Haiti trip reflections

One of the moments that stands out with distinct clarity from our recent trip to Haiti is praying for a woman with a skin disease in her mud and stick walled, dirt floor house. There were 12 of us crammed into this little dark room and the sick woman told us she wanted to accept Jesus. When asked why she said plainly, “because I want to get better”. These words resounded in my mind as I went through the week encountering much more sickness, starvation, and desperate poverty. At first I was critical of this attitude, for presumably this desire for religious power for physical healing was also the reason that so many people had chosen to participate in voodoo rituals.

When we went to each village telling people about Jesus and giving out rice, it seemed that people’s response to God was also motivated by a desire to be fed. This perspective of seeing God as a means to some personal end reminded me of what repulses me so much about the prosperity gospel in America. Giving tithe and one’s faith to God for the sake of material blessing seems so contrary to the call of Christ to take up the cross and deny oneself. As the week wore on however my heart softened to the people as I began to put myself in their place as much as my limited imagination could allow. In a desperate situation embracing God as the source of tangible physical help seemed like a reasonable assumption that wasn’t exactly foreign to the gospel of salvation.

Perhaps knowing God as healer and provider prior to any theological understanding of the cross might be a sort of improvement upon many Western Christian’s intellectual understanding without any tangible dependence on God for daily life. I’ve noticed my view of the gospel becoming more simple following my trip to Haiti. If we truly believe that Jesus can do miracles of healing and provision offering his power as the answer to need is foundational to understanding the gospel of rescue.

A video of our family trip to Haiti my talented husband put together.