JUSTICE.
I have been home in Haiti for about 6 weeks, and it easily feels like 6 years already with all that has happened. I had some difficult situations in my first month back. I am in a fight to get paperwork finished on my car so I can use it, I have helped a 15 year old girl deliver a stillborn baby, I have found placement for an infant in Jubilee with no good options for a caregiver, and I have fought to quickly learn how to actually do the job I have been given. All without consistent power, might I add. It's been a month. But nothing has stuck with me more than one specific boy who came to our clinic in September. Sparing the details and the long stories, it was clear that this sweet boy was gravely ill, and it wasn't long before tests led us to suspect leukemia(There is no official diagnosis at this time.)
A 9 year old boy living in Jubilee with leukemia, it was too much for my heart to take in. A child in Jubilee loses their chance at a traditional childhood within the first couple years. The hardships of life here are felt by our babies at an early age, far too early. By the time they are able to walk they are expected to contribute to the household, even if that only means caring for themselves at times. They face the uncontrollable storms and weather in tin houses, they feel the grief of death that is all too common here, they have no guarantee when or where their next meal is coming from; they live in the trash dump, where most Haitians in the city won't even go. Our children here must fight with all the resiliency they have just to get into school, and give themselves a hope of breaking the cycles of poverty seen in Jubilee. There is no such thing as a carefree childhood here.
To imagine all of this, all that our babies fight against, and to add leukemia to that. It's too much, it's too unfair, where is the justice?!
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Last March, an incredible team came to us from Bethel School of Ministry. They prayed, worshipped, and prophesied over us - and I was so blessed to receive almost an hours worth of prophesy, words of encouragement, and direction. One of the words that hit me hardest though, was the word JUSTICE, as a young girl prophesied that I would fight to bring justice to the area of Jubilee.
It sounds great, why wouldn't I want to be a part of that?! But I never took it very seriously. When I think of justice my brain associates it with casting judgement, with court processes, with black and white, right and wrong, and as a girl who has mastered living life in the grey space, the prophesy that I would bring justice to people here didn't seem to fit.
I remembered this prophesy this morning, as I sit reflecting on everything that has happened in just 6 weeks that I have been back in Haiti. I remembered that word, JUSTICE, and I looked up the definition online.
God has placed it strongly on my heart that I am to give this boy everything. Everything I have. Every resource, all my money, all my time, it is his. I have never before felt so strongly tied to a child, or a family I have worked with. But this situation has wrecked me - God has broken my heart for what has broken His own. When I learned of the case, I think I spent a week just crying at random moments. A close friend of mine justified this by saying, "If you aren't crying for him, who will?"
I am realizing that this is my job now. The role of social worker, in general, is to fill in the missing pieces, to make connections to resources that people may not have otherwise. In Jubilee, the role of social worker is going to be deeply seeing and feeling the weight of unfair circumstances, the injustice, the inequality felt in Jubilee, and connect it to the Kingdom, where justice can be found.
A 9 year old boy living in Jubilee with leukemia, it was too much for my heart to take in. A child in Jubilee loses their chance at a traditional childhood within the first couple years. The hardships of life here are felt by our babies at an early age, far too early. By the time they are able to walk they are expected to contribute to the household, even if that only means caring for themselves at times. They face the uncontrollable storms and weather in tin houses, they feel the grief of death that is all too common here, they have no guarantee when or where their next meal is coming from; they live in the trash dump, where most Haitians in the city won't even go. Our children here must fight with all the resiliency they have just to get into school, and give themselves a hope of breaking the cycles of poverty seen in Jubilee. There is no such thing as a carefree childhood here.
To imagine all of this, all that our babies fight against, and to add leukemia to that. It's too much, it's too unfair, where is the justice?!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last March, an incredible team came to us from Bethel School of Ministry. They prayed, worshipped, and prophesied over us - and I was so blessed to receive almost an hours worth of prophesy, words of encouragement, and direction. One of the words that hit me hardest though, was the word JUSTICE, as a young girl prophesied that I would fight to bring justice to the area of Jubilee.
It sounds great, why wouldn't I want to be a part of that?! But I never took it very seriously. When I think of justice my brain associates it with casting judgement, with court processes, with black and white, right and wrong, and as a girl who has mastered living life in the grey space, the prophesy that I would bring justice to people here didn't seem to fit.
I remembered this prophesy this morning, as I sit reflecting on everything that has happened in just 6 weeks that I have been back in Haiti. I remembered that word, JUSTICE, and I looked up the definition online.
Justice: noun, the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moralrightness:to uphold the justice of a cause.
Now that I can get behind. to uphold the justice of a cause, to fight for and maintain moral rightness. Fairness, equality. Suddenly, that word is coming back to me and it's starting to feel like it fits. Especially now that it carries the face of our sick 9 year old boy.God has placed it strongly on my heart that I am to give this boy everything. Everything I have. Every resource, all my money, all my time, it is his. I have never before felt so strongly tied to a child, or a family I have worked with. But this situation has wrecked me - God has broken my heart for what has broken His own. When I learned of the case, I think I spent a week just crying at random moments. A close friend of mine justified this by saying, "If you aren't crying for him, who will?"
I am realizing that this is my job now. The role of social worker, in general, is to fill in the missing pieces, to make connections to resources that people may not have otherwise. In Jubilee, the role of social worker is going to be deeply seeing and feeling the weight of unfair circumstances, the injustice, the inequality felt in Jubilee, and connect it to the Kingdom, where justice can be found.
