Going over­seas on a mis­sions trip can really change a per­son. A pho­tog­ra­pher for the Muncie Star Press expe­ri­enced that change when she went to Haiti with World Renewal Inter­na­tional. From her essay in the Star Press, Jeri Reichanadter relates some of what she saw.

Well, they were right. Haiti did change me. It showed me how truly blessed I am, how blessed we all are. Unem­ploy­ment in Haiti is at 80 per­cent and they don’t have stop-gap sys­tems like wel­fare to meet people’s needs. No home­less shel­ters, no food stamps, no gov­ern­ment assis­tance. Imag­ine, no jobs, no wel­fare, no clean water, no food.

My mom couldn’t under­stand why I wanted to go to Haiti when peo­ple in Amer­ica need help right here. Hon­estly I didn’t quite know myself until after I was there a few days. Now I know, the Bible com­mands us to love one another. It doesn’t say just love Amer­i­cans. It says “one another.”

I saw poverty in Haiti like I’ve never imag­ined. I saw men, women and chil­dren pat their tum­mies with both hands as we drove past sig­nal­ing that they were hun­gry. I saw babies with runny noses and red-hair, the tale tell sign of mal­nu­tri­tion. I saw peo­ple walk miles for clean water. They’d fill their 5-gallon buck­ets to the brim and carry them home bal­anced on their heads.

And my faith was made stronger while trav­el­ing up and down the moun­tains in the tiny tap tap. I watched one day as the dri­ver turned the truck off and coasted down­hill to pre­serve gas. His gauge hov­ered near E for more than an hour. If we’d run out of gas I have no idea what we would have done. God, you brought us here, I have faith you’ll bring us safely home.

It wasn’t all bad though.

I also saw much hap­pi­ness in the chil­dren of the orphan­age. They greeted us with a hand shake and a kiss on the cheek every time we saw them. Together we played games, hiked up a moun­tain and took many pic­tures, like we’d been a part of their fam­ily for­ever. Dur­ing their reg­u­lar Sun­day evening wor­ship time, they sang praise songs and did dances for Jesus, it was amaz­ing to witness.

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