Revealing. Today God removed a blindfold from my eyes. We
visited Cite Soleil and distributed water to the people there. Cite Soleil is a
city in Haiti that lives in great poverty. It was astonishing to see all the
people there just simply get water and all the little kids who were just
seeking attention and love.
We live in a society that has all essential needs that we
acquire and we get without even having to ask. While we go into our kitchen to
get a glass of water or snuggle with our family on the couch watching a movie,
the Haitian people not only in Cite Soleil but all over Haiti are considered
lucky to even get food and attention each day.
We went to three water stops through the course of the day;
getting off each one of them was a completely different adventure, but each
time we got off there were little kids surrounding us with their arms raised in
the air. I always immediately had a child in my arms from the age of one to seven,
maybe even older.
Going back to Kelly’s blog yesterday where she said her word
was simple. The Haitians were all so happy to just see us and for us to just
simply hold them and help them grow. That makes me think about how difficult
Americans make life. How amazing it is to see the happiness in all these kids
even with the bare minimum. They don’t fret about the little things because
they don’t have the opportunity to have the stuff we do, yet they are still
content and make a good life out of what they have.
Something that really stuck out to me was walking down a pier
looking on to the ocean and see how beautiful it was and then looking back at
the city and my heart dropping. For me
this is the perfect metaphor for life. All of us see the beauty of the world
and everything we want to see, but that is only a small portion of reality. We all
need to take the time to let God remove that blindfold from our eyes and look
out at the rest of the world; to see all the imperfections. Nothing and no one is
ever going to be perfect no matter how hard we try, but with every imperfection
we uncover and accept there is a new awareness revealed.
It took today seeing all the happiness of the people throughout
Cite Soleil and what they made of life even though they only had what we
consider the bare minimum for me to realize; maybe we are the ones who lack
happiness because of everything we materialize and the fact that we need to
take a step back and thank God for the clean water and comfort we get from
people every day. Beni Sousa Letenel.
Team Member Maddie
