Poverty. Everyone has their own definition of what it
is and most people have some kind of image that comes to mind when they think
of poverty – maybe a missions trip to a country like Haiti or something they
saw on TV.
For me,
growing up in Haiti, poverty was something I became accustomed to at a pretty
young age. To survive in a country like
this you can’t get emotional about every sad story or difficult situation. If you want to invest in long-term change and
development, you can’t always reach out with the quick “fix-it” every time
someone is struggling.
But this “toughness”
has its drawbacks. How can we show love
like Christ’s, how can we embody His compassion for the poor, when our emotions
are numb to what we see around us? I
think it is at this point that God steps in and breaks us anew.
Such has
been the case for me over the last week, but before I get there let me back up
a little… In the six and a half years I
have been living here on the Plateau I have seen an amazing amount of change,
not just in the environment and infrastructure of the area but in people. The jobs Lemuel has been able to provide to
many in the community have offered an increased level of stability for the
families. Although things are still
difficult at times, like with the drought right now, you still get the sense
within most of the families closest to us that they know they are going to be
ok.
It is easy
to forget, with all the exciting things happening, that beyond that circle of
the community that lives closest to Lemuel and that is most involved in Lemuel
there is another circle of families we have hardly been able to touch yet. And beyond them are families suffering in
ways we can’t even imagine and who have been more-or-less untouched by any kind
of significant outreach. Such was the
case of Jacques and his wife.
Though I had
heard from time to time the Frè Jacques (Brother Jacques) was sick, I had no
idea the sheer misery in that house until Krischelle and Bonita were asked to
visit their home to treat a bedsore that had developed over the last two years
that he has been lying ill, unable to move the lower part of his body. As both Krischelle and Bonita shared what
they saw in that home my heart broke.
Jacques’ wife is caring for a sister who has lost her mind and her
husband who not only is paralyzed from the waist down, but who has also lost
any bladder or bowel control. She
recently buried another sister whom she had been caring for four years and who
just passed away a few months ago.
We have
discussed as a team and as a church what our response should be and have begun
to take some actions. Last Sunday our
Lemuel team and the Church Committee visited Jacques and his wife and began to
think through how we could best help and encourage them. He cried as he shared with us how he wishes
he could move again so that he could again take care of his family. After singing and praying with them we left
encouraged by their faith and the joy of his wife despite her difficult
circumstances, but saddened by the suffering of this man.
As Bonita,
Krischelle and Thony have continued to make visits to treat the bedsore, we
have also been able to take them a few items to alleviate some of their
suffering… simple things like some extra sheets so Jacques wife can change them
more often when they get wet with urine, some new clothes for his wife who has
given all her time, energy and meager resources to caring for her husband, and
a solar charged MP3 player that has the Creole audio Bible and some Christian
music on it.
As God has
been working in my heart over this last week, this has become my prayer: that
God would break my heart with the things that break His, that He would fill me with
His love and compassion – not emotionalism but true, lasting, sacrificing
compassion – that He would fill me with the desire to take that love to those
who are hurting, and that He would give me the wisdom to help in appropriate
and God-glorifying ways.
There is so
much more I could say about this past week but this has already gotten long (and
doesn’t even have pictures… gasp!) so I will leave all of that for another day…
