Beautiful & Broken

My plane has just taken off and I’m al little overwhelmed emotionally. I always leave a piece of my heart everywhere I go, and in every place I minister, but this was very different. There really isn’t enough of my heart to go around here. I am certainly leaving a piece of myself here.
The best way I can describe Haiti is Beautiful & Broken. Port Au Prince is amazingly huge, with tons of life and people. The mountains to the East and the sea to the West create a serene and majestic feeling at times. But as beautiful as it is, it is very broken…
Literally right around the corner from the house where we stayed, are two house completely flattened in the earthquake on January 12, 2010. They still lay as a pile of rubble. No rebuilding. No cleanup. No life. Unfortunately, there is still much to be done in Port Au Prince. Those two houses are just a few amongst the many uninhabitable buildings. Haiti is certainly Beautiful & Broken.
We visited five orphanages, and we saw children with fear and hopelessness in their eyes. We heard horror stories of children orphaned by the quake. We met children that had been trapped under rubble from the quake. We met children that had been kept as slaves. We met children that had been violently and repeatedly sexually abused. We met so many broken children that even as a write this I am having a hard time containing my emotions. No one ever deserves to be mistreated, but children, of all people, should never have to endure this kind of neglect and abuse. We met children that, just by looking into their eyes, you could see that they had already lived a lifetime… and they were only 9 years old. There was a terrible amount of brokenness.
Yet, there was beauty as well. Mixed into all of the mess and the hurt and the brokenness, there was life and beauty. We met children that, even though they had been given every reason to give up, they had hope in their eyes. These kids had been given love, and they had responded to that love with hope. These kids had been given the food they so desperately needed, both physically and spiritually.
I held a little girl that was given away by her prostitute mother, and no one knows who her father is. And I had so much fun playing with that girl. She had an amazing and funny personality. Despite language and cultural barriers, when I gave here a hug and held her in my arms, the beauty inside of her exploded to the surface. She had been abandoned. She had been malnourished. But she had been loved. And love was what she needed.
At that same orphanage, I met an 11-year-old girl that was the size of a 4 or 5 year old. She had been so malnourished that she became sick and simply would not grow. But once she had been brought into that orphanage, and had been loved, fed, and taught about the hope that only Christ can give, her beauty had come out. Her face was almost glowing as she smiled and hugged us.
At the very first orphanage we went to, a little girl wanted me to hold her. I was the pastor. I was there to give love to those kids. Of course I picked her up. What happened next will forever be etched into my brain. When I picked her up, she leaned into my shoulder, put her arms around my neck, and began to stroke the back of my hair like I do when hugging my children. The kids of this orphanage had only recently been rescued from the streets, and were still very fear-filled and tentative. But this little girl wanted me to hold her, not so much so she could be loved, but so she could give love. This little 3 or 4 year old girl taught me so much about love as she tenderly ran her hands through the back of my hair and pushed her cheek into my shoulder. Love is a two-way street. As much as she and the other kids like her need to be loved, they need to express love as well.
I have spent the last two days holding children, playing with children, asking their names and ages, tickling them, and pretending to bite their fingers. I gave so much love in the last few days. But I think I received so much more than I gave. I saw so much hope in the eyes of these children that literally have nothing, that I could not help but have a spring of hope rise up in me. Love is simply amazing. Love makes the broken beautiful.
This was an incredible object lesson in the mercy, grace, hope, and love that Christ gives to me. I learned in these few days, that God’s love is enough. God’s love of certainly sufficient. God’s love is amazing. God’s love can make any situation beautiful.
Haiti is broken, but God is doing something beautiful there. Where His love is being displayed, hope is rising. Where His hand is being extended in compassion, beauty is rising. Where a meal is prepared, or an orphan taken in in His name, Haiti is rising. Haiti is Broken. Haiti is Beautiful.