Perspective

"Perspective".  That was my word of the day.  Within a mere 36 hours, my perspective on just about everything has changed more than I ever could have prepared myself for.  The most basic of tasks - delivering water to people who are thirsty - became a life-altering experience...one that I don't know if I'll ever really be able to wrap my head around.  Here is a glimpse of what we encountered today in Cite Soleil...

• Children yelling "Hey You!" and clamoring for our attention as our truck pulled into each stop.
• Kids playing and splashing in dirty gutter water.
• Bandaging a baby with an infected wound.
• The overwhelming smells of rotten food, sewage and sweat.  
• Taking a dirty condom away from a child, who was using it as a balloon.
• Helping countless barefoot women and children hoist full five-gallon buckets of water onto their heads.
• A group of naked, dirty children clapping and dancing as they sang "God is so Good" while standing on a pile of sewage, garbage, and broken glass (which doubles as the area's mass grave area).
• Trying to determine which of the children were slaves (in Cite Soleil it is estimated that over 40% of them are).
• The light in the eyes of the children as we hugged, cuddled, kissed, and held them.
• Helping a young mother bathe her one-year-old in the only clean water she had to try and help bring his fever down.
• Carrying buckets of water to the doorways of what they call "home".
• Putting antibiotics on a boy's broken, bloody, cracked toenail.
• God.

Being surrounded by such vast and extreme poverty is a feeling I'll never forget.  It's overwhelming to look out and see such intense need...and have no idea where to even start.  So you just jump in.  You hug, you love, you kiss, you hold, you sing, you pray, you smile, you cry...and you just hope that you're making an impact.  

My heart was broken into a million pieces today.  And I've never felt so blessed.  

~Kari Uetz