Today was loaded. It started out as I was waiting for some of my hair appointments to show up and I asked a couple of the ladies if they would let me color their hair- just to get the experience. Their eyes lit up at the idea of having a relaxer and a couple foils thrown in, but quickly they reminded me that if they did that, they would not be allowed in the church. I try to bite my tongue as hard as I can in moments like this.
Despite all of the debauchery that goes on here, Haiti is a very conservative culture. I don’t even think that the people themselves are conservative as much as the institutions- churches, schools etc… So one must conform in order to be accepted. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from street kids that they can’t go to church because they don’t have shoes, or suitable clothes. THANK YOU Missionaries (a hint of sarcasm) for teaching them the all important legalism that has kept all of us bound up in religion for years…. what Bible were you reading when you taught Haitians that they have to wear a doily on their head in order for God to hear them? This is in essence the most ANTI-christ thing that goes on in Haiti in my humble opinion. Didn’t he come to set us free from that? Wasn’t this the guy who didn’t reprimand his disciples from picking grain on saturday? What happened to the God of the broken, the poor, the ragged, the torn down. Is that not what Haiti needs? A God who scoops up the broken pieces and doesn’t turn his nose up at stinky street children? This is a no brainer and yet we are so far off of this undestanding of this tangible accepting God.. at least in my circles.
And yet I live and work in this culture that just isn’t fair. I can’t overthrow the system and so I bite my tongue.
Today Jaqueline showed up at my house sobbing. She had been picked up by the neck and thrown down on the ground repeatedly by her drunk husband because he forgot that she had indeed asked permission to go downtown to shop. She had taken a little longer than usual because she had ran into Makensia (my pregnant girl with twins) and had walked with her in order to help her. By the time they got home, Serlo- Makensia’s guy was in a rage because Makensia had gone downtown and had threatened to kill Jaqueline for going downtown with her. That is when Jaqueline’s husband beat her for embarrasing him and threatened to cut her arms off if she ever came home. Meanwhile the rest of the day, Makensia and Serlo ( about to have twins) were about the situation and the fact that Serlo had stolen Makensia’s money to buy tin for his mom’s roof.
How is any of this fair? How is it that they are forced to live out a shallow charade of Chrisitanity in order to be acceptable, and yet have such deep soul thirst for the living God that cannot find it’s fulfillment in legalism. How is it that I could go to their church in cut-off jeans, dyed hair, nose ring and sporting tattoos and they wouldn’t say boo, but a Haitian single mom living in the mud would be thrown out because her clothes aren’t clean enough.
How is it that women all over the world are in such a precarious position in life. YES! We American women have it SOOOOO good compared to 90% of the rest of the world. We are treated so much more fairly. I don’t even have words to go there.
How is it that a man has to steal money from his pregnant lady in order to put a roof over his aging mom’s head because of the terrible devestation in this country.
How is any of this fair? or right? or justifiable?
It’s not. It really isn’t.
I ponder these things regularly and can only find one place of hope…
My hope lies in a good king whose agenda is to turn the tables and take what is lowly and make it high, and put those who are last and make them first, and who sees the injustice of the world and cries alongside of us.. and has imparted in some small way, his heart to me. And that is where I get the motivation to do what I do. The king in me. The king who scoops up street children, and get scabies regularly from holding dirty babies, and walks and talks with the poor and would rather be outside the church with the people who don’t fit in than inside the church with the doily girls who think they are so noble, and who wants to see restoration and knows that it is only a miracle that can make any of this better.. but in the mean time will sit and cry and love alongside. That is my king and that is my hope.