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(Note to readers: Jared Witt was among the ELCA seminary students in Haiti for a  January term course when an earthquake struck.)

“Why I Need Haiti”

By Jared Witt
Student, Trinity Lutheran Seminary

In seminary we use a lot of words — words about God.  But it would be difficult for me to explain with mere words why I need Haiti in order to really know God.

It would be difficult to explain why I need to go to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to experience true wealth. It would be difficult to explain why I need Haitian Creole to help me understand the scriptures as well as any biblical language I might learn in school.

It would be difficult to explain why I need the gentle smile of an elderly woman on an overcrowded airstrip in Jacmel to show me how an empty tomb changes everything.  I could never explain these things, but I can at least tell a story.

(CONTINUED)

Two years ago, on my first visit to Trinity House (a home for boys and day-school for the children of Jacmel with which the Haitian Timoun Foundation partners), I was watching a pickup basketball game that the boys were playing one afternoon and found myself struck dumb with what I saw.

One of the younger boys, Dadzi, is blind, and every couple minutes or so the others (all pre- and early teen boys, mind you) would halt the game for a moment, hand the ball to Dadzi, direct him to the hoop, and allow him to shoot, after which he would laugh uncontrollably.  I watched this go on for about 15 minutes, until finally, I found it unbearable not to join the game myself.

Often in Haiti kids play soccer, a sport way out of my comfort zone, so if I get invited to play, it’s solely for the sake of laughter. But because I’ve been a few times around a basketball court, they joyfully welcomed my intrusion, and the match-ups quickly deteriorated until an even five on five became 10 Haitian kids versus one large blanc (a Creole word meaning “white,” “foreign,” or generally awkward looking).

At one point the game stopped, as it normally did for Dadzi, but instead of just handing the ball to Dadzi, the others started motioning for me to do something. Eventually, I figured out that they were wanting me to lift Dadzi onto my shoulder so he could dunk the ball.  I did, he did, and this became the new ritual until a bell rang and the boys had to run inside for dinner.

Before leaving the court, though, I felt two little arms wrap themselves around my waist, and I looked down to see that it was Dadzi, giving me one last hug before dinner.  Then an older boy gently grabbed his hand and directed him indoors.

I’d played many, many basketball games in my lifetime. I’d won some. I’d lost a bunch. But never before had I cried after one.  At first I was puzzled by my tears. I certainly wasn’t crying because I was sad; in fact I’d never felt a joy so deep in all my life.

I guess I was only reacting the one truly rational way that one can react when one has just experienced the overpowering, wonder of the reign of God up close.  Nothing else can really demonstrate a feeling so whole and so true.

Although I can’t explain it in mere words, this is why I need Haiti. That day I was lifting Dadzi up physically to dunk a basketball, but it was he that was lifting me up spiritually.  He lifted me up high enough that I could no longer look down at the Earth below and see who was rich or who was poor. I could no longer see privileged or oppressed, black or white.

He lifted me up high enough to see over the mountains of Haiti, across the Caribbean, through the swamps of Florida and the southeastern forests, to the plains of the Midwest, all the way to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Dadzi lifted me up high enough to see that, from the time I was born to the time I boarded my first plane to Haiti, we had been brothers all along.  He showed me the reign of God.

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Special thanks to Jared Witt and Dr. Brad Binau of Trinity Lutheran Seminary.

Thank you for visiting Pretty Good Lutherans. Come again!

Tags: Binau, Haiti, Holy Trinity, Jared Witt

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 4:16 am and is filed under Colleges & Seminaries, Disaster Relief. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.