I haven't come to grips with why it was such a bummer before I left, It was just Valentines day and yet my heart and mind couldn't let go of it. You see while several other friends I knew were celebrating their relationships and love, I was on an airplane celebrating clean water to drink, and air conditioning.
Its amazing, never once in Haiti did I even think to ask anyone there what their Valentines Day looked like. It just wasn't even an issue...I knew from day 1 that they weren't focused on it.
Since i've been back, it has began to grow on me, why in America so much celebration of love between two individuals, and yet, so little love for the brothers and sisters in Haiti. This sounds extreme, one friend who was recently married did a small getaway for he and his new wife, wanted to make his first valentines day special.
Meanwhile in Haiti, a new couple maybe married 4 or 5 months, spend their entire Valentines day trying to get clean water just so they can survive. Its interesting isn't it. One couple so engaged in love that they go to a getaway for V-Day, another couple just an Island away, so in love they spend their time surviving. Many would say the couple in America is more blessed, I used to agree, but I can't anymore.
What gets me about the people of Haiti, is people like pastor Jeante' who lost everything materially in his house, everything collapsed, and yet his Valentines day consisted of feeding starving children in an orphanage alongside his wife. No flowers, no nice dinner, in fact no dinner at all. Yet among all this a joy unspeakable that I have never seen in America. I mean enduring Joy. A joy rooted in deep eternal promises of Gods word. I began to cry as I saw his house...he lost everything... he lost nothing... I began to realize the reason he wasn't sad about all he had lost in the Earthquake, it is because all he had he already had considered loss...Why?... compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus. So when the Earthquake came it was no loss, for he already had counted it loss, he just clung to all he had Jesus Christ.
As he and his wife serve 80 more orphans than before the earthquake, I began to think...I wish my Valentines day were as special as theirs was. I no longer was thinking about the special gifts and notes I was going to send, rather I began to envy the deep joy and biblical center of this couples Valentines Day. They considered everything as loss on Valentines Day except for knowing Christ.
I am thankful that God saved me from Valentines Day and am hopefull that someday I might too...enjoy Valentines without Flowers or without a meal. And with empty stomachs one day cry with my Wife "God is Enough" O that that type of Valentines Day might Come.
