Let me continue by saying, although Shelley-Ann's heart has been for missions, she’s never actually had experience working in the field – well, not that I know of. She now completely understands why there are few people who feel called to do Missions....
"Who could keep up this pace for any length of time??" she says. She affectionately nicknamed Pastor Iris "Iris 'wastes no time' Hernandez!! That woman does not stop moving if she can help it."
Shelley-Ann went to Valiente and mentioned that it was fantastic. She says the kids were simply fabulous!! They put on several dances and sang many songs. They were young but they were like little dynamos!" She was able to to speak to the kids a little bit and although she didn't tell me what was said, I can imagine that she inspired and encouraged them to be their best selves.
She mentioned that the poverty of the kids was evident and that the church which is their main meeting place was basically a poured concrete floor and wood walls.
She talked about how there was only one light bulb hanging somewhat precariously from the ceiling. Pastor Iris explained that they were just recently able to provide electricity for these children and they were so proud of the light! Everyone brought a flashlight though just in case the generator ran out.
When reading her note, I started to think about how privileged I am and that I take everything for granted.
I remember last year sometime that the electricity went off. I was beside myself with confusion….. and was not impressed that they (whoever they were) waited until it was getting dark to cause the light to go away. I grumbled as I scrounged around to find the candles that are always so elusive when I really need them. That wasn’t all, the TV wasn’t working, the radio wasn’t working…. now what? What am I suppose to do?
When was the last time you turned on the light and didn’t expect it to come on? In 2003 when power was gone for days maybe?.
These children didn’t even have light much less have the chance to expect it.
Shelley-Ann shared with me that it is not unusual for the power to be gone for hours at a time, every day, at certain times of the day. I puzzled over that for a while because I know that there is a lot of tourism there yet the locals sometimes don’t have electricity daily? I can only imagine why.She also went to La Romana and described it as ‘REAL poverty’. and indicated that “it's hard to explain”. I read through several articles myself on the internet and Haiti has been described by the majority of the articles as “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” When she was talking about the poverty in Romana, all I could think was, oh boy, she’s going to see more REAL poverty today when she lands in Port Au Prince.
