Quenching thirst

Landing in Haiti yesterday almost a year to the date since my first Haitian mission, was a surreal experience. All I could think was: I’m back! So much has changed; new buildings, less rubble in the streets, I even saw a garbage truck picking up the trash in the streets!  

But so much is the same: The poverty. The smell. Malnourishment. Here in the missionaries of charity’s children’s home, there may be new sick infants, but I swear they are the same little eyes staring back at me, begging to be loved, held, and fed. They are still the eyes of the suffering Jesus.  

In the chapel of the missionaries of charity there are two words written on the wall underneath the crucifix, they say “I thirst.” I physically identify with this statement right now as I sit in a small stuffy room in the Haitian heat. But today brought a very strong reminder of the spiritual reality. All I had to do was walk into the children’s home and see the hungry eyes of the orphans and the reaching hands of the sick children wanting to be lifted out of their cribs. All I had to do was hold and hush that tiny malnourished infant, who was teething and had a fungus in his mouth and was crying out in pain. They were thirsting, not for any drink I could give them, but for love.  

Little Fabiola who I fell I love with last year on my first mission is home now, healthier and happier then when she could barely hold up her head, but there are many more who have captured my heart in this first day back. And I want to quench all their thirsts! There are 14 other missionaries here with me in Haiti, and for the next week we will try to do just that for all we meet!