowing that they’ll still be living in a tent, still struggling to survive, still battling the rains and the poverty that is Haiti, and I’ll be safe and secure back in my world? How will I be different from this trip? Will my empathy and passion increase, or will I see the conditions and justify it away in my mind? Those are the types of questions that raise my anxiety level.
I want to come away from this trip with more than gratitude for my life and the comparative wealth I have. More gratitude can easily lead me down the path of spiritual laziness, thinking more gratitude is all that’s required of me. In truth, God remains the God who invests in His people and with that investment there is an expectation on a return. Gratitude is certainly part of that expected return, but I think God wants more from me. How much more can I give him?
Lord, thank you for the opportunity to get just a small sense of what it’s like to live like a vast majority of the world who surive on less than $2 a day. May this experience deepen my convictions and motivate me to action.
David
