Article by Rob Rice, a new HFHC Advisory Board member.
Rob assisted a HFHC team on a follow-up crisis relief visit to haiti the first part of this month. We are certainly happy to welcome Rob as a member of our Advisory Board team.
During our first morning in Port-au-Prince, Ken Bever, HFHC founder, shared with us a well-known Haitian proverb: Roch nan dlo pa konnen mize roch nan soley. Translated this means: Rocks in the water cannot comprehend the pain of rocks in the sun. I am sure that if I had not seen the sights of the evening before, I would not have understood these words without giving them a lot of thought. But the drive through the absolute poverty and devastation, followed by the visit to the HFHC orphanage at Cazeau, changed me forever. I had seen poverty and destruction, but never on this scale. We passed a tent city just outside the airport (which itself was quite damaged), and my heart started to hurt. I saw children washing in filthy water, women doing dishes in that same filthy water, pigs eating garbage on the side of the road and more trash than I thought was possible.
When we arrived, all 65+ children and the adults who run the orphanage were still sleeping in a large tent behind the dorms for fear of another earthquake destroying the dorms. One of the joys that we experienced was being able to bless the children as they moved back to now sleep in their dormitory. The members of the Northeast Church of Christ in Cincinnati had donated enough bed sheet sets to outfit all the beds that didn't have any sheets. After the beds were made up with the bright new sheets, several of us were able to go into one of the rooms and offer a prayer of blessing on the dorms and the kids. Our last night in Haiti was their first night back in their dorms and off the ground. I take for granted every night that my home will be a safe haven through the night. I continue to prayer for the children to have the peace that only God can provide as they sleep in their own beds every night.
The proverb of the rock brought home that even though we can be witness to the Haitian people's plight, and we can do everything we can to help where we can, we can never fully understand what they are going through. After all, we get to go home, they ARE home. When I travel in the states, I would never accept a room like the ones I was blessed to stay in in Haiti. I mean after all, I barely had running water in the shower and the air conditioning didn't come on until AFTER 7 PM! But it is hard to complain about such luxuries being absent when you have children around you who have absolutely nothing.
God opened my eyes on this trip to some amazing things. I will be forever touched by what I saw and experienced. My prayer is that as we move forward with our work at HFHC, we will be able to ease the suffering a little for some of the poorest people on earth. It is ironic that those of us who went on this short trip to Haiti were given such a wonderful gift by these beautiful children, and they probably think they are the lucky ones.
Bondye bon (God is Good)!
