My first trip to Haiti was in March of 2011. We arrived to find 13 women in a refugee camp - jobless, homeless, hopeless and trying to feed their kids, most of them as single moms.
Today I saw hope. I saw these women working. They have been given hope, a life, a future. Praise Jesus. Most of them are employed in new vision's feeding program. What this means is they feed the elderly in the community 3 times per week and they get paid to do this. They have homes, the finances to provide for their children and send them to school and they have purpose. They have hope.
Just a 3 minute walk away is Johnny's house. We met Johnny last March, right after he got sick. He was a normal kid - walking, talking, laughing until November. For the last year and a half, he has gotten progressively worse. He lost all control of his right side, he can't talk anymore. The best guess of our medical teams is that he has some sort of brain tumor but with the lack of medical treatment here, we are unable to know.
We went to see him yesterday for the first time since May and as we walked into his house, tears were welling behind our eyes. We saw the same little boy with the biggest grin, so thrilled to see us.
But he was not sitting in his wheelchair, he was not sitting outside, he was laying on a sheet & pillow on the concrete floor.
Johnny is no longer able to sit up on his own. He has also started having trouble eating. This degenerative disease (cancer, tumor, stroke, whatever it may be) has taken over his body. We sat in their house and wept. We held his hand, looked at his sweet smile and we wept. We weep because of our helplessness. We grieve because we know that in the states we would be able to diagnose & treat him. We weep because we long for God's healing and for His kingdom to come and make things right for Johnny and his family. We weep for the desperation of his parents - asking us to take him home so that we can care for him. We desire wholeness and restoration for Johnny.
While we grieve for him and his family, we know that because of Jesus we have hope that this life is not the end. That no matter how grave the tragedy and suffering, our God has won the victory and our hope is in him all day long.
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