“We are marching against violence, we are marching against kidnapping,”
“We want everyone to hear our voices…We need a solution to Haiti now.”
“This is God’s purpose, and God is going to make a move,”
These are the pleas of a growing number of Haitians who are crying out for the world to wake-up and bear witness to what’s happening in their homeland.
According to the Haiti Health Network, these are the current realities facing Haiti:
- 562 Haitians die from hunger every day
- 53% annual inflation rate
- 10% of Port-au-Prince under government control
- 70% of Haitians that state they would support an international force to fight gangs
- 78 Haitian police officers killed in the first three months of 2023
Last Sunday, across the U.S., Haitians and Haitian-Americans took to the streets to raise awareness and advocate for intervention amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Haiti.
And while the legacy of foreign intervention in Haiti is riddled with exploitation and heartbreak, the diminishing numbers of Haitian police and their lack of available resources to combat the growing strength of Haitian gangs leave few other alternatives.
In addition to growing food insecurity, violent crime, and lack of safety along key supply lines in/out of Port-au-Prince, a large percentage of Haiti’s nonprofits have limited their services or completely shut their doors.
As a Christ-centered ministry, we believe that no shroud of darkness is too heavy for the light of Christ to break through. Thus, we’re continuing to leverage resources to strengthen and unify Haitian families. In these times, we’re reminded of Jeremiah’s heartbreaking, yet hope-filled words from Lamentations 3:19-26:
‘I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”’
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
Jeremiah’s lament challenges those who claim to trust in God to assume a challenging posture–to both grieve what has been lost and trust in God’s inevitable faithfulness. In this way, the cries emerging from Haitians and Haitian-Americans are an echo of what we all feel (albeit on a far smaller scale).
Have you ever experienced the death of a dream?
Have you lost someone you assumed would be by your side indefinitely?
Are you straining to overcome the same struggles that have plagued you for decades?
The Christian life can feel like a constant balancing act between effort and grace. Out of sheer gratitude for the love God has lavishly given us, we gladly leverage all that God has entrusted to us for the sake of His Kingdom.
The Apostle Paul said it this way, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)
But this is all easier said than done. Hope can prove a slippery thing, even when God has proven His faithfulness time and again. Praising God on the mountaintop is always easier than lifting grateful voices from the valley’s shadowy depths.
Over the course of the 25 years I’ve been (imperfectly) following Jesus, I’ve come to recognize a sort of “secret sauce” for clinging to God’s fidelity in the face of uncertainty:
Open-hands
Here’s how things usually go: When we begin struggling or feeling hopeless, our vision narrows and our world shrinks. Upheaval becomes a catalyst to self-centeredness because our trials and tribulations can easily become overwhelming. In these moments, it can be helpful to press “pause”, steady our hearts, and call to mind the moments in our lives when hope dimmed and, against seemingly impossible odds, God came through.
Waking up to God’s fidelity can be an antidote for navel gazing. As we choose to trust, our eyes are opened to the many ways we can serve as an extension of God’s grace in the lives of others.
In the days leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus broke the shocking news to his disciples, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12).
I remember reading this promise for the first time and thinking, I don’t understand. What’s “greater” than breaking death’s grip on humanity by conquering the grave?
But what if, instead of referring to the quality of the miracles His followers would perform, Jesus was speaking to the quantity? Think about it this way: Jesus, for all of his divinity, was a single human being–two hands, two feet, one heart. And yet, the Kingdom Jesus came to inaugurate, in time, would cover the globe. Today over 2.2 billion people consider themselves Christians. The scale of the global Church allows believers to, in a single moment, beat back the work of the Enemy in countless places across the globe (Haiti included).
What if you believed that, in spite of the challenges you’re currently facing, God has got you firmly within His grip of grace? And what if by trusting God with the details of your life, you were freed-up to participate in God’s deliverance for others?
This is not only God’s promise; it’s our calling. No matter what you’re battling, you have something to offer the world. You have something to offer Haiti.
“We are marching against violence, we are marching against kidnapping,”
“We want everyone to hear our voices…We need a solution to Haiti now.”
“This is God’s purpose, and God is going to make a move,”
How might the Spirit of God inspire your heart to respond…for His Kingdom, for Haiti?
