For starters, I cannot believe
today is our last day in Haiti! It can’t be possible that time has flown by
this quickly! I guess this means I’m meant to come back on another trip:
prepare yourself mom! ;)
A moment that has really stuck with
me the most was when our group went to the school Degeance, a school that’s a forty minute hike and
a very rocky twenty minute truck ride from a main road in Haiti. As the rest of
my team was busy teaching the children certain topics, Rene and I had gone into
the preschool classroom and began having fun of our own. All I’ve learned how
to say is “good morning”, “what is your name”, and “my name is Abbey”, so clearly
there was a communication barrier between the children and I. Yet, they didn’t
care, and we quickly started playing little games with them. At one point, I
looked down and saw that the kids were laughing at a little boy (though they
tried to explain why they were laughing, I had no idea what was going on). I
quickly scooped him up into my arms and held him. For the next twenty minutes,
Rene and I sang songs with the children, laughed, took pictures, and enjoyed
being with them, and all the while this little boy clung to me so that I didn’t
put him down. He let me love on him, laugh with him, and dance with him despite
the fact that I was a stranger.
Looking at it from the perspective
of the child, his teacher had just simply left the classroom to talk to our
leaders and strange white people were now standing before him with no way of
communication. His friends were laughing at him, and as a child of that age, he
probably wanted to just go home and cry. But, thankfully enough, he took to the
stranger and clung on for comfort. He had no idea who I was, what I’ve done in
my life, or what my personal intentions were for that afternoon, yet he liked me.
I had not done anything exceptionally outstanding to make them want to be my
friend, and yet despite all of that, he still took to me.
In comparison to what I’ve known in
the United States, everything about this experience was amazing to me. No
parent would let their child tromp through the forest, by themselves, for forty
minutes, even if it was to go to school. Not many children at the preschool age
let strangers pick them up,
and find so much comfort in their presence that they just cling to them and
find such joy in just being held.
This taught me a lot about having what
the Bible says I need to have: child-like faith. I don’t need to know the plans
the Lord has for my life, I don’t need to be afraid of the unknown, but like
that child, I need to cling to Him for comfort. I need to trust in who I know
He is, and have undying faith in His sweet love for me. And what’s even more
amazing was that it took the Lord putting me in the forest, in a foreign
country, holding a strange, sweet and loving child, to realize just how
precious I am to the Lord. It reminded me that no matter what happens in my
life, He is my rock; He will never leave me nor forsake me, and will love me
until my final breath (and forever after that too!!). I am so silly not to cling to him for all of
my life.
This trip has allowed me to realize
that I am closest to my Father, when I am furthest from my comfort zone. I have
loved every second of my experience!
-- Abbey :)
