My house
Is this your house Ellen? It is so pretty!!!
No Sindy, this is not my house. This is a convenient store,
not my pantry.
Her first time out of the village and into a store where she was allowed to choose whatever she wanted was a dream come true for this little 7 year old.
Her first time out of the village and into a store where she was allowed to choose whatever she wanted was a dream come true for this little 7 year old.
Sindy
Sindy's house
She chose the 1/2 gallon jug of juice. No, not because she is
greedy. No, not because she is selfish. She chose it because she knows she will
share it with the rest of the family and it might be the only clean liquid that
goes down her throat for the next few days. So we bought juice and crackers and
bread and I went to sleep knowing that
no hunger pains would come that night. 1 night down, 364 more to beat.
The storm moves in and the rain begins to fall and I begin
thanking God, because the rain cools off the house. At 2am I awake realizing
the rain has stopped, I am sweating, and I begin to pout. I take a towel throw
it on the patio outside, and pray for more rain or a little wind so I could
fall back to sleep on the cement floor.
You see, I do not like my house. I have been complaining
about it for the past 10 months. I live upstairs and when they say heat rises
they are not kidding!! It is hot and there are too many giant cockroaches and I
would really like to have an oven and a fridge and some a/c. So I begin to
complain, to myself I guess, because I do not think God was listening. I think he was rolling His eyes at me.
Rwodlen on the right
Rwodlen on the right
When I was done venting , and realized no one was listening I began to
think. We just had a lot of rain here in
Haiti. And a lot of rain is not good. So
I start to worry. I think of James and wonder if his roof fell in because it
was barely on in the first place. And Sindy
has huge holes in her roof and if her house is not already flooded, I know all
of their stuff is soaking wet. Marvens
is only 10 months old and his house is made of sticks and mud and there is no
way he can help himself. We just buried the mom of a little boy named Rwodlen.
And now at 5 years old he has no one to hold him tight and tell him it is going
to be ok.
The thunder is rolling and the lightning is striking and everyone is
loosing the little income they could have because the plantain fields have
fallen to the ground. Now Noldine is not sitting in the dirt, she is sitting
in the mud and at 2am in my mansion of a house I begin to cry. I had let the
worldly desires swallow me up.
Dare I ever bring those children to the house I live in
here. You see Sindys house is the size of my bathroom. But she has to share it with 4 other people.
I get to have it all to myself. Plus a bedroom and a real toilet and two
suitcases filled to the top with food and more choices then she has ever had.
So why wouldn’t she assume the convenient store was my pantry?
These children have seen and heard enough about up north to
know we have it good.
We buy storage sheds just to put more of our stuff in. It is
growing dust and it is wasting away. Matthew 6:19
No I don’t want to guilt you in to giving it all away. Yes my
house also is full of stuff that I don’t need, but I want you to open your eyes to
the world around us. Too many of my family and friends are turning a blind eye
to this war because they don’t want to deal with it. It is not their problem.
It is too sad of a book. Don't get swallowed up like I did.
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s
life for his friends….I have called you my friends…” John 15:13,15
I will lay down my life for my King, if He will call me His
friend.
What if it was your
child. If your baby was starving, lost, scared to death or half dead from
disease, you would do everything you could to get to him or her.
Marvens and his mom
But what if you couldn’t. What if your baby was trapped and
there was nothing you could do to save him? You would call up every friend you
had and say I need your help. I will give you the coordinates and I will
prepare the way for you, just please go help my child. You see, these are Gods
children. And he is looking to us to lay down our lives and take care of His
family. That might mean in your own backyard, that might mean across the ocean.
God’s family is very big and we as the Christ followers must respond to the
crisis.
Luke 16:19-31 The story of the rich man and Lazarus is oh so
true. We have a lot of Lazarus’ here. They wait outside my house to ask for
rice or shoes. Sometimes I hide my face, pretend like I do not see them, and then of course I get in trouble with God. But I just cannot do it all. I need you. I need my friends and
my family to back me up. We need the church at the forefront of the line
fighting for these lives. I feel like, and I know, that someone out there is
coming to help. Someone is ready, maybe that someone is you. We need more
followers to say I am in. Send me.
Please don’t tune out their cries, and please don’t tune out
mine.
If anyone would like to donate to these families or to any need in this country, you can make a donation at Loving Orphans Global under my name.
A 50lb bag of rice is $25.00. 5 gallons of clean
purified Culligan water is $7.00. To finish our construction to bring these
children under a real roof during the storms is $50,000!!
James' house
"We cannot love authentically if we are not willing to
sacrifice"
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