Origami part two

Some time ago I wrote about the world's biggest origami. Well.. there is a good end to that story. The team from Detroit traveled to Haiti lately to help us finish the job. They were great. Wish you could have been there too. Nine guys trying to fold a little house out of these big sheets. Nine different ways of doing it all at the same time! It was so much fun. Every time we did one we also forgot right away how we did it and had to invent it all over again. You'd think we know it after two right! No way! It was hilarious but we got it done. Here are a few of the pictures of the project. Three families will live here at a time while they are building their permanent house. At least no more sleeping outside. Praise God.

Ten guys ten different ideas!

Yes we're getting it

Tim and Mark were in control.

Team work!

Mom look what we made! The lady of the house with her daughter are happy.

New Urgency

There are times in life when you can clearly see the road before you. It's not always like that but today, looking out over the mountains, I can see forever. It is beautiful! I just finished reading a book about persecution of Christians in China. Could not put it down and I'm still mulling it over in my heart. It was shocking.
What we saw in Haiti two weeks ago was shocking as well. It is giving me a new sense of urgency that I'm trying to put under words here. We traveled to a remote area called Pereille and once we got closer we saw groups of people sitting in the fields along the road .Strange! Many of them were young adults. In all my years there I had never seen this before. It was almost like people were waiting for something to happen. When we came at the meeting place there were hundreds of them gathered around and it became clear that we could not do our traditional clinic. There were just too many people so we resorted to passing out medication for worms and vitamins. Doug, the chiropractor helped by some of the others, touched many people with back ache. We had brought in copies of a brand new Creole children's book that tells the gospel. I realized that there were a lot fewer kids than normal. They were almost all adults. It was strange. Maybe the kids were in school but that had never kept them away before. Anyway once we started giving out the little books the people almost fought to get one. I know they had no idea what it was about but they were so excited. In a very short time the three hundred copies we brought were gone. My mind keeps going back to that day. Hope came into the hands of many people who really had no reason for hope. What made them wait and for what? Could it be that they all have holes in their hearts? A vacuum that needs to be filled now that they realize that their government is not going to do anything for them. An emptiness Voodoo cannot fill? Now that they have seen their dreams shattered in the rubble of Port au Prince. Dreams about escaping the poverty and becoming someone. Port au Prince was the city where many of them thought they were going to make it. It is likely that a lot of the ones we saw along the road were refugees from there. Urgency! A few days earlier we held a clinic in another but just as remote area. It had taken all out of me to deal with the suffering there. I know it did the same to the doctors and the other members on the team. People who were hurting so bad that it defies any description. Like the woman on crutches who was brought in. They took a sock of her leg to show what once had been a foot. All there was left was a piece of bare bone sticking out of her leg with some remains of what must have been a bone in her foot. A few months earlier she stepped on a nail. If only we had seen her before. Like the boy whose foot had a gaping gash on top and Scott sewed it shut. Like the old man who was holding the side of his head in anguish. Melanoma was growing in the roof of his mouth most likely into his brain cavity as well. I talked with him about being with Jesus soon and he was at peace with that. The pain he was in! So many of them and so much pain. People with holes in their hearts hurting for something to set them free.
The fields are white for the harvest but the workers are few. Urgency! We have to act now and reach out to the ones God puts on our path before the opportunity is gone. Times have changed in Haiti. People are more desperate than ever. Do you feel my new urgency? You want to help?

Reality Check Please!

It has been so hard to get in the groove again, almost like it gets more difficult every time I go to Haiti. I'm still floating between two realities, they both exist. The contrast is too stark though, it shouldn't be that hard. I'm sitting on a padded chair now. Not so in Haiti, that's one of the things I miss most when I am there. My computer is plugged in and I don't have to worry about the voltage frying it nor for the lights to go out because there was not enough sun that day. By the way that is rare. But my bed, oh my goodness, it is so nice to lay in my own bed. Sunday night I had a big spider under my mosquito net. In my room that's OK, in my bed it's not. I took my shoe and of course I forgot about the mud I had walked in all day, and slammed the sucker dead. Yeah, but by doing that all the mud was now on my sheets. Oh well! I like to drink water, lots of it. I hang under the tap several times a day and fill up. Well in Haiti it takes a lot of work to filter the water to make it safe, every time again and you can never let your guard down or it will get you. So you just don't drink enough. I drove home through the night after I got back into Atlanta. Three hours, 167 miles, zero pot holes. It took us two hours the night before to travel 11 miles. Not because of traffic because there was nobody else in the 11 mile long, mud filled pothole. Maybe they can get a Guinness world record for that. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining and nobody makes me go there. It is my own choice. But living is just so darn difficult for the Haitians and that's measured by the experience of someone like me, who still has enough money to buy food and has a place to sleep, albeit with spiders and mud on the sheets. Go figure if you don't have that either.
Poverty is a relative term. Just this summer one of the older orphans said to someone, "I am not poor, but there are a lot of poor people around here". This came from a kid who has two sets of clothes, shares his bedroom, which holds only two beds, with several other kids and who gets two meals a day. If he can see it that way we should be able to see how rich we are. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse but I just want you to imagine what they deal with every day, no end in sight. Yet in all that they can still be happy. Last week we did a clinic in a remote area. It was so busy that we simply couldn't treat all people on a one by one basis. We were going around the crowd giving out worm pills.After I gave them their pill I would hold their hands and wait until they made eye contact and than whisper a two or three word prayer. Sometimes it took a while to connect but every time the result was stunning: A smile, love, emotion,  tears and yes, sometimes embarrassment but in a good way. It made me wanna do that all day long. It was energizing me and them likewise. They experienced they were somebody and I found out I was just one of them. A glimpse of heaven. That's what makes me come back to reality. There and here!