What enormous contrasts :  Hotel Roi Christophe and Cite Soleil in the same day!  We have truly seen a lot.  The green and fertile valleys promise hope, which will be fulfilled in honest labor, tending of crops, and harvest.  The work of dedicated teachers in Cite Soleil concentrates on seeing a hopeful future for the students.  A nearly miraculous home-grown business, Pure Water for Haiti, which provides safe, affordable drinking water for the people, as well as jobs and even careers, expresses confidence and affirmation for the future of Haitians.  Such a day we’ve had !

Thomas, the subject of Sunday’s sermon in Du Plan Methodist Church, has remained with me all week.  He said he needed visual evidence that Christ had come back.  He needed to see in order to believe.  But we often believe without seeing.  The sound of sweeping as I write conjures up the figure of someone downstairs with a broom.  The lovely sound of church bells brings London Sundays to me, visions of friends in Ealing Green.  And the smell of wood smoke may conjure up s’mores around a campfire.  Thanks to our marvelous human brains, we can easily see with our memories, without using our eyes.

However, it is well to remember that we can’t depend unwaveringly on our eyes.  Driving  through Arizona, one sees an enormous mesa, a formation of huge red rocks, directly in front of the car, for many, many miles.  As you approach it, it becomes burned on the consciousness, growing ever more massive as the miles go by.  Then, suddenly, unbelieveably, the formation disassembles itself !  What you have come to see as a massive, red shape towering on the horizon, is actually several quite different formations which are some miles apart.  

Misinterpretation of what we think we’ve seen is all too easy.  A man once came into a lovely garden where many butterflies were emerging from their chrysalises.  Some were already fluttering free, others still completely encased, and a few actually in the process of struggling into the light.  A number of children were watching intently and the man stepped away from his daily routine to join the audience.  He soon realized that one butterfly was finding it almost impossible to free itself from the chrysalis, and he decided to ‘help out’ by cutting some of the material away to make exit easier.  While the other emergent butterflies began to unfold their damp wings, stretch and fan them dry, the one he had helped simply fell to the grass when it emerged.  The struggle he had helped the creature avoid had actually been critical to the formation of the wings.  Since the struggle had been cut short, the wings were not able to move, and the butterfly died.  What he thought he’d seen was not true at all.

This adventure in Haiti is meant to open our eyes.  We, and those in our home churches, know about poverty already -- we think !  Certainly we know how fortunate we are and we want to share our blessings, of course.  But so few of us have actually seen the faces of poverty, as our group has been privileged to do this week.  And as much as we thought we had seen already in Port au Prince and Gran Riviere du Nord, what we saw today in Cite Soleil literally took our breath away.

And yet . . .  and yet . . .  the nurses inoculating children see not the momentary wailing and thrashing, but (like the parents) see hope in a healthy life stretching out in front of that child, perhaps unlike the parents’ own lives.  Those who have been granted micro loans have seen not just money, but the hope of earning a living, caring for their families.  And in the work of International Child Care, we have seen the many faces of the future of the boys of St. Joseph’s, the children at Wings of Hope, and the inoculated babies from the clinics now all over Haiti.

We need, like good journalists do, to make sure of the credibility of our sources of information, to check with those intimately involved (Keith, Mike, Lynne, Gregory, and Madame Arnoux) and gather our facts.  We have been privileged not only to see with our eyes, but to hear, smell and touch reality in Haiti.  God is doing a great work here, and we can be part of it.  So can all in our home churches and all who read this.  The amazing beauty all around us here is sure to remain unforgettable. 

ACTION must come next !