The best gift I can give

This is a photo from a few years ago. It is me posing with a cute little fella at a place called... phonetically... odjo de buytola (hole in the ground) It is a slum in the city of Santiago which is situated on the northern part of the island of Hispaniola.

This slum is about 14 acres of land that literally sinks down from the rest of the city on all sides. It is a flood plain that changes every year, but the land is undesirable so the poorest of the poor occupy it.

One of the things that gets me into trouble is that I can't see people based on their socioeconomic status. I only see people. I mean.. I can see where a person will get placed on the scale. I have watched as... dare I say... "missionaries" have railed and disparaged friends of mine, while others would come to my house ( ok I upset even recalling this) and expect that my friend Jerry would not sit at the table with us for dinner. And worse... Jerry would never think of sitting with us despite pleading with him on every occasion. (Jerry was a Haitian young man that lived with us for three years. Kristie and I are the godparents of his son Sender.)

There is a saying in Haiti that goes like this, "Tout Moun se Moun" which means every person is a person. This is what I am talking about.

Every person is a person.

This simple phrase is beyond comprehension for some people. Many people attach a value to the a person according to some sort of criteria. For some reason that part of my brain didn't quite develop, or I wasn't socialized to look at people that way.

I guess that my dad(George) had a lot to do it. He was never one to qualify a person's pedigree before he could have a beer with them...

I remember another anomaly in school growing up. During a time when most of us teens were pretty worried about fitting in, I remember Dana Foster. I don't remember seeing her running over people to elevate herself. She did just the opposite. ( ya Dana I remember that about you!) She is now an active leader in my hometown and is part of an organization called the Yellowhead Ecological Association.

It may sound a little off but it is true: The greatest people in the world are those who give up their life for others. What do most people do? The exact opposite.


Enter the title of the blog (how do you like that for a transition)

If you ever get a chance to go and hold a child in a place like "the hole" or a batay in the cane fields you may get a dose of reality. People matter... especially the helpless children that will line up by your car as you stop at a street light and ask for food.

Living in Haiti for nearly three years Kristie and I remember several difficult scenes that will always be with us. Perhaps the most disturbing was to see too many humanitarian workers and missionaries stepping on the necks of the Haitians to gain as much as possible.

Maybe I will explain that to you if we talk personally some time.

There is a crisis in the Dominican Republic. There are over a million Haitians living in Batays like this one. The problem is the fall in sugar prices and the lack of work for these people. Here these two boys came to talk with me as I toured their village. They neither had adequate clothing or attended school. It is different when you are there talking to them face to face.

The best gift I can ever give you is perspective.


We leave on June 20th and December 27th.


Shane


p.s. Check out our Website too: http:www.mercyleague.org