Nehemia on the Haiti situation

This note was written by Nehemia Gordon. I thought it was worth sharing.


Prayers for Haiti

I want to ask everyone who reads this to pray for the people of Haiti. Their country was recently devastated by an earth quake and believe me, life was no picnic there to begin with. I first learned about Haiti in 2007 when I visited that country's neighbor, the Dominican Republic. I stayed at the home of a family in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and was shocked by the level of poverty there. It's one thing to see it on television but an entirely different thing to experience these conditions in real life. I remember going into the shower at the home of my host and wondering why there was a bucket in the shower stall. Then I turned on the water and found out that all the shower head could produce was a fast drizzle. I realized that I was meant to stick the bucket underneath the shower head and wait about 5 minutes until it filled up and then pour the water in the bucket over my head. Another sign of this poverty was the daily blackouts, several times each day, for hours. We would be talking in the living room and all of a sudden find ourselves sitting in the dark. My host's home had a system of giant batteries that would kick in after about a 5-minute delay, providing power to the lights and refrigerator. I spent about a week there and it was only on the last day that I discovered I was staying in the home of a wealthy man! I was then taken to see how the real people live. What I saw that last night left an indelible impression on my soul. As we drove towards the slum where my poor friends lived they kept apologizing for the way their home looked, even before I saw it. I assured them that I was not a snob and did not care. I thought, after all, I've been to Jericho and seen abject poverty. When I finally reached their neighborhood, it made Jericho look like Beverly Hills. I remember driving through the slum at night and being overwhelmed by the darkness. I am used to darkness in rural areas but this was the middle of a densely populated residential neighborhood. It turns out there are blackouts every single night in Santo Domingo during the peak hours of usage. When people return home from work and turn on their electrical appliances the grid collapses. The poor people cannot afford batteries to power their homes during the black outs, so they sit in the dark every single night, huddled around candles if they can afford them. When we arrived at the home of my friends in the poor neighborhood, they were as hospitable as our forefather Abraham, serving me fried plantains and El Presidente beer. They asked if I wanted any water to wash it down but I realized that would probably be a bad idea considering the smell of sewage wafting through the air. I remember that night a little girl grasping her stomach with a look of anguish on her face and whining in Spanish to her father. My translator explained that she had a stomach ache from drinking the water. As we sat by the candle-light talking about Scripture until the wee hours of the morning, I realized how blessed I was to live in a first-world country. We take so many things for granted in the developed countries, like clean drinking water and a reliable supply of electricity. Just these two things put us ahead of a large percentage of the world's population. So what does all of this have to do with Haiti? Well, the Dominican Republic shares an island with Haiti. I remember my hosts in the poor neighborhood of Santo Domingo telling me that they have a big problem in the Dominican Republic with illegal aliens crossing over from Haiti "to get a better life". I remember thinking, if they were coming to the Dominican Republic to get a better life, how bad must things be in Haiti. And now with this recent earth quake things are even worse! Since immigrating to Israel in 1993 I have always been proud to be an Israeli but this recent disaster has made me even prouder. Israel has sent over doctors and medical supplies and is doing their best to help the people of Haiti. The Israeli medical team was supposed to pull out after only a week. Then they reported back that they could not morally leave when there was no one else to provide vital medical care to those injured in the earth quake. So it was decided they would stay for another month. Earlier this week I was overcome with emotion when I walked by a newsstand and saw the headline of one of the local newspapers announce in Hebrew: "Love your neighbor as you love yourself!" Underneath this headline was a picture of Israeli rescue workers pulling a small boy out from the wreckage of a collapsed building. Israel is not helping Haiti because that nation is an ally nor do we ever expect Haiti to be able to reciprocate. Israel is helping because our God commanded us to love our neighbors as well love ourselves. This means that we must treat other the way we would want to be treated ourselves. We are morally obligated to help those in need, just as we would want someone to help us. And these people are desperate for our help!

Nehemia Gordon
Jerusalem, Israel