Jumping Hurdles

 

Whenever I am here in the States I never consider myself a huge kid person. There are a couple here and there that I've bonded with, but I've never gone out of my way to be around a child or to play with some. So I've found it a bit strange that anytime I visit Haiti it never fails that I find myself attached to the children. Their love is truly infectious and I can't help but show my whole heart to them when I'm there.

In years past I've only been able to play with the children during recess time in summer school, but then they go home for the evening and I find myself a bit lonelier in their absence. This time, however, Sherrie had nearly 40 orphans living with her, so I had the chance to reconnect with a couple of former students, seriously bond with a few and play to my hearts content with the rest. I was in heaven.

This also proved a serious problem to me: guilt for leaving. These children see people come and go every month nearly all year round. They don't have a lot of consistency of love shown to them except what they show within their own group and from Sherrie and her staff. Granted, they are taken care of. Sherrie is quite the mother hen and provides for all 40 of them to the best of her ability, but most of these children have suffered terrible loses either from death of family or full-on abandonment because their family couldn't support them. That pounds a heavy hit on a child, and when a group of "wealthy" Americans comes in to provide some help and show them some love, only to leave them in a week or two after getting attached, well... that hardly seems fair.

I try to give these kids everything I've got when I'm there. I don't like to hold back. It pains me to see some of them shy away from me for the first few days I'm in town, then finally open up to me, only to get angry or sad and refuse me a farewell hug or say goodbye because I'm just another American leaving again. Some of them don't even try to open up, and I think that wounds me more than the former. I try not to feel guilty, I try to tell myself that it's not my problem- I've done some good there, and they already trust and know love from loving each other. Somehow that still doesn't feel like it should be enough. They deserve more. I know I can always visit, but in the end I'm always leaving.

In the past week of processing and trying to adjust back to America I find I keep hitting a wall when it comes to this issue. It's probably the highest hurdle I have to clear, but do I have to jump it at all? Can I just be content with being discontented until I can one day resolve the issue by not having to leave again? I wish I knew the outcome, but I guess that's part of the journey...