I learned more in Haiti than I could ever list on a blog, but there are two things that stick out when I think about what I would share with my friends and family here.
1. I learned that my faith is incredibly small when I compare it to the faith of so many Haitians that I met.
2. Many Americans, including myself, are impoverished in ways they do not realize--perhaps even more impoverished than so many Haitians who have no food, clean water, or medical care.
Let me explain. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Before I landed in Port-au-Prince, I could not have imagined the suffering that I got a tiny glimpse of during the week I was there. The poverty is heartbreaking. People are dying because they do not have clean water, food, health care, or even a structure that can qualify as a home. Materially, the many Haitians are truly impoverished, and this is very difficult for someone who truly follows Jesus to ignore.
One day, as I was painting a house, I asked a Haitian man who spoke English what Jesus meant to him. He very matter-of-factly told me that Jesus is simply everything. He is Lord, and he is to be depended upon for everything. Robinson often wakes up in the morning with no food and no money to buy it, but at some point in the day he'll bump into a friend who happens to have some to share. He surprised me by saying that he doesn't even pray for food, because Jesus already knows what he needs to survive. He spends his time praying for other people, that they would be healed of an illness or come to know Christ as their savior. Robinson has seen a woman healed of malaria and has even survived a terrible motorcycle accident himself (he has pretty terrible scares and crooked bones to prove it). Haitian people have little hope of finding adequate medical care. There is no 911; there are no specialists. But Robinson says that doesn't matter, because "Jesus is the best doctor". When I think of my understanding of my chronic illnesses and occasional financial worries, I realize that my faith is so small compared to Robinson's. I construct safety nets in my life so that I never have to really be desperate. Am I completely dependent on Jesus for all my needs? No way.
It's amazing to see the differences in how a Haitian and a "North American" will respond to a problem, whether it be sickness, danger, hunger, etc. Our response is usually to call 911, to dip into our savings or retirement, or count on the government to bail us out. We always have some sort of worldly solution for our needs, while the Haitian response is so simple: Haitians pray before they do anything else. It makes so much sense to them, yet is so foreign to us.
That's why we're often so spiritually impoverished here. We look for answers, safety, and comfort in what the world has to offer, not Jesus. Many of us (including me) do not really believe Jesus will heal them or meet whatever other needs we have. Sometimes, I do drop everything and pray, but not nearly enough. I still look to the world for far too many things.
Through my pilgrimage to Haiti, God has mercifully opened my eyes to my spiritual poverty. And although we are called to care for the poor and eradicate poverty in Haiti and elsewhere, I'm beginning to realize that I would rather be materially poor than spiritually poor. I need to be desperate for Jesus--we all do.
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