Nearly two months ago I read a Facebook status update from a childhood friend that I had not seen in over a decade. It read:

“Are there 15 people out there that could commit RIGHT NOW to doing relief work in Haiti 3/28-4/2?”

In that moment I committed to travel to Haiti to join the many teams who’ve join this small country in relief efforts. But I didn’t know that I was also committing to the people of Haiti. I met a team from Grand Rapids, Michigan in Port au Prince on March 28^th to begin our journey.

To say the earthquake that struck in January devastated the small country only begins to describe the suffering and needs of the Haitian people. The complexity of how to rebuild a country that already came from such poverty is a question no nation or military has the answer to. There are 1,000 truckloads of rubble being taking out of Port au Prince and emptied into the Atlantic everyday and the end of removing the destruction from the city is still not in sight.

During our time there we spent several days in an orphanage that served as a purgatory for about 60 babies, little ones that have done nothing to deserve the long days of waiting to go home or waiting to be chosen for the next adoption. Many of them were brought in after the earthquake by parents whose lives had crumbled and they could not feed themselves or their child, others were found on garbage piles and left at door steps.  The orphanage was a haven for these children, protecting them from the world the earthquake left behind. Our presence was simply to offer little more than holding, kissing dirty cheeks and blowing tummy strawberries. The only comfort during our time with them was that this day they were receiving a little more love than the day before.

On the third day of our time in Port au Prince we went to one of the hundreds of tent cities hoping to help out wherever we were needed.  When we arrived they found out Candice Czubernat (an MHGS Alumni) and I were counselors and asked us to talk with some of the women in a small tent, which stood as a makeshift woman’s shelter. Within moments we were asked to teach a class on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) with only a few minutes to prepare. After a couple deep breaths I gathered everything I knew about PTSD and was led to a hillside where many women sat waiting.  I first notice their faces and was alarmed by the beauty of the Haitian women. I wondered how so many faces could hold such desperation, need and courage at the same time.

During our time we gave them answer to why they can’t sleep, why they have headaches and backaches and how the trauma they experienced was tied to the loss of short term memory that many of them were experiencing. The hard intention of their faces to hear what we were saying through the translator released into rest for just a moment as they now could put more words to their frightening experience that was taking over their body.  We spent the rest of the afternoon counseling women one-on-one under a tree that provided shade, talking through suicide attempts, hunger, and stories of how the earthquake stole their family. During many of those moments I found myself saying, “It’s too big. It’s too big.” It felt overwhelming to be of any help to these women in the short time we shared. But we took our moments and women came one by one and one by one we moved into their stories, met them, wept with them and gave them glimpses of hope as reflected by their dignity.

During my week in Haiti it was hard to imagine any good we were doing.  Seeing the millions of people needing help, care, comfort, food and shelter was as overwhelming as someone asking you to take a bucket and empty Elliott Bay. Where do you start? What do you empty it into? Impossible! Does one bucketful really help?  But then I am reminded of the faces of the babies that we held and the faces of the women who were able to share their stories with us and I realize that a single bucketful has meaning.

Jen Kroll is a amazingly talented photographer and artist, I’m honored to have served with her in Haiti.  Her photos tell story and sing of poetry. You can see more of her images here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

If you would like to follow some of their stories and remember them with me you can connect to God’s Littlest Children blog.  God’s Littlest Children is a beautiful organization that is diligently at work to find homes for the homeless and feed the malnourished.

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Crystal Miller is an MHGS graduate of the MACP program and now works as the MHGS Enrollment Director as well as running her own private practice.