Come and See
In the Gospel of John, one of the very first things that
comes out of Jesus’ mouth is the answer to a question posed to him by the
Disciples. “Where are you staying?” they
ask. Jesus says to them, “Come and See”. And then Jesus leads them into the
hearts, homes and lives of people who are lost, lonely, broken, trapped,
oppressed, imprisoned, hungry and beaten-down. Jesus basically shows the
disciples that where he is staying is here. His feet are firmly planted on the
earth and he is on a mission to show the world that no matter your
circumstance, God is here to stay.
Before our group left for Haiti, we had people asking us
over and over again, “What are you going to DO?” It’s a hard question to answer
because the purpose of this trip is not so much DOING as it is SEEING,
EXPERIENCING and BEING WITH the people of Haiti. This trip is about being
immersed in a place whose culture, language, terrain, government, architecture,
education, food, commerce and just about anything else you can think of are
drastically different from the life we know. In other words, Jesus has invited
us to “Come and See”. And as painful as
it has been to see some of the things we have seen – we are surely witnessing
that God is here to stay.
So what are we seeing?
On Tuesday, some of us went to the “Home for Sick and Dying
Babies”. It is basically two large rooms with metal cribs lined up row-by row and
four sisters whose job is to care for all of those precious babies, each of
them there for reasons unknown to our team. Our only job was to be with them.
We fed, we sang, we held, we played, we prayed. Our hearts broke when the
visiting hours for the parents who came to hold and nurse their babies ended
and a chorus of cries and screams rose up. Were any of us in that same
situation, we would have a Ronald McDonald house to stay in along with the
option of sleeping on a recliner next to our little ones all night long. So as their parents left - we sang, we held,
we smiled, we tried for a few precious minutes to offer the human contact they
craved. It was a helpless feeling because in the grand scheme of things, what
we were able to offer made a difference only in the moment.
But our eyes were opened – and we saw beauty together with
brokenness. We saw parents who don’t have the resources to care for the babies
they love. We saw women who followed God’s call to work at this Holy place care
lovingly for the God’s children entrusted to them. We saw some babies who were
incredibly malnourished and some who seemed to be growing and thriving. We will
never see them again. But we came and we saw, and now we know. God is there
with them. If Jesus were walking the earth I’m convinced He would spend a lot
of time holding and healing those babies.
Our prayer is that Jesus will hold them now. That as they sleep, as they
heal, as some enter into eternity that the grace of God will cover them and the
love of Jesus surround them.
That was what some of us saw on Tuesday.
Believe it or not, we saw even more difficult things on
Wednesday.
Wednesday was “water truck day”. This was the day I had
heard so much about from my Sister-in-Law and my niece. On water-truck day,
Healing Haiti teams take water into Cite Soleil which is the poorest district
in the Western Hemisphere, built on an old landfill and jam-packed with
somewhere between 200,00-400,000 people. The truck drives into a neighborhood
and people line up with buckets to receive as much water as they can carry for
the day. As my sister-in-law described water truck day to me, she struggled to
find the words and kept telling me “you just have to experience it”. In other
words, “Come and see.”
For me, water truck day was filled with the most difficult
things I have ever seen. Here’s how it went: We drove into Cite Soleil in the
“Tap-Tap” which is our form of transportation while we are in Haiti. It is basically a truck with a cage on the
back where we sit as we ride through the city. As we drove into Cite Soleil,
50+ kids chased after the Tap-Tap screaming “Hey You! Hey You! Hey You!” When
we opened the doors to the Tap-Tap and climbed out, there were immediately kids
begging to be picked up. I picked up one little girl who clung to me for the
next 45 minutes. I would occasionally put her down to help someone carry a
bucket of water and she would follow me until I picked her up again. When
another child wanted my attention she would fight them off and cling to me. Most
of our team experienced similar things. Some had two or three children hanging
on them at all times. One team member was handed an infant the minute she got
off of the Tap-Tap and struggled to find someone to take her when it was time
to leave.
At one point, my little girl kissed my cheek with a kiss
that lasted a solid 30 seconds. That was beautiful and I will hold onto that
interaction for a long time.
However, my heart broke into a million little pieces for
lots of reasons……
- - One little boy threw up the minute I picked him
up. As soon as he was done throwing up, I simply set him down on the ground in
his bare feet with no ability to do anything but leave him standing there. No
caring adult in sight who would ever know that he needed attention.
- - Many of the children were naked and very few
wore shoes.
- - The structures the families live in are
constructed of metal sheeting and most consist of one very small room where
lots of people pile on top of one another.
- - The women and children were the ones doing all
of the work. Some young men helped fill and carry water but 90% of the people
we saw were women and young children.
- - I learned later that the neighborhoods in Cite
Soleil are run by gangs and Healing Haiti is one of the few organizations that
is allowed to come in because of years of relationship building.
Still, I saw Jesus. I saw him when the children began
dumping buckets of water on one another’s heads in the hot Haitian sun. They
laughed and clapped and danced as they splashed one another with living water.
I saw him in the graffiti on the wall that read “optimistic”. I saw him in the
eyes of the older woman who grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes and smiled a
knowing smile. I saw him in the church and school that are being built by
Healing Haiti in cooperation with the Haitians who live in the neighborhood and
long for something different for their children. I saw Him when we were
visiting the church, locked in for our safety…. there were three little Haitian
girls who somehow snuck into the courtyard of the church. Annika, Lara, Madi
and Fiona (our four fifteen-year-olds) noticed the kids and started holding
their hands under the door of the church. They must have lain on the floor for
a solid 20 minutes holding hands through the crack beneath the door. And as
they held the children’s hands, they sang to them: “Jesus loves me this I
know….”
As it turns out – when Jesus says “Come and See”, you better
be prepared to have your vision changed, your perspective reoriented, your
world blown up. Because once you see – you can’t un-see. And then the question
becomes – now what will you do with all that you have seen?
Thank you for sharing this and for sharing Christ's love ❤️
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