Haiti

It would be great to say that my trip to Haiti was revolutionary because we actually made a lasting impact on the health disparity, disease burden, and immense poverty so entrenched in such a beautiful, resourceful, cultured land.

I could fawn about the three children we motor biked to the hospital to receive IV antibiotics and tube feedings for extreme malnourishment and congenital kidney disease.

I could talk about the fact that I fell in love with health care again - the assessing, diagnosing, and treating of patients in order to achieve positive health outcomes. Educating them on symptom relief and drug regimens.

I could talk about the students I taught, how it made my whole life better to see them grasp concepts, fall in love with nursing, develop clinical skills.

I could even lush about the fact that we crossed rivers, cholera-infected rivers barefoot to arrive at make- shift churches, where we turned altars into pharmacies and church pews into pelvic exam tables in order to treat STDs, malaria, and Typhoid fever.

It's all so artistic, noble, self-centered.

But did we really make a difference? What happens when the meds run out, the mosquito bites again, the missionaries leave?

I could say that I even refused to take obligatory pictures with wide-eyed Haitian babies because if I didn't actually care for them, why photograph their plight to placate my own selfish desire to be needed, compassionate, or Christ-like?

But even that is not actually enough. Haiti doesn't need more expert health care providers to come in and care for their sick. They've survived long before we came to "save" them. Haiti doesn't need the cyclical influx of financial and social aid, keeping them in a deceptive web of Western dependency. Perhaps we don't know what Haiti needs because we never stopped to ask. Ask them, Ask Him.

We missed the boat. Somewhere we got lost in our good intentions.

But you see, God's grace is sufficient. Through His infinite mercy and grace, He allowed us to come in with our bleeding hearts. We bled all over those church floors. We bathed our Haitian brothers and sisters with our pitied blood.

And they accepted it because perhaps they know more about servanthood, leadership, and grace than we do. They allowed us to love them and "serve" them because perhaps God told them this: "Actually this will be more about them than you."

So they accepted it. Come in and care for our sick, placate your need to be needed because we can still love you in ways you haven't even learned before.

I'm so humbled by this, my own depravity disgusts me.

But I'll tell you this. Never again will I go with my inflated agenda. Never again will I assume the position of teacher, provider, or expert.

Haiti, Kenya, Sri Lanka, the countries I am called to serve:

You are my teachers. You give me a voice. You tell me which feet to wash and when and how. The temperature of the water, the cloth of the towel. You lead because that is what it means to truly be Christ-like, to be a true servant.

You tell me if you even want my presence. You have every right to reject my bleeding heart.

You are my mentors. You are my partners. I come to dialogue with you. To engage in a global conversation whereby we become mutual partners in our mutual quest for Shalom.

My promise to you is this: I will take what you teach me and I will be your megaphone by God's grace. I will not stop till the world knows of your expertise, of your struggles, of your joys, strengths, and weaknesses. I will scream so they see in you imago dei, till they see you as princes, not paupers. And if you grant me the honor, I will exchange with you the nuggets of wisdom God has given me in my short time on earth - health and non-health related.

I will go to your remotest villages, your war-torn regions, your poverty stricken lands...

All of this,

if you want me to. if You want me to.

Fragmented, chaotic zeal without true love and selflessness is filth. Thinking we who have more materially have a more accurate view of God or health care or life actually reinforces our own poverty and the poverty of those less advantaged than us.

I want to care for the least of these, not perpetuate poverty.

Sometimes, that means this:

Haiti, I was your "least of these," and you took care of me. Thank you for alleviating me of my poverty. Thank you for showing me my poverty of selfishness and lust over love. Thank you to my Haitian brothers and sisters who shamed me with their reverence for Jesus, who shared their intricate beauty with me, who taught me of a culture so rich in history, linguistic variance, and resilience.

Thank you Haiti, for exuding Matthew 25 to the West.

May we follow your example in Christ Jesus.

Je T'aime.