November 22nd, 2011.
I am looking forward to my upcoming trip to Haiti on November 25th. What a contrast I will be experiencing…. The day before I will probably eat too much turkey and trimmings at my Thanksgiving dinner table. Within 24 hours in Port au Prince I will be encountering countless people who have not had a nourishing or a staining meal in years. Down deep I always ask myself penetrating questions: Why? What if I was born here and they were born in America? W hat if I had to live my whole life on the edge of starvation with little or nothing that I could do about it? What if God had switched my birth around and I wound up in Haiti for my whole life?
I tell myself that I was born where I was born and when I was born for a reason. And it is that reason that has drawn me to Haiti. Where I was born and when I was born has given me every advantage in life. I will be with people who have had no advantages in life with little opportunity to pull themselves up and out of their inhuman condition. I know that if I work hard enough on the various projects, we can together make a real difference in their lives and in their future. And the poor can give me what all the advantages I possess in life can never bring me….. Their gift of Thankfulness, letting me know that I am not as self-centered as my lifestyle portrays. Their gift of Hope, because I tend to despair over the smallest of concerns. Their gift of Joy, so I am able to see that only non-tangible things can bring me enduring happiness. And their gift of Love, when strangers like us can go beneath the surface and bond over life and death matters.
I am heading to Haiti with our team of educators from South Florida to present workshops on Inquiry-based learning for Haitian principals and educators. I know I will return carrying so much more inside of me than when I left. I never go to Haiti for the souvenirs.
Fr. Med Laz