This Is What I Know

I read this post today and wept.

I have tried to explain to others what I know to be true about Haiti, even though I've never set foot on its soil.  The truth is Haiti's soil has stepped on my heart through sharing life with Hermane and Chilene.  (For those of you who don't know, Hermane was a 9 year old Haitian boy who came to live with us for about a year.  Chilene is his mother who also lived with us for about a month and a half.)

There are never the right words to explain what I know, what I've seen, what I've experienced.  I can never describe the insane emotions of having rage, compassion, and confusion all occurring at the same time.

This post about this young woman helps articulate it in a way I can't.  She lived in the same area Chilene and Hermane now live.  This young woman was a young Chilene.  This young woman's mother is what Chilene now is.  Life is so hard for her, has always been so hard.  I no longer have the comfort and security of judging what should be and what should be done.  In the face of so many difficulties, survival is about all you can manage.

What I know -

-dependence on male support can be the only way of survival, anything that compromises that must be crushed
-no education leaves you vulnerable, you are at the mercy of those better educated than you are
-you know that you can make white people feel guilty for what they have and you don't, so you allow them to help you, all the while resenting them for taking away the last vestige of dignity you might possess
-"only the strong and assertive get what they need"
-you are harassed, pressed about from every side continually
-you are always hungry, always in pain
-you are always scared, never trusting
-you carry around the words of Scripture and cling to them more than life itself
-you fling yourself into the arms of Jesus loudly and boldly

I don't want to sound arrogant in assuming that "I know".  I have never had to live this life, just had to watch it from the outside, although it impacted my life and my family's life forever.  This "knowing" has been my biggest grief, yet my most direct route into the arms of Jesus myself.