While we were in Haiti, we got to spend one week on the Northern coast of Haiti in St. Louis de norte. Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. The average person lives on less than a dollar per day. St. Louis de norte was the poorest part of Haiti, So our team was in the poorest area of the poorest country. When you walk outside, you see poverty in people's faces, living conditions, and road quality. Trash was everywhere. St. Louis de Norte, a beautiful mountainous region less than a mile from the ocean, did not have a single street without massive amounts of trash. Everywhere you looked the devastation of poverty in this nation was evident. It breaks your heart, makes you angry at yourself and your country, changes the way you want to live, changes your definition of the word "need," and even sometimes cripples you emotionally.
In response to what we saw, our team agreed to participate in a grocery ministry the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission had to offer. This ministry aims to provide food to those who simply can't afford it. Along with providing for their physical needs, this ministry gives the people of Haiti a precious bible for their spiritual needs. I say "precious" because bible's are extremely expensive and hard to come by all throughout Haiti. With money that our team members themselves donated and money we had raised as a team, our group went down to the local market to purchase different groceries. Now, the Haitian market is an experience in and of itself, but that's neither here nor there. Our team had enough money to purchase 8 different bags. We bought things like eggplants, carrots, rice, beans, meat, flour, candy, and bananas. Our group then split up into two groups with four bags each. Our charge was to take these bags to wherever we feel led. We walked around for about 30 minutes until we got to the more remote areas of St. Louis. Of course the further from the center of town we got, the quality of houses continued to get poorer and poorer. At one of the four stops, we went to a man's home who seemed to have a rather large family with a rather small house. We walked up to him, gave him the bag, and gave him the gift of food in the name of Jesus. He accepted the gift with almost no emotional expression, and then he let us pray for him and his family. Our team had one bag left to give, so we shook his hand and left to start on our hike up a mountain to give the last bag. As we left his front yard I looked back for one last glimpse at the family. After we had left, they gathered around the bag to explore through the contents. Make no mistake, this family was poor. I watched them began to scream out loud and lift up there hands. This man had found the bible buried underneath the grocery items and had lifted it up for the family to see.
I saw something in them that I myself did not have. This family living in a poor family in a poor region in a poor nation was shouting for joy because of God providing for them the word of God. Their emotions said it all. Their hunger for His Word was greater than their hunger for food. They had a joy in His Word. I take his word, his truth, his life he so freely gives for granted. Scripture to them was important, sacred, fresh, God-breathed, and meaningful. Am I hungry for his truth that will set me free?
