Running in Haiti

Yes, I went to Haiti. I was hoping I could run there. I did get to run there, sort of.

Today was my first day running since returning from Haiti. I was out of the country with a team of 13 others from January 4 thru 12. This afternoon the people of that small island were all I could think of as I logged my three miles.

My new running gear that I got for Christmas would get their first real workout. New shoes, running tights, socks, and pants. As I started to appreciate the cushion feeling of my new Saucony's (shoes) the price tag for those babies flashed before my eyes. Yeah...running shoes are expensive. I started to tally up the cost of all the clothes I had on. $98+149+2+....... My entire wardrobe, new and used, is valued at over $400. That's not counting my iPhone. $400 is what the average Haitian makes in a year. The money that was spent on my running clothes would pay a man to work for 365 days.

Each of us paid about $900 to go on this trip. A chance to go and build houses for a group of people reeling from the earthquake and flooding would cost our group about $13,000. Does that make sense? That money would put 15 people to work for a year. This was a real struggle for me. The math did not add up.

Upon arriving in Haiti, we went through an orientation to prepare us for what was ahead. What I heard went something like this..."You thought you were coming to Haiti to build houses. If that were true, I would have asked you to send the money you spent on plane tickets and I could put a man to work for a year. You did not come to build houses. You came to bring hope." We were told that by two separate missionaries on two separate occasions. Bring hope. What does that look like?

It looks like "duck, duck, goose" when the children have no idea what you are saying. It looks like carrying five gallon buckets of water 1/3 of mile through cactus, over dry, rocky river bed. It looks like hauling concrete block on your head 1/4 of mile up hill. It looks like using a fan screen to sift rock out of the sand used in the mortar. It looks like paper airplanes, soccer balls, sharing tuna salad. It looks like drinking from the same water bottle. It looks like smiles, laughs, hugs, kisses. It looks like letting the girls braid your hair. It looks like showing the villagers that Jesus loves them and so do we.

Hope. We did not complete one house. We did help bring five houses closer to completion. What we really did was show the people in the village of Pasco that they have not been forgotten. We showed them that the white man does not think himself to good to help the Haitian. I hope we showed them Christ. Because in him their hope truly exists. In him our hope truly exists. Hope.

I only ran once in Haiti. I ran the path that we used to bring water. It wasn't long. It was treacherous. It was dangerous. It was what I had hoped to do. Hope.