The mention of the country Haiti brings what to your mind? It is easy to understand without some experience or attachment it is possible that nothing of impact comes to mind. We as American’s are a custom to not having an opinion or thought unless it affects us. This is not the recommended path I would suggest for anyone, but this is often sadly the way many live their lives. As a Minister of the Gospel since 1982, I have had the experience of many moments that I cannot shake from the memory of my mind involving people, and situations.
The most impacting moment of my life happened while I was in Haiti this past Thanksgiving 2011. Sometimes it is the unexpected that catches you so off guard and unprepared. It is for me not the lack of knowing what I was about to experience or see but rather the actual experience itself that touched my inner most being. I have been called by many families to attend to a hospital bedside or to an accident in an attempt to minister God’s love in a crisis. The biggest crisis many ministers attend to is during the hour or time of a death. The loss of a loved one, family member or friend can be challenging not just for those that loved and cared about the one deceased, but funerals are also significant challenges to ministers. Finding the right words to say is not always easy but I believe the most significant challenge for those leading such a service would be keeping their emotions in check.
While in Haiti serving our mission team had daily activities we were attempting to complete which included everything from feeding children, busting up rocks for new construction and our work as a team also included trips to different orphanages where we delivered food, conducted programs and loved on people. My moment of unpreparedness came when we visited the mass gravesite for the victims of the January 12, 2010 earthquake. I am not sure where I was or what I was doing when the announcement was made that we would be stopping at the mass gravesite but for whatever reason, I was caught off guard. I was at the front of the bus talking with our driver when he made the turn to go up a gravel road toward the mountainside. It was at that moment when I asked where we were going that I learned our destination. Here in American after the attack of 9-11 there has been millions of dollars spent building memorials to honor those that were killed. Not only millions of dollars but the projects have taken over 10 years to complete. All the dollars and time to honor 3,000 lives and what I was about to see was to honor over 300,000 lives. What I saw was what left me unprepared, and speechless.
In Haiti over 300,000 lost their lives in a single earthquake on that January afternoon and our bus made its way up a dusty gravel road that had no road markers, no road signs, and no monuments. There was no parking lot to get out of the bus and walk over to a viewing area that allowed for the hallowed ground to remain in a memorial state with honor and dignity. There was no historical marker describing what had happened, how the Government of Haiti had to dig a mass grave and that they placed the dead bodies of her citizens here as a final earthly resting place. No mention how the men, women, and children buried here had been removed from their homes, buildings and the streets and brought to this place as the government’s only solution to the staggering death toll from the quake. Yes, I was totally speechless to see only black wooden crosses that once stood lying on the ground. I was unprepared to know that cattle walked and grazed over this mass cemetery. There was no fence, there was no official marker to say anything….not a single word written to honor those that once lived and died because of the earthquake. Without thinking I took my camera out of my pocket and I began to take pictures, and honestly I found myself wanting to take 300,000 pictures, but I knew it wasn’t possible. I wanted to somehow honor the lives of those I was now standing over, looking at, and with my mind racing with the thoughts of a hundred cemeteries I had preached at and conducted services at, I knew this one was different and I would never be the same.
You may never have been to Haiti. You may not know or have ever met a single Haitian. You may think that what has happened over there is of no concern to you. You might have never thought for a second is there something you can do, but there is.
-Tim
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