As many of you know, Haiti has been in political turmoil for the last two years. There is no “law and order,” because either the police are outnumbered, or they are part of the gangs! Each day we are here, it is like playing “Russian Roulette” to see if we come back from a trip alive, and without getting kidnapped.
A few days ago, when we were coming back from distributing tents for the earthquake people, our driver accidentally came onto a road where the gangs were. All of a sudden, we saw every car or truck ahead of us “turning around” and “getting the heck out of Dodge!” We also turned around and had to follow someone on far-out roads going all the way around, and to places in Haiti we had never been. We had heard of the great “wealth” of some Haitian families, and I thought I had seen where they lived… but I was wrong. So, for living in Haiti for over 30 years, we were about to see something we had never seen.
Our driver, trying to dodge the gangs, had come into a section I had never seen, where the billionaire families lived! Each house was more than a house… they were huge, huge mansions with high gates and impenetrable. The streets were all paved with beautiful stones, and as I drove through for about an hour, mansion after mansion, my eyes filled with tears, and they were running down my face. I was actually sick to my stomach. I was in “shock,” and could not even talk!
How many poor people, farmers, peasants, or women struggling to feed their children lived right below these people, but the rich don’t even know they exist? They drive by the poor, but they cannot and will not see them! And, they don’t want their children to know that the poor exist, because in their eyes, “the poor of Haiti is like garbage or trash” that needs to get picked up and eliminated. These “rich” live in a world of their own, and never, ever help the poor!
“Open Your Hand, Wide!”
At that moment, my heart went back to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, who was full of sores and only wanted the “crumbs” that fell from the table of the big fat man, who had more than enough to eat! The Bible says, “he fared sumptuously every day.” (Which means, he ate huge, gigantic meals every day!) But God had given a commandment in Deuteronomy 15:8, “But, thou shalt open thine hand WIDE unto him, (the poor), and shalt surely lend him (give him), sufficient for his need, that which he wanteth.” I believe there will be people who will miss heaven, not because they killed someone or had an affair, or stole, but because they saw the poor with their own eyes, and would not even give the “crumbs from their table.”
God bless you, when you give… anytime, anywhere, with your whole heart. God bless you when you give the “widow’s mite,” or whatever the Lord lays on your heart… Always be open to the “cry of the poor,” every day, every hour, so that the Lord can use you. Have a great and wonderful day. – Sherry
