John 13:17

"If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."

On Thursday, we traveled to Titanyen, a village about 20 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.  Our guide explained that Titanyen is a Creole word meaning “less than nothing.”  It aptly describes the circumstances of many of the villagers.  We visited the homes of five elders who are cared for by Grace Village.  They are provided food and regular health checks.

At the second stop, the one room shack could not accommodate all 14 of us, so I chose to stay outside, relieved I wouldn’t have to bear the stifling heat within the walls of this elderly man’s home.  I slid down against the mud wall, sweat trickling down my sides, making my t-shirt cling to me.  Sitting on the dirt ground, it was easier to put my arm around the little girl who had shadowed me from the tap-tap to the house.  As I sat there, thinking nothing in particular, around the corner struts a little girl in a black polka-dotted dress.  She very deliberately marched over to me and stared intently at me.  As I stared back, I could see my reflection in her eyes and she, no doubt, could see her own reflection in my sunglasses.  I took my glasses off and continued to stare.  Again, I saw my reflection in her intensely beautiful liquid brown eyes.  I thought about how we are each reflected in the eyes of those around us, in the eyes of those who know us best. 

She inched closer to me and let me hug her.  In Creole, I tried to ask her name, but she only stared back at me.  Minutes passed and she seemed content to just stare at me and I was content to just stare back.  Others noticed the attention.  Someone snapped a photo.  Soon, people started to file out of the house and I knew soon it would be time to leave.  I reluctantly followed the line of people back to the tap tap.  The driver told me to put her down and I did so. I will never know her name and I will never see her again.  Each of us have experienced this kind of encounter in Haiti; surprisingly intimate, completely unexpected, and painfully brief.   

Our fourth stop was at the home of Edmond, an 81-year-old, blind, partially deaf man.  He lives alone in a mud shack, barely big enough to fit a small cot, a table, and a few personal belongings.  There were two holes in the walls, near the roof of corrugated metal.  The “windows” were not large enough to allow even a small breeze. 

Our team waited outside while Edmond ate the bananas and sandwiches we brought for him.  No grass grew in the yard.  There was only dirt.  Two large pigs, and several piglets, one looking very sickly, wallowed in a mud hole under a tree which provided the only shade. Chickens pecked at the dirt.  Dogs with their hip bones protruding from underneath their skin wandered the grounds searching for scraps. 

Our team was there to wash and massage Edmond.  I had managed to avoid this task on our three prior stops, but I felt a pull and volunteered.  Jonas, our translator, had taught us the Creole version of “Glory to God” on the journey over.  A chorus of “Glwa Pou Bondye” now enveloped us, as four of us began to wash Edmond’s arms and legs with baby wipes, the sweat from my forehead, stinging my eyes.   As I sat on the dirt floor of his cramped and airless shack, I looked up into his sightless eyes and saw a look of utter joy and gratitude.  As we continued to massage Edmond, it occurred to me, that he was the one performing an act of service for us.  This blind and deaf man had welcomed us, strangers, foreigners, into his home.  In trusting us he had made himself vulnerable.  At that moment, the presence of the one who had made himself vulnerable for all mankind filled the room.  Complete contentment washed over me and I began to tremble.  I have never felt more alive than at that moment.  Glwa pou Bondye pou tu jou!