Touch

Haiti has touched my soul forever and I hope I have left a stamp in the Haitian’s hearts I met. On a normal day at work, I go in with the mindset that I am going to touch patients’ lives, I am going to make an impact whether small or large that hopefully stays with them. Not necessarily that they remember my name, but more that they remember my actions towards them. I hope that they take away how I cared for them with my actions in a vulnerable time of their life due to their sickness. That is the kind of mindset I went when traveling to Haiti. I went to Haiti with the desire to be changed and for the better. There is no way of really describing everything that happened there in words, but I will try to do my best to paint how I felt throughout this pilgrimage.

The children at Ecole de L’enfant Jesus were always loving. At recess, children took my hand in theirs and took me to play games. First it was jump rope, then it was running and next it was tennis in a hallway. But the most important part is that the children took my hand. They reached out to me and I received their love. It was so accepting, like any other child. Even though language and cultural barriers were present, neither one of us let that stop us from trying to reach out to each other. We attempted to communicate by demonstration and by the few words we knew of each other’s language. Even though there were many barriers, the point is there was effort on each side. We tried to understand each other.

Every day the children were in school, there was one particular kid that would reach out and help me. He had to be around 7 years of age at least. The child would see that I was struggling to carry the three items in my hands and he would reach out to help me. No words were exchanged, but a smile of thank you. The other times the child would grab my hand not to take me anywhere, but to simply hold my hand. It was as if no communication was necessary. A simple touch was all that was needed.

Something so small is overlooked by most individuals. God shows us love in so many ways and sometimes we are too caught up in the chaos to realize that life is about the simple moments. I will never truly know what all the natural disasters and daily dangers these kids have experienced actually feel like. What I do know is that when I was there, I was open to their lifestyles and that I chose to be in the moment. This is the stamp they left on my heart. I pray that I left a similar stamp on their hearts.