Our team is
sitting around the balcony area of our home away from home here at the Healing
Haiti Guesthouse. We are each exhausted
from the long, physically challenging, but very rewarding day. We have had dinner, devotions and a
debriefing of sorts. Debriefing is
important on this trip. We will be
encountering many sights that are heartbreaking and sharing with each other is
essential to an emotional balance. Today
we delivered fresh water to Cite de Soleil, a city full of the poor like most
have never seen. Some call it one of the
biggest slums in the world.
Our Tap Tap
pulled into the first area we were going to serve following a water truck. The children spot us early and are not only
following our Tap Tap, but running alongside it and some even jumping on the
back. Among the shouts of joy they are
all saying, “Hey you!”. The minute the
Tap Tap stops the children are in a mass outside the door. It is almost hard to get off the Tap Tap but
the minute I do a child is handed to me.
As I look up most of the team is holding one or more children as
well. For those who didn’t get picked up
they are holding up their arms, their eyes sad and pleading for attention and
love. Some grab your free hand while
others hang on your leg or pull at your shirt.
Their clothes, if they are wearing any at all, are tattered and torn,
stained, too small or too big and most of them probably wearing the only
clothing they have.
Our Haitian friends
quickly attach the hose to the truck and before you could blink there is a line
of people, adults and children, lined up with 5-gallone buckets, coolers,
bowls… you name it and they wanted it filled.
Two of our guys quickly grab the hose and start filling containers. The strength of the Haitians is amazing. Women of all ages and sizes are carrying
these large buckets full of water, sometimes one in each hand down the
street. Many ask us to help them put
them on their heads to carry, a popular way to carry anything here. But, what intrigued me was the kids. These kids, the same kids who were begging to
be lifted and held, so in need of love and attention, were the same kids who
were carrying these heavy buckets. They
are so young, yet are expected to do the chores that most would consider for an
adult. There were some who asked for
help and we all pitched in to carry the buckets. The ladies sometimes tag teamed and the men
would sometimes be seen carrying a bucket and a child – or two. All in all we visited three separate locations
within the city and did this.
We did take a
break to visit Hope Church. This church,
in Cite de Soleil, was built by Healing Haiti and was named such because it
brings just that – Hope – to this run down city. It is a place to praise and worship, to give
thanks, to celebrate what these people do have, and a place of refuge and
strength. There is also a school
here. Right now, just the younger kids
attend, but each year they will add another grade until all children in the
area have a place to go each day for education, for a brighter future.
Hope. Isn’t it what keeps us all going?
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