Traveling to Haiti

In less than two weeks I am heading to the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The most impoverished nation in the western hemisphere, it has needed and attracted aid and mission groups for years, way before the devastating earthquake of 2010 hit.

And since then the interest in giving assistance has increased quite a bit. The same could be said of myself, my interest in the plight of Haiti was present well before the earthquake, but now it is even greater.

I have been given a great opportunity through my church to go. To go and minister, to give whatever gifts I have to the people I encounter. Hopefully to remind them they are not forgotten, that God loves them, that other people in the world love them and that there is hope.

I suspect though I will learn more from the people I meet than they will from me. I suspect this from my own intuition, past experiences and from what people that have been before have told me.

Haitians are not a sad and miserable people. Skeptical people might think its because they don't know any better, they don't realize how bad off they are because they don't have anything to compare it with.

The optimist in me wants to think they remain happy because they are required to forego reliance on the material world and instead place their hope and reliance on the spiritual one. On God. And it is because of that they are happier than many people here. I am only speculating for now and I will try to not let that influence my experience when I go.

But still, the optimist suspects what I will find.