Haiti - parting shot

On our Last day in Haiti, we are experiencing the typical questions and emotions. Did we do any good? Is this place and are the people we met better off because we came? What are we supposed to do with this once we get back home?

I think an appropriate scripture is Matthew 25:37-40: ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? 39 When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 “And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ (NLT).

In a strange kind of way, I feel like one of “the least of these” that Jesus referred to. I am not hungry or naked or in prison but I am in poverty in many of the ways I live.

When I see the people of Haiti, the people in this community, coming together for prayer and worship every morning at 5:30, I realize I am poor. This morning, they were singing at full volume: “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.” These singers lost loved ones in the quake in January. These worshippers have lost everything since then, most of them living in a tent city on the side of a hill with no comforts and little to eat. Yet they sing that everything but Jesus is sinking sand.

I am poor.

Without fail, every missions trip I have experienced left me with the feeling that I came to help but was helped. I came to serve but was served.

I am one of the least.