Covered in flies

Walking through the market is not for the faint of heart.

For starters, you must love heat, because boy, oh boy, is it hot! And you certainly must not be troubled by large crowds and tight spaces, claustrophobes need not apply! And if you have sensory processing issues, or simply tend to prefer organization to chaos, you probably shouldn't go downtown to the market either, let alone, Haiti in general.

There's an exhilaration that comes from hearing the roars of motos, the forceful chants of "blanc! Blanc!" bidding you to buy from them, the bananas being shoved in your face as one vendor vies for your attention. There's an excitement produced when negotiating the best prices on avocados (I get 8 large ones for about $1.25... Oh yes! And we eat them in about 3 days time), or comparing the lot of one vendor to the lady next to her. One moment your eyes are filled with the popping colors of peppers and tomatoes and pineapple and greatfruit, the next, you're backed up to charcoal and live chickens, bound at the feet and pleading for mercy at the feet of every passer-by.

And dare you be brave enough to visit the meat market.... Be prepared for the onslaught of offense to your senses. The foul odors may induce involuntary gagging, but your more than likely to vomit by the sheer sight and thought of the intestines spilling out on tables before you, the putrid odor as thick as the flies that surround every cut of meat.

I have a strange addiction to the market. The over-stimulation, the refusal to back down from confronting you with the raw and the ugly and the barebones; that is the center of Haiti's character. Whether it be the meat, the sewage, or the poverty, it can be nothing more than raw.

Im not sure what it is that draws me in. Certainly, it's far different than my love affair with France, or my longing for a Pacific holiday on the coast of Costa Rica. Haiti is, for me at least, like stepping into the market: it's a full on assault to your senses, and you either choose to vomit and run, or to embrace it. I've learned to embrace it, and to navigate my way through it, stepping in as few piles of questionable muck as possible.

When you look beyond the heaping piles of burning trash, the mangey goats and dogs that over-populate every main road, and the roadside canals of incomprehensible, unsanitary water, you are able to witness the beauty. But you can't appreciate the beauty of the mountain tops, the pristine and well-preserved coastline, the plethora of papuya, plantain, and passion fruit trees without first recognizing the deep gap between the beauty and the brokenness.

As a believer and follower of Christ, I can so relate this to my faith. As Christ taught, to those who once owed much, those deeply in debt, those dirty in the eyes of many and themselves, to those beyond hope of fixing their own sin-- it's to those that much is forgiven. The depravity, the void, the gap between our own raw sewage and the sacred holiness of Heaven is a canyon so wide not one of us could ever cross it. But one man did bridge that canyon, and with a Cross indeed.

When I am confronted by the dark, ugly, unsanitary parts of Haiti, something in my heart resonates. It's as if my soul recognizes that without Christ, I resemble much of what I see here. And as I can take in the beauty evening sky as it rolls in from the coast and over the mountains, as I see the unperverted beauty of small-town flora and fauna, as I lay peacefully on a beach underneath a coconut palm with the waves crashing at my feet, I understand the beauty of grace, and the glory that can only be attributed to Christ alone.

Haiti gives little mercy for the dark parts of my heart. When the things I can hide behind, even the good things, are removed, my brokenness is exposed, much like the bones beneath the sagging skin of the frail widow in her mud-and-tin home. There's an impossibility to ignore my own brokenness and my own need for a savior. Every ounce of selfishness pours from my skin, like liters of sweat at high-noon, until I'm sitting in a pool of it and unsure how to ever rid myself of the stench and become dry. The heat reminds me of my weakness, and how I lack the propensity to endure physical labor. When the sounds of the night run quiet from the hustle of the day and the noticeable lack of sound where the generator used to run and the fans used to hum, my mind is reminded of my dependency on comfort and my disappointment when I realize I have to suffer through the still of the night, fighting off the Mosquitos within my net and the sweat collecting at the small of my back and soaking into my sheets. I scoff at the thought, yet forget to be thankful in all things, like, having a net. Or sheets. Or a bed and a room and a roof. And a fan on most nights and relief from the heat when i seek it.

And its here, at these moments that I fully realize my depravity, when nothing more than my inclination to seek Him and cling to Him remains.

And instead of Him calling me to dwell on my brokenness, He calls me to survey the view around me. To glorify Him for the beauty of His creation. To pray over little ones in His name. To declare that the ugliness of my sin, although still there, is overcome by His power and grace. He calls me to draw away from the moment and to worship Him. To consider the Cross, to meditate on the beauty of grace while sitting beneath the beauty of a cool, Caribbean night sky. He showers me with His love, even when i still feel as if I'm covered in the muck from the canal behind the latrines. Sitting in His presence, I become aware that His shower is not only love, it is a cleansing flood that declares me holy and righteous. And knowing how dirty I am, and once was, I'm beyond amazed that He would desire me to even crawl humbly into His presence.

He doesn't see me as the garbage that washes up in heaps upon the shoreline; He views me as clean as the pristine, pay-beaches. And being here, in Haiti, for some reason forces me into confronting the dirt and poverty of heart in my own life, just as most people would judge the juxtaposition of garbage, grace, and goodness in this adulterated and overlooked island nation.

If my life is any inclination of His redemption, I have one word for you Haiti: hope. There is such hope for you, Haiti.