Living Haiti

I read a lot...

I've always loved reading. Well, at least I feel that way...I'm sure there were times as a child when I hated to read, but I don't remember those times. Since being here I have finished two books. (Eat, Pray, Love, which I did not enjoy too terribly much. You can skip it probably. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't my favorite book of all time...and the White Queen, a historal fiction piece on the royal family in England before the Tudors...it was ok, but I wouldn't tell anyone to run out and buy it either.) I'm partway through two other books as well, Madame Bovary and When Helping Hurts. I packed up a whole lot of books that I've wanted to read for a long time, and books others have suggested.

I also spend a lot of time reading things online...blogs, news sites, the weatherchannel.com...all sorts of things. I follow a lot of Haiti news online, and I read a lot of blogs from people who work/worked in Haiti. Usually they say things that I think are so profound, and then I look at what I write and think, "man. I have no idea what I'm talking about."

Sometimes I wish I had great thoughts to spill out here for you to read...but sometimes I'm afraid to say anything about Haiti...to give my take on things, because someone down the line will google Haiti and find this blog and think I know what I'm talking about. When the reality is, none of us know what we're talking about. The people I like to read from Haiti who are folks who struggle every day and still say they have more to learn than they already know.

Henry David Thoreau is attributed as saying, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." I guess I want to busy myself with the standing up to live part...I just wish that sometimes I had something a little more profound to share. Believe me...I think about loving orphans and defending the fatherless a million times a day. I think about adoption and if it's better the adopt internationally or keep kids in their birth culture. I think about the church and how it shows mercy and serves the world. I think about government and how it could and maybe should work for the people. I think about Haiti...and wonder how they are ever going to dig out from this crazy time. I think about people in tents. I think about giving them houses. I think about my life as a North American, and United States Citizen. I think about my responsibility as a member of the global community. I think about international aid. It's no wonder that at the end of the day, I'm convinced of the fact that I have so much to learn.

I had a professor once who said something like, "I was dumber at 30 than I was at 19." He was saying that when you're nineteen you think you know everything, and by 30 you have realized there is so much you just don't know. I am two sleeps away from my 30th birthday...and I feel what my professor told me so many years ago. But I am eager to learn and glad to have been given this opportunity to live and serve in this country. I know it is a blessing and a privilege.