Paradigm Shift

A typical city scape: A market in Petionville

This move to Haiti has involved an immersion into Missionarydom. My life is swarming with foreign missionaries! My friends are foreign missionaries! I go to church with foreign missionaries- the faces that hang on your fridges at home, “Pray for the _____s,” these are the folks with whom I converse, worship, work, and play. It makes life interesting indeed.

“What do you do?” is the common question at social engagements in the states. “I’m a teacher,” “I drive trucks,” “I’m a doctor,” “I stay at home with my kids…” The question and responses suit the context. Here, in this context, although we do not phrase the Question in this way, we could just as appropriately ask, “So in what way are you saving lives?” and the regular responses would include… “I run a feeding program,” “I nurse kids in the ghetto,” I’m teaching women about STDs and prenatal health,” “My husband and I train church leaders,” “We run an orphanage…”

What a humbling contrast to consider, one I can hardly get my mind around. These peoples’ daily work involves saving lives! And I find myself still thinking in stateside terms: “What am I going to be when I grow up?” …