Day 4 - Grace Village, Visiting Elders & Mass Graves
"So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold - though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world." (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Word of the Day: Trapped & Defeated
Grace Village is the gold of Titanyen. It is an mini-oasis inside a place typically characterized by widespread despair with only small pockets of hope. Grace Village is home to 75 kids who live in family style homes and 28 in transient care. Over 300 additional children are served by a school on site, the entire community has the option to come to the feeding center and the clinic. Within the same area there is a church and bakery that is in the process of opening. Grace Village is a place where children are loved, dreams are encouraged and a community is strengthened by making family a common concept. We were given a tour by the Activities Director "Kiki" and she said she could talk to us all day about the amazing things happening at Grace Village but one story really stood out. It should be noted that the staff at Grace Village are very careful and take their time bringing new children into Grace because it can be seen as a threat to the other children who might feel they will be loved less, have less food available or lose their place among a family. After much preparation, conversation and assurance 3 new members were recently added to their Grace family. As one terrified little boy walked into his new home, he shook and cried uncontrollably; he was unable to be comforted by the adults who brought him into the situation. Two of the youngest boys who already lived in the house, came and took his small shaking hands and said "You don't have to be scared, you're not an orphan anymore, we're your family now." Love like that can only be learned.
Water truck days are physically exhausting but visiting the Elders and the site of Mass Grave is emotionally draining. We visited 3 elders in the town of Titanyen and though each had a heartbreaking story and situation, each held on to hope that can only be found in community.
The Mass Grave was the government's solution to the 300,000+ bodies that remained as a result of the January 2010 earthquake that destroyed the already struggling Haiti. They dug into the side of a mountain to have a place to bury the bodies. A memorial has been built little by little since that day. One of our guides shared the story of where he was that day and what he saw. Our world stood still as he spoke.
Today we started our day, as usual, with a devotional lead by one of the team members. Even though it was the start of our day, I would like to end this post with it. We went through the alphabet and used words to describe our experiences in Haiti. Below is one example from each letter.
A - Atonement
B - Boaz
C - Confusion
D - Desperation
E - Excitement
F - Friendship
G - Grace
H - Hope
I - Invisible
J - Jezi
K -Kinship
L - Love
M - Mass Grave
N - NHBB
O - Omniscient
P - Progress
Q - Quality
R - Redemption
S - Savior
T - Transition
U - Unified
V - Vibrant
W - Worthy
X - eXalted
Y - Yearning
Z - Zealous
These words might not mean anything to anyone else who wasn't there today but trust that these words hold special meaning to those that experienced them. Just like we have to trust in God when our own understanding fails us, you have to trust in other's experiences and believe in the potential of good. A young man in our group said something very wise - "Sometimes the lesson to be learned is that there is no lesson at all."
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