Did It Smell Bad?

Several people have asked, "did it smell bad"?
If they are asking, did I walk around with tooth paste under my nose because it smelled like dead bodies, the answer is no.
No, it didn't smell like dead bodies and no, I didn't walk around with tooth paste under my nose like the Haitians.
This is Haiti, yes, it smelled bad, it always smells bad.
The earthquake didn't make it smell bad, it smelled bad before the earthquake.
We are talking open sewers, rotten fruit and garbage, burning trash and no place to put the garbage that is collected.
There are dumpsters and garbage trucks in Haiti, but you have to actually pick up the garbage and put is some place for it to be a good thing.
Maybe they should try and be sneaky by hiding it all under grass like they do it South Florida.
In Haiti, they just happened to build a city on top of it.
It's true, eight miles of trash, as a matter a fact.
No one is saying it's a good thing, yet it is reported that 300,000 living, breathing human beings live there.
Think about how low the baseline must be for the health of the children who live in Cité Soleil.

But, in an area regarded as one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the Western Hemisphere's poorest country and one of the biggest slums in the Northern Hemisphere with little police presence, no sewers, no stores, and little to no electricity, two men and a handful of people made a stand to renounce voodoo and ask Jesus to come and be in this place.

After three days of prayer and fasting the country was busy again, we would make a run on the medical truck into Cité Soleil. With clinic in progress, two guys walked up not far behind our truck, threw a voodoo bag down on the ground, started a fire on the bag, burning an exposed bottle of rum and it's other contents as a coconut rolled out of the bag into the street. They took out bibles from the pants pockets and everyone started to pray.
Let me just say, I didn't break out in song declaring how good God was, nor did I give Him a clap offering!
Don't get me wrong, I think God is one great guy!
He has his act together, he has a wicked funny scenes of humor and I am pretty sure he has a plan.
No, I know he has a plan, I read the last chapter of the book.
However, my first thought was... great, just great, I am in Cité Soleil with a truck full of white people and we are going to be in the middle of a frickin' riot!
I very quickly tucked my camera inside my baseball cap and didn't move.
Priorities, I have them!
I wanted to keep my camera and I wasn't gonna be a happy camper if I didn't.
Reynold and Oriole, our security guys both looked at me.
Why would they looked at me? Well, I know why they looked at me.
They both stood up, told me to get up and walked me over so I could take pictures!
I had been by myself all day and now they wanted to be my security, or maybe I was theirs, I'm not sure.
The funny part is they wanted to look at my pictures as soon as I took them, they really think the camera can capture stuff.
Needless to say when they started praying with the voodoo guys I punched them.
"What on earth do you think you are doing!"
I grilled them!
I needed to really understand what was happening.
I have been working in Haiti long enough to know a few things, but there are lots of secrets and lots of things I don't understand. You learn to ask questions twenty-five different ways.
And I did!
Again and again until I understood.

At this point, I had forgotten about the smell, I felt like I was the one that smelled bad!
Everything about me smelled bad, all my good American ideas, my bad attitude because someone took my water bottle out of my bag, my lame excuses about a hundred different things.
I was embarrassed that my country, for all the good that is here, would never shut down the whole entire place for three days to pray and fast, asking God to come and help.
With all Haiti's faults, bad government, crummy adoption rules, I wished someone could bottle what these people had and give it to the rest of the world. The world would be a much different place, a better place.
Would it smell better?
Not right away, change takes time,
The Lord says, if my people are willing to repent and turn from their ways, he is willing to come and heal their land.