Well I certainly haven't been using this blog to it's fullest potential. That is an understatement! Life is full and busy in our house with all 5 children home. I am blissfully unaware of how little I actually get to sit down as I soak up the energy, frustration and love each day. Sometimes I still sit back in awe. Wow. You are FINALLY here. You are real. As I touch their face to make sure that I am not actually dreaming. I love my family. Love my kids and say so often, in between raised voices and reprimands. I love each minute. Now, what next? As I reflect on our bustling warm household, our comfy beds and couches and full cupboards, I keep flashing back and his face and it haunts me. Mackenzie....Mackenzie who wanted shoes and cookies. Please. Please mama blanc. One more? Any more? As I shoved all of our airplane treats out of the packed knapsack ready for our flight the next morning. Emptied it's contents through the cement fence that secured our hotel in it's lovely western oasis while the rest of Haiti shriveled in the sun behind it. Then I threw the bag over as well, and another, as I emptied it into their greedy hands. Not greedy in our western sense. No. This greed was desperate. Flowing out of them in a panic that was palpable. Outstretched fingers and watery eyes. Do you have more cookies? No Mackenzie, but I will try.
Fortunately, through our adoption I met a lovely woman named Melinda. She has lived in Haiti since she was 11 years old with her mother Patricia Smith. Together, until fairly recently, they ran HCH, the orphanage from which we adopted our twins. I have witnessed her loving concern for both the children in the home, as well as the people outside the compound in the community. I have had the good fortune to meet them in person, as well as share many phone calls with Melinda. Here is a woman that we should all aim to be just a little bit like. She has devoted herself to living in a third world nation, despite holding an American passport, a nation which happens to be THE poorest in the WORLD, and helping the people there have a better life. She and her husband Massenat run a ministry there, and Melinda, being a registered Nurse, is equipped to medically help the people. She has held too many children knocking on death's door, kept them comfortable, and saved as many as God would allow with her expertise. This woman has never had a haircut or a manicure to my knowledge. I have never seen her in new clothes or wearing makeup. Honestly, she is blessed with beauty anyway, but she would never waste
money frivolously in that way when she could buy food or medicine for
her neighbor. I am pretty certain she has never tasted anything from Starbucks, or even Tim Hortons. She doesn't go shopping for clothes and if she did ever receive something special or nice I would place bets that she gave it away. 
I suppose living in Haiti would do that to you. It is a completely different reality and it has been a real struggle for me to shake this dichotomy since I have been back. Or maybe I should re-think that last statement and rather than try to shake the uncomfortable imagery of a starving nation in juxtaposition with our first world, perhaps I should take a lesson from Melinda, and try harder. Harder to keep those images as a reminder. Not as a tool to berate myself when I head down to Shoppers to buy my face powder, when I am enjoying the sumptuousness of eating out, but to keep as a measure of thanks. And a reminder to give back as a token of my thanks. And really each little token can add up in a lifetime. I write this now as my order of dresses from Modcloth just came in the mail. I am not saying we are perfect and I am far from it, but if we always challenge ourselves and our neigbours to try different ways to help, maybe we actually will, little by little.How can I re-assess my spending and challenge myself in thanks, in honour of the lives who do not have food let alone beds or couches or any social support? How can I prevent what I am already giving from being enough to placate my guilt? I cannot write off those who have nothing just because I am already giving 'X' amount to 'Y'. But how much is enough? I don't know, and believe me I want to turn my back and crawl back into the bubble of our reality just as often as I want to help. I want to be blissfully unaware and go on with a life centered around ME and my family. What we can acquire, what we can get to do, and what luxuries we can afford. But when I remember that the average person in Haiti doesn't even have running water indoors (and quite literally not a pot to piss in), I have to resolve again not to become complacent in my giving. I have to keep challenging myself. Make a conscious decision, maybe one each day, each week. Sacrifice one small indulgence in my life for lives in Haiti.
Sacrifice. It seems so wrong to put it in those terms. My minor luxury for a life changing essential, maybe even a life saving essential. My twin boys has cousins. That it what their birth father said. They were born before my boys. They both died, and that is why he decided to sacrifice his boys to the orphanage, and in turn to us. That is how he put it. Simply. Matter of factly. They died. So he chose life. So yes, yes, I will continue to challenge myself to "sacrifice"...for the twins' birth dad, for their deceased cousins, for Mackenzie.....will you join me?I have started a 60 day campaign on idiegogo.com for Melinda's cause. She and her husband and mother are trying to raise funds to build a medical clinic in the rural area of Roche Plate. Help me by spreading the word to SPREAD THE HEALTH in Haiti.
Click the link below to go to my fundraising page to make a donation. Or/also copy and past the link to help spread the health by spreading the word! I thank you for it, but Haiti thanks you more... xo
http://igg.me/at/spreadthehealthinhaiti/x/2339093
