I have been asked about 4,312 times since returning from Haiti last week what I experienced there. Was it fear? Was it shock? Perhaps death? Suffering? Starvation? What is the one overarching thing that saw in Haiti on this Rescue and Relief Trip? If I could boil it down to one thing, what would that one thing be?
My answer lies in the eyes of the kids of the Good Samaritan, Freedom House and Leogane orphanages. It doesn’t fit into piles of rubble. It doesn’t fit into body bags passing Jeff and I by at the US military base. It doesn’t quite fit into the CNN reporting of the one or two bad things that happen each day and not the 10,000 good things. It isn’t about governments or military forces. It isn’t about fallen schools or crushed dreams.
The one thing that I found in their eyes was hope. Hope is what followed me out of Haiti and back to Pennsylvania. When Gamealle sits on Jeff’s lap, I see hope in her eyes. When Marv and Sandra sit together and read a letter from home, I see hope. When Stephanie sits in Doug’s arms happy and content, it is hope that brings them together. When Marie-Ange embraced me upon my arrival, it was hope that wrapped its arms around me.
When we drove to Leogane and saw the orphanage in its current form as a pile of rubble we didn’t see much hope. Then, we turned the corner and saw 100 faces thrilled to see us. I didn’t see any fear. I didn’t see any anger. I didn’t see any confusion or pain. I saw 100 pairs of eyes full of hope. When I talked with Cynthia about the earthquake she answered my questions, but kept repeating how happy she was that we were there. We hadn’t given them anything yet. She had no idea if we would. She was happy we were there because we had the privilege to represent hope. Our presence, coming in their time of need no matter the risk involved, showed her that there is hope, that everything will be okay, that they are not alone.
The kids of Haiti have every excuse to be stuck in shock and fear. They have every right to be scared and let life pass them by. The world could keep spinning, but they could sit still. Nobody would fault them for that. That, however, is not the Haiti that I know. When we arrived at Freedom House the girls were doing laundry and dishes. They were singing and doing their chores. Life was going on. This earthquake was not going to stop them; it was not going to keep them down. When they had every right to sit back and be scared in the face of immense tragedy, they took a stand and continued on with their lives. When they could choose between fear and hope they chose hope.
Hope isn’t about fixing everything quickly. Hope isn’t about politics and economy. Hope isn’t about infrastructure or concrete. Hope is about tomorrow. Hope is about a day somewhere down the line. Hope is about what might be, not what already is.
There is a choice to be made in Haiti right now. There is a choice for all of us to make in our response. We can look at the scale of the tragedy and be overwhelmed. We can look at the mass graves and fallen buildings and hang our heads in sorrow. We can see millions sleeping in tent cities and standing in line all day for one meal and get frustrated at what we think should be happening instead. We all have the rights to make these choices.
We also have the right to choose hope. We have the opportunity to choose life instead. We can sit back and criticize, or we can stand up and lend a hand. We can say it is too scary, or too unsafe or too hard or too much for us to handle. We can list all of the reasons why Haiti is too big now for us now. The problems were so big before, now they are ten times bigger. It has become just too much for us. The problem is bigger than we are. We can be confused and angry; overwhelmed and lost in the chaos. We can be all of those things and see all of those problems, that is who we are as humans. We get scared. We get angry. We are eternally confused. I have been all of those things over the past month and I am some of those things right now. I can choose to let them consume me, but I choose hope instead.
Good Samaritan is choosing hope. Freedom House and Freedom Grace are choosing hope. Leogane Orphanage is choosing hope. If the kids whose world crumbled in front of their eyes are choosing to look for that day in the future when everything is okay and live their lives for that hope, then I will stand with them. We won’t leave you stranded…
"There is no "reason" for this earthquake - well, other than some tectonic plates moving around. That's all. It was not so a bunch of adoptive parents could get their kids home (like God loves them so much He sent an earthquake to get their kids home on Humanitarian Parole). It is not so the world would recognize and learn about Haiti (although I suppose that is good). It is not because God is punishing Haitians for something that happend 200 years ago in some Voudou ceremony (sorry Pat Robertson). The reason it happened is simple - uninteresting - laws of geology. We don't need theologians to tell us. We don't need to debate."
