Why Haiti?
Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:59AM Hi everyone, Ted here. I am sitting in a nearly empty guest house this morning, as Emma and the team from San Diego have travelled to the nearby town of Jacmel for the day. It turns out to be a good day to stay behind because we have another team here that was supposed to leave for the Dominican Republic by bus this morning but can't due to a national strike there. So I am here trying to monitor the situation and help them in any way I can.
I chose the title of this blog post because I want to try to explain the "why" of Haiti over the next several entries. It seems that during each new trip here, God reveals a little more about the work He has for us and why He has called us to Haiti. I hope to share some of those things with you so keep checking back here over the next week or so.
Before I finish though, I wanted to share something that happened just this morning. The team left around 6am to try and beat the traffic to Jacmel, and I was opening the gate for their van to drive out. There was a short delay as they were inside the van saying a prayer for safety. I was standing by the gate and noticed a few of the neighborhood kids standing nearby and watching me. One was a little boy about 4 years old and he was pulling a homemade toy car constructed from a plastic bottle and 4 round water bottle caps for the tires. He was followed by his little sister who looked to be about 5. As I stood on the sidewalk by the open gate waiting for the van to pull out, I looked around and saw two balloons on the ground that had drifted up by the gate. I picked them up and handed them to the 2 little kids. From their wide eyes and expressions of pure joy, you would think I had just handed them the best toy they had ever seen. I saw them scamper off and then turned my attention back to the van. As the van pulled out onto the street, I looked around and saw 3 other kids that just appeared out of nowhere. They wanted to know if I had any more "balons" to give them too. Unfortunately I didn't have any more, and I'm not exactly sure where the first 2 came from!
So the first answer as to "why Haiti" is this: I want to be in a place where the simple act of handing a child a balloon can make their whole day!
Reader Comments (1)
...or their whole week probably. Nice post, T! Looking forward to hearing more about how this trip is going! Miss you.