bringing haiti home

Dear Candice,

            I’m having some serious Haiti withdraws. With all of my heart the only thing I want is to hold tight the innocent kids that I met there. With all of my heart, the only thing I want is to see God break me apart again in such a beautiful place. With all of my heart, the only thing I want is to serve.

            I’m in a creative writing class at school. Its my next-to-last class of the day. We rarely do much in that class but yesterday we were given an assignment. We had to write a paragraph description of a place. We had to describe the place in the most vivid way possible. It could be any place. Literally any place. So of course, I pick Haiti as my place. Here’s what my paper read:

            I will never forget Haiti. The dirty streets. The bone thin children. The old men smashing rocks into tiny pieces just to feed their kids the one meal they will get today. The smell of open sewers and people who had never seen clean water- much less showered. I remember the miles of tarps that they called tents set up as shelter from the rain. I remember looking at the tops of giant green mountains with sides that had fallen due to the damage. I remember the young girl holding her baby of just a few days thanking God that her baby was alive. I remember the hope that overflowed from every dark brown face. I will never forget Haiti.

            So the next day in class, we had the opportunity to read our paper. I was sick so I sounded kind of weird and no one else had read theirs so I didn’t raise my hand. But then a few minutes passed and a few kids read their papers. So when my teacher said, “Anyone else want to read theirs?” I thought to myself, “What am I even afraid of?” so I raised my hand, stood up and began to read. Amidst my stuffed up voice and my shaking legs, I read it. When I was finished I sat down and waited for my teacher to say something. He looked at me and said, “Hope?” I simply replied, “Yes. Hope. Espwa.”

            I thank God for that amazing opportunity to share with the kids in my class how amazing Haiti was.

            I thank God that He provided a way for me to go.

I love you.

Love,

Sara