To Make Your Kingdom Come

A couple days ago I was hanging out with my friends and a team that they have visiting. One of the team members commented, "How come the Haitians don't seem very happy to see us?" This comment came as he was noticing the Haitians expressions and faces from perched a top of the truck we were riding in. The first thing I said in response to this was, "Well, they don't necessarily like Americans/Canadians helping them so that's why they aren't giving you the happiest look." Then I realized, they also don't like you because you are riding in a vehicle holding onto cameras and video cameras. Most of the Haitians walking on the streets are probably a bit turned off by those two things. They do not have either.

And, here you are peering down at them from above, like they are some sort of show. Imagine a whole bunch of foreigners coming to America, to help us, sitting inside luxury vehicles and carrying around their top of the line electronics. We wouldn't be very accepting of them would we?

Jesus reached out to the poor, the sick, and the demon possessed even though it was not what the people did in his day. By being present in their lives, walking with them and eating with them, he was able to love on them. In the same way, I need to step into the brokenness, the pain, the lives of children yearning for love. I can't love a world that I refuse to touch.


God is teaching me about this firsthand. I feel the most connected with the Haitians when I worship with them in a tent city, when I'm listening to the teenagers at Bible Study, when I'm walking the streets talking to the kids, and when I'm spending time at the school and the orphanage with the children. Yet, I have so much farther to go if I want to really connect with these people. 


I pray for a heart that is burning with God's love. I desire to be more and more compassionate as I reach out the poor and orphan. I cannot sit around waiting for them to come to me. They will live and die without Jesus if I don't get to them...if YOU don't get to them. Someone has to go touch them- love them. I am called to give my life as a sacrifice for them so that they can encounter God. John 15:13, "There is no greater love than this: that a person would lay down his life for the sake of his friends."

To fully understand the needs of others I must "walk in their shoes," instead of gaping at them from afar or from above. In order to connect with the Haitians, I need to get at their level. This goes both ways...I need to be accessible to them too. They won't come to trust me if I am always peering down at them. The people I am "helping" can't connect with me and get to know me if they can't get to me or even be around me.

This picture is of my two friends, Katie and Kez. They are Jesus' hands and feet to the people of Haiti. I'm so glad God placed them in my life to teach me what it really looks like to love on the poor and be there for them. Katie teaches at a Haitian school and Kez is a nurse, currently working on getting a clinic up and running.