When I was asked to write up a blog post to describe my experience here, I was a bit overwhelmed by the task at hand. How can I encapsulate everything I have witnessed here- the people, the depth of their eyes, the warmth and graciousness of their smiles, the poverty of the barrios, the countless starving dogs, the array of smells, the heaviness of the Holy Spirit, etc. The only way I can begin is with one word: thankful. As I watched these people, marveling at how creative they can be to make things work with what we would consider dirty old trash (that wouldn’t even be fit to sell at a yard sale), I began to realize how easily… that could have been me.
Why God? Why did you choose to give me one of the biggest blessings of being born in the US? I have often prayed for God’s favor and blessing- and yet I’ve just now realized that He already has favored me- just by determining the place I was born!
It makes me feelcompletely foolish for some of the things I pray about whenever I hear the Haitians’ prayer requests. Out of the two pastor’s we’ve met, the biggest needs they have are safety, water, and a roof that doesn’t leak. Americans wouldn’t step foot in a church that didn’t have these basic needs. But what makes us any different from the Haitian people? We just live in a different location and have different skin tones- but that doesn’t really matter, does it? We have the same father, and love Jesus. Therefore, that makes us brothers and sisters in Christ, right? Yet we are living totally different lifestyles, and our problems have a magnitude of difference between them, and so on. As I first encountered these horrors I witnessed, I leaned towards the thought: “Oh those poor people”. But after praying that God would allow me to see through His eyes, I began to think more like this: “that could have just as easily had been me”. This simple change in thinking not only allowed me to see how I am so blessed beyond measure, but it has also started me along the right path towards truly loving my neighbor as myself.
-whit
kitchen
crib
favorite (possibly only) toy
bathtub 
And the amazing thing is that many of them are happier than a lot of American's I know...things that make you go hmmmm...praying for continued safety and love for you guys!
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