Wow. What a whirlwind the past few days have been.  I just returned from a 5 day trip to Haiti with Soles4Souls and it has taken me a couple of days to digest the images and events I experienced there. 

 

Today, as the 1 year annniversary of the devastating earthquake comes into national focus, the country and the images I see on the news reel mean so much more to me.  And while I’d like to say that so much has changed and improved after the billions that were donated through different NGO’s, it simply hasn’t.  The images from one year ago are not much different from the images I saw a few days ago.

 

I did, however, encounter a few things that I wasn’t quite expecting from the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. 

 

After several days of touring the devastation and distributing shoes, we took some time to visit the kids in a local orphanage in Port-au-Prince.  I found a dusty guitar at the mission we were staying at, so I decided to take it with me, hoping that I might be able to inject some music and life into these poor children’s lives. 

 

Once we arrived, the children at the orphanage seemed to be drawn to our clothes, our hair (blonde hair, green eyes is a rarity down there), and our touch.  These innocent children, whose parents had been taken from them so unfairly, wanted nothing more than a few minutes to be seen by someone. 

 

Then I took out the guitar and thought I would play a few songs. Almost immediately the children swarmed me and one of the little girls who spoke Creole began to sing the chorus of “Open The Eyes of My Heart” in the most beautiful “Creole English” accent I’ve ever heard.  As I started to strum, that one voice became a choir of children and before I could sing the first note, a few turned into 10 or 12.  As I listened to these little souls who had so much taken away from them so unfairly, singing lyrics like ‘open the eyes of my heart lord, I want to see you,’ it changed me. 

 

I mistakenly thought my musical abilities might be able to spark some life into these children, but I immediately realized they were injecting life and true, heartfelt worship into me.  For a brief moment, I humbly understood the joy that God gets from hearing his children sing songs of worship through their circumstances and pain.  It was a life changing moment for me.

 

I went down there believing I would see more devastation than my heart would be able to handle, but I discovered a country where people without shoes and clothing find a reason to genuinely smile.  Despite the mounds of unmoved ruble and unsanitary living conditions, there was a quiet confidence in the eyes of the Haitians that surprised me.  What I saw wasn’t defeat, it was hope.

 

Soles4Souls has provided more than 1 million Haitians with shoes since last year.  You can help me in my journey to support this amazing cause.  I’m hoping to sponsor 100,000 pairs of shoes through my ministry in 2011.

 

For $1 you can put a pair of shoes on the feet of some of the sweetest children in the world.  I wouldn’t walk on the streets of Nashville without a pair of shoes, much less even think about letting my children do the same, but the children of Haiti simply don’t have a choice.  Every time a child steps out of a blue tarp tent, and into the desperate and contaminated streets of Haiti, they are risking everything to walk to church, or to a clean supply of water, by walking barefoot and subjecting themselves to the possibility of deadly diseases.  It’s something that I can’t stand by and let happen when I know how easily it can be changed if YOU and I choose to respond.  When you pledge $1 a child is given hope and chance to go to school or church, where they otherwise are NOT allowed in without shoes. 

It’s as easy as $1 and every little bit helps, so go HERE and be a part of this incredible movement. 

 

Drop me a line too, because I would love to thank you personally!