Journal Entry – Saturday August 6, 2011
So maybe it starts out as a desire to “go on a mission trip.” Maybe you think, “I’ll go to Haiti this year, then maybe Nicaragua or Honduras or Mexico next year. Or maybe to Europe somewhere – Croatia, Ukraine, we have missionaries we support there.” I know some churches do that kind of thing – planning mission trips to different places each year.
I don’t know if everyone else experiences Haiti the same way I do, but I suspect that at least everyone on our team would agree with me on this: Coming to Haiti quickly becomes something different. Very soon after you’ve arrived, it’s no longer about “going on a mission trip.” It’s about falling in love with a place and its people. And you know that you’ll be back. You’re already thinking about, “How can I get back here as soon as possible?” Because you feel it inside you now. That urge. The urge that sometimes feels like a still small voice, and sometimes feels more like a SCREAM inside of you – the urge, the need, to DO SOMETHING. You don’t even know what for sure. You just know that there’s plenty of need, and that God will always put a stick in your hand.* Maybe even more than one stick for that matter.
* (Metaphor from the Rick Stearns “The Hole in Our Gospel” book – reference to Moses telling God he had nothing to offer, and God replying, “What is that in your hand?” God just wants us to take whatever we’ve got and do SOMETHING with it.)
Musings in Miami – observations at the airport:
TV monitor. UNICEF commercial. Images of starving children in Somalia. Don’t think I’ll ever look at those commercials quite the same, as they trigger a series of images of what I’ve seen first-hand this past week.
Boarding plane. Standing in line. Woman in front of us – beautiful, silky smooth ebony skin, hair in spectacular corn rows. Could be from anywhere, but certainly looks very Haitian. Makes me aware of a horrible habit I wasn’t even conscious of: Even though the level of “racial enlightenment” in my generation is certainly greater than in generations prior, there are still unconscious prejudices and biases. The old (horribly bad, and horribly racist) “Well, you know, they all look the same” joke has probably been more true for many of us than we’d like to admit. We may not look down on those of another race; we just overlook them entirely.
Today, on this day, I find myself looking, seeing, with much greater awareness. I’m looking at eyes. I’m looking at smiles. I’m seeing individuals, rather than a race.
I hope this is an awareness I never lose.
