Reflection for worship - January 27, 2013
In a country with 90% unemployment, crushing poverty, rampant illiteracy – a city crammed with people – many of them living in pieced together tents – it’s not surprising there is violence…

But what is amazing – even miraculous at times is that there is hope, community, faith and caring to an extent that many of us strive for.
Living and working together – praying and hoping together seems the norm…

In the Haitian sugar cutter communities of the Dominican Republic – if someone didn’t have money for medicine or a trip to the hospital, relatives and neighbors made sure it happened.

In worship on a Sunday morning – sometimes in a grand church like the one we worshiped in 2 Sundays ago and sometimes in a pieced together shack with a tin roof heating up in the sun – they often take an offering to support the work of the church – AND THEN an offering for the poor… I look around me and think – who are the poor if not these???

One of the most moving stories I witnessed this last week (January 2013) was when our sweet extremely hard working Mason – Victo – was riding in the car with me. Victo is a husband and a father of nine children. He is skin and bone and those bones ached from the hard work we helped him with last week. He is wirey and strong and hungry and lovely, and skilled and funny and warm and caring…
Victo earned a salary last week – but probably will not for many weeks to come…
It is said that the average Haitian worker earns about $500 a year.

So we’re riding along through the city traffic with Victo – and an emaciated elderly woman comes to the window of the car and asks for money… We ache for her – but we look the other way – it’s a terrible mistake for us whites to hand coins out the window… we can be mobbed in response… But we sit quite awhile in that spot and I am stunned and gratified as Victo reaches into his pocket and takes out a coin – passing it through the window for the old women… First I am shamed – and then I realize that it is right for Victo to give her that coin. His is a faithful churchman and a hard working man – he lives in community and he cares – he will NOT be mobbed as he hands her the coin… But what has he sacrificed to do that…. 

What does mean for ME to sacrifice – what does it mean in Biddeford and Old Orchard – what does it mean in Haiti – how can I lay who I am in the service of God in such a way???