Where do I start? Chaos. Anger. Questions. Pain. These are the words that come to mind. But they’re small, disjointed, inadequate. And God may be able to read my mind, but you have no idea what I’m talking about.
For me, it started one year ago when 27 Americans walked through the rusted gate of a crammed Haitian orphanage, and one of the children raced to my side, grinned, and grabbed my hand. A child stranger whose name I didn’t even know. Holding my hand. Why? Because I was present. I didn’t have to doll out candy or sing a pretty song. I just had to be there.
Have you ever been to an orphanage? This is how they are.
We left after five short days of singing songs, taking pictures, giggling, and chasing each other up and down the stairs. They stayed in their orphanage. We went back home. But this is not the end of the story.
This summer, towards the end of my two months in Haiti, the orphanage director was arrested. The charge? Child trafficking. Do you know what child trafficking is? Do you understand that they sell thirteen-year olds and nine-year olds and six-year olds into slavery? Do you understand that they are still doing this today? In Haiti, in Africa, in China, in the Philippines, in the United States.
The orphans should have been free after the director was arrested. But they weren’t. His wife and others continued the work he’d left behind. Children went underfed, undoctored, unloved. Some disappeared. Some are still missing.
Then the media got involved. The Haitian government closed down the orphanage. They sent police in to bring the children out. By force. They dragged them out by force. Without explanation. Without compassion. I’ve seen the pictures to prove it. This happened just a few days ago. (Read Story Here)
These are not fun facts to hear. They’re not fun facts to tell. They are dramatic and heart-wrenching, but they don’t really have a fairytale ending. That’s because this isn’t a fairytale. And this isn’t the end.
We live in a cruel world. I’m sure you didn’t need this orphanage saga to tell you that. We also live in a beautiful world. A breathing world. A dying world. A world in desperate need. It’s easy to feel sorry for the homeless kids down in Haiti. It’s easy to say politicians need Jesus. It’s easy to say orphan directors who traffic children ought to be shot.
It’s harder to take this story of un-love and use it to compel you on to higher love. We can write all the letters and pass all the laws and make all the speeches we want. Some of us can even go to Haiti and sing with the orphans down there. That’s what I’d like to do. But Jesus isn’t asking for your future plans or my well-written speeches. He’s asking for my today. Your today.
Like the nameless kid who ran up and grabbed my hand. Just cause I was present. Are you present with Jesus today? I could tell you story after horrific story of what people do without Christ. I’d like to hear some stories of what people do with Him.
This is still not the end of the story.
