So I’ve been back from Haiti for about a week now. It’s my fourth trip to Haiti and my second in the past few years. Haiti trips are always tough for me. Physically Haiti is tough. The heat, the pace, the way of life-all of it is stuff outside my usual schedule. Emotionally it’s tough. Malnutrition, a lack of clean drinking water, a lack of infrastructure so apparent and so overwhelming it makes you wonder how Haiti will ever change-all of it seems paralyzing.
And yet there is something about that place. There is a joy in the people that I seldom see here. There is a faith that I’v seldom encountered. Perhaps most intriguing to me of late is there is a profound connection to what matters.
Whenever I come back from Haiti I have a difficult time readjusting. Everything in my life seems so important, until a spend a week in Haiti. Then I come home and realize how much of my life is spent chasing unimportant junk. I’m stressed more often than I care to admit, I’m frustrated by trivial stuff, and my life is consumed by a host of concerns that really don’t matter.
One day people from our team walked out into Beau Champ and went hut to hut handing out food. Our team asked each family if they had anything they wanted them to pray for. Over and over again at every house they asked if we would pray for health for their family and food.
I’m not sure how to bring that home to my culture, but there has been in uneasiness in my soul that desires to do exactly that. How do you simplify your life in a culture built on greed, gluttony, and a lack of satisfaction? How do you cut out the noise of the insignificant?
PS. I know I owe everyone a few blogs about stuff. They’re coming…promise.
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