Following the Haiti Trip by Video
We have new videos coming up daily over on Youtube. We try to upload them in the evening. It's a bit of a challenge to do that, but we'll keep doing our best.
On Monday, we travelled close to the quake's epicenter. We visited Leogane, where the Presbyterian Church was involved with a hospital--L'Hopital Ste. Croix. It has not reopened since the quake, and the town of Leogane looks like a bomb hit it. This is the first place I stayed when I first visited Haiti back in 1991, and so it was heartbreaking to see the place destroyed.
We also visited two schools, one in Darbonne and another in Cabois. Both schools had been damaged in the quake, and both towns suffered terrible destruction. But the schools are functioning, and we met the kids. The Haitian Youth Choir, which traveled with us, sang for the kids. And it was particularly moving when they sang a song about being like a bush that bends but doesn't break. There is a certain strength here.
Beyond that, it's been something to watch our kids play soccer in the community where we're staying. They played on Sunday night, and are scheduled to play again tonight--Tuesday. The teams are mixed, Haitian and American. The field is dirt, and the play is intense, but the matches have attracted a crowd. OK, it's just a distraction. But after so much suffering here, maybe a distraction is a real gift from God. And on our trip to Cabois, as we crossed this river with the kids from the Choir, and I heard the laughter and saw the way the kids helped each other--somehow I think that God would be pleased. (You can see video of the crossing on Youtube).
In a place like this, the problems can seem to be overwhelming. We don't meet a person who hasn't had somebody they love die in the quake. And many of them have no idea where they are buried. Many likely never will know. And the scale of the destruction is massive. But making connections, person to person, showing that we care--maybe that's the best that we can do. At least, maybe it counts for something.
