Saying Goodbye
“and you shall not glean your vineyard and you shall not gather what has been left of your vineyard: you shall leave them to the poor and the alien; I am YHWH your Elohim.” Leviticus 19:10
Poor – We glean. We reap. We take everything we can get. Capitalism without holiness results in wrath. It pollutes the earth and the people on the earth. Just as Leviticus instructs us that the manifestation of holiness within the family results in protection and provision, so it instructs us that societal holiness cares for the poor and the stranger. But when the society gleans everything it can, some are turned away empty-handed. There is no holiness in accumulation without conscience.
Haiti is a place of death – slow or swift, it doesn’t matter much. 97% of the water will make you sick. Diarrhea is the most common cause of infant death. Malnutrition and starvation take their toll. One in five children die before the age of six. Twenty percent of the population has tuberculosis. In ten years, Haiti will be a mass grave. The world has abandoned Haiti. It has nothing for the world to glean. It is filled with the poor – the ani – the oppressed, destitute and destroyed.
Three years ago I met these children. When I took their pictures, I was saying goodbye. Some are already dead. The world doesn’t care about this harvest. What does the manifestation of holiness look like here? How many presents were under their tree?
Want to make a difference to real people like this? Talk to Scott.
scottmandl@aol.com
Executive Director of Christian Flights International, a reader of Today’s Word and the man who introduced me to these wonderful children in Ranquitte, Haiti.
Topical Index: ani, Haiti, holiness, poor, Leviticus 19:10
New Missions, P.O. BOX 2727, Orlando, Florida 32802, also has a complex in Leogane, Haiti that clothes, feeds, and educates children both spiritually and academically. Many of these kids have grown up and become missionaries helping the people of their own country. You can get infor about ‘adopting’ a kid for $30 a month at 407-240-4058. I am sure New Missions can be googled too as their news letter comes electronically. Of course we have dirt poor too in our own city/states but they at least have resources to get food and medicine that a lot of these kids don’t get.
It’s http:www.newmissions.org/
I started a Childrens Home in Grand Goave Haiti called Heart to Heart Childrens Home in Haiti in 1992, it has grown from 3 kids needing some food to over 100 in a new Chidrens Home, with an elementery school teaching more than 400 kids everyday, and giving them a meal at noon. Th teachers are young men and women who were raised in our ‘Home’ and are now giving back to it.
I know Haiti is very poor and without Christian NGO’s it would not survive, however we are making a dent into their plight…..One of the guys that came to Canada for training has gone back to start a Technical school in the same town look up http://www.haitiarise.org
Blessings to you ……Claire Roberts