Challenging perspective - maybe I don't understand a gift.

I don’t understand. I don’t know why but I don’t understand. Do you ever just decide to buy something for your friends, neighbors, or family for no reason? Maybe once in awhile you do. I guess on occasion sometimes I have. So why, why am I brought to tears now by a friend of mine in Haiti. He came to get water at our Center for Living Media. He had a black sack in his hands that was on the seat beside him. He goes back and forth to the city often; and often times he picks up some rice and beans at DiMez. So my first thought at 1:00pm, having not eaten lunch yet was –“Yes! he has some extra rice and beans to share with me!” As I am getting hungry and didn’t think to bring anything with me and it isn’t like there is a McDonalds in the neighborhood.

Of course I was trying not to be excited as he was playing with the sack and saying ‘I have something for you. This is for you.” I take the sack and it is shoes. Shoes? What? – odd. My second thought was I don’t really need shoes, but that was nice – maybe I can give them to one of my family members. But he said he saw them and said ‘Angelica needs those for the mud.’ It is true as we are starting on rainy season here. The mud sticks to my shoes very badly. He made sure to tell me too, they were not for my family members but for me. This was funny because I was irritated with Haiti this morning; in Haiti everyone shares shoes, in your household if you see a pair of shoes there you can just where them. My shoes were borrowed by Eugenie yesterday during the rain storm and were now on the feet of a cousin of theirs who I met yesterday. Now granted I have sort of tried to get used to this but seeing your shoes on a strangers feet is sort of odd.

Picture taken from Terry Dewald's team in Feb 2011 at an orphanage in Jacmel.

So back to the shoes, they are nice shoes and I continue to be perplexed. Why? And yet my heart says and why not Angelica, he is a friend of yours and decided it would be nice to buy you a pair of shoes. I strive for equality in Haiti; it is something that I constantly struggle fighting against. However, with a long history of ‘white’ coming in and giving, giving; it is expected. Also, because of this it has set up this idea that ‘Foreign’ things are better than Haitian things. Which saddens me and is something I work to change; however the sick feeling in the bottom of my stomach and the uneasiness of my heart tells me maybe I don’t see things 100% equal too.

We are so ingrained to view the world in such a way and it is interesting and often times perplexing when our view point is challenged. I feel I am pretty open minded and try to look at the world justly. Then why do I feel uncomfortable and wonderful in these new shoes I am wearing? I have phrases running through my head such as ‘What did I do to deserve these?’ ‘What is he wanting in return?’ and ‘I should really give these to someone else, who needs them more’ and ‘I am such a jerk for thinking those thoughts about other people taking my shoes and wearing them.’ I also think of the sometimes silly things that Jesus used to do. Oh, now we don’t look at them as silly, they are wonderful philosophies of looking at the world. But back in the day they were viewed as odd. Why would a Samaritan help a Jew? Why would you talk to a prostitute? And why would a Haitian give an American a pair of shoes? …..Because it is just the way you love! You love all people – not for a reason. Not for future gain, not because someone loved you first; (Although someone did love you first.)  you just LOVE.
Crazy, Silly, Perplexing and Odd isn’t it?