Mom, is there a Devil?

Today I picked my 7 year old son up from school and the first thing he said was, "Mom is there such a thing as the devil?" Earlier in the day I taught high schoolers about ALD, action potentials in the nervous system, and evolution. So, how is it my son offers the hardest question I've gotten all week?

Speaking of him, we spent Spring Break together in Northern Haiti in a little town of Terrier Rouge. I led a group of 17 travelers down to stay at St. Barholomey's Episcopal School. Several worked in the clinic next door, Clinique Esperance et Vie, and others worked on carpentry projects, providing food to refugees from Port au Prince, and teaching students and teachers. All of the work was done with Haitians through Bethlehem Ministry.

My son routinely offered the most perspective on our work. When we first crossed the border from the Domincan Republic, he looked at me and said, "Mom, I can't believe that this is real, I mean that people live like this." He was shocked by the hunger, lack of adequate clothing, and the sense of desperation. There was an odor that only comes from raw sewage mixed with exhaust from engines in poor repair. Yet, he took it all in stride.

When we arrived at the school, the Haitian children surrounded him. They had never seen a white little boy before. He made lots of friends right away, and spent his afternoons playing soccer, chase, rock/paper/scissors and learning Creole. The night before we left, as we sat on our porch and reflected with the travelers, there were lots of tears as folks tried to articulate what they had learned. Chip, again, said it best. "Basically, in America we have everything and we aren't really happy. In Haiti they have nothing and they are happy." What a blessing to see things with the clarity only a child's eyes can offer.