Guiller

Tomorrow is Haiti Sunday at church and I have been asked to talk about my experience in Haiti. I have had one of the craziest weeks. I am the Teaching Assistant for an intensive Hebrew class, in addition to taking a class for 3.5 hours 3 days a week. Half of this week I have been at school for 13 hours. I am exhausted and I haven't even really had time to think about Haiti, which is probably for the best. So here are bits and pieces of my story with Guiller.  

On our third day in Haiti we went to deliver our donations to other orphanages in Port au Prince. We left in the truck with bags of flip-flops, new clothes, underwear, and some rice and beans. We also brought some snacks with us. We had dinner tolls, peanut butter and Tampico, a kind of fruit juice. At the second orphanage we visited that day we gathered outside on benches with the kids. I was sitting with Guiller, he was probably 6 or 7, he didn’t say much, but had a bright and beautiful smile. As we passed out peanut butter on dinner rolls and the Tampico the kids faces lit up. Some just dug right in, others, like Guiller slowly ate the peanut butter from the roll, putting his finger in it, then licking it off, until most of the peanut butter was gone. Then he ate the roll. I watched a little girl, who was probably two chug her Tampico in a few gulps. It was probably a 12oz bottle or so, and this young girl drank it all at once. 

As they ate their peanut butter rolls something very profound hit me. We were sharing the body of Christ with these young children. We had our own Communion feast. The bread was covered in peanut butter and the juice came in a bottle, but we were sharing the Lord’s Supper. 

Language barriers kept us from having conversations with these kids, but our actions spoke more words than could ever say. We were there, all 22 of us left our families and friends for a week to share Christ with kids in Haiti and in that moment, outside on benches we were. These kids were hungry and we gave them food. They needed new clothes and we clothed them. We were doing what Christ has called us to do.

There are many things that are distinctively different between the two groups gathered on those benches. Our connection to these kids was something much more powerful than a love of soccer or music. In their eyes I saw God, I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. I saw the connection that brings us all together. Every child we saw was beautifully and wonderfully made by God. Outside, on those benches we shared a Sacred meal between God’s children. We shared the love of Christ with these children without saying much, but simply by being there.