Holy Innocents

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates the children whom king Herod had massacred when he was trying to kill the newborn Messiah, as recounted in Matthew 2. A year ago, today, I was in Haiti accompanying a small group from the Advocate who was going down to visit an Episcopal church called (in French) Saints Innocents. The visit was timed to coincide with the church's observance of their namesake feast day.

Yesterday I prepared a slide show of photos from the trip for my mother. Here's a few of them, plus an accompanying spiritual reflection. I feel uncomfortable about posting online photos of individuals who aren't in a position to speak up about how their image gets used publicly, so I'm going to be a bit vague about where we were, and I've avoided close-ups of anyone but myself. Thanks to Grace Camblos for the pictures.

Waiting to board a ferry that will take us to the island where Saints Innocents is located. (My luggage got lost, so I lived in the same clothes for five days. This was not the worst thing to go wrong on this trip. The worst was a group member starting to pass a kidney stone and spending three days in pain because the painkillers he needed were nowhere to be had.)

Squeezing into a truck for a two-hour ride up into the hills to reach Saints Innocents.

Saints Innocents church, viewed from an adjacent building that serves as a school. One purpose of the visit was to bring funds and supplies for the school.

Taking a walk in the cool of the evening.

Getting set up for bed in the school adjacent to the church. (I'm not quite as fat as I look. I'm wearing a pouch under my shirt containing valuables for safekeeping.)

Discussing the cistern behind the church. The cistern catches rainwater. Water is in short supply on the island.

The interior of Saints Innocents church, decorated for the feast day.

A nicer view of the church exterior. We helped paint the church during our visit.

Looking out across the bay toward the mainland of Haiti.

During the drive back to Port-au-Prince to catch our flight home, feeling somewhat worn out but also moody about the fact that we were leaving, I got to thinking about everyone I knew from my LDS mission in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. I was struck by the fact that all those people were actually here on Hispaniola with me, somewhere on the other side of those mountains, starting their day, going to work. This trip to Haiti was the closest I'd been to any of those people in years. Thinking about it, I started to cry. "The mission was a gift," I thought.

Then I thought, "If it’s a gift, then isn’t it a stewardship? Am I magnifying that stewardship?" And as I mulled that over, I thought: This trip to Haiti was a way of magnifying the gift of my LDS mission. During the trip, I had used the cross-cultural experience and language skills I gained during my mission to do a job here, in Haiti, in the present, not just storing my mission experiences as memories of the past to be cherished, like the servant in the parable who buries his talent. Instead I reinvested the gift I was given, applying the experience to serving a new set of people. I hadn’t done much. But I hoped I’d done some good.