Take Heart: A Rude Awakening

Mine. I think about the things that I consider mine and how I came about them. I have food, I have clothing, I have shelter, I have a family, and I have love. I came about these things through my parents who worked hard to feed me, to clothe me, to put a roof over my head. My family is with me and is able to afford luxuries such as snacks, Internet, cars, laptops, phones; things I do not need to live with, but things that will help me to gain social status, and “connect” me to the rest of the world. My family went through the tough struggles of immigration and poverty before I existed such that now I am living a more than comfortable life. So what do I know of poverty?I only know what it must feel like to struggle to live from stories of the past, told to me by those who have. I can only imagine, I can only try to empathize with those who have experienced it.

It is only when you ask questions that you can get answers. When I walked down the street, I saw people like me - people who had. Then I saw people living on the streets. I saw people sleeping on the streets. I saw people begging for money, for food, for something. When I finally started asking myself how they got there, and what they are doing, I realized that not everybody is like me. Not everybody has a place to live, food to eat, or clean clothes to wear. Not everybody has family with them. But even at this stage, I did not understand. I began to think that they just did not work hard enough, that all they needed to do was try. How hard could it be?

I volunteered several times before. I went on sandwich runs, handing out food to the homeless in downtown Toronto. I cooked at a soup kitchen, and served meals to people. It felt good. It felt like I was helping out. Doing these things made me feel like I was a good “Christian”, they made me feel good about myself, and made me look good to others. I did it for me. I “helped” these people without wanting to understand why they were where they were; I helped them while thinking to myself that they didn’t really need my help but were getting things the easy way - they didn’t have to work for free food. They just had to come and eat.

For a while, I volunteered at a place for youth at risk. This was a place where I actually got to interact with the people I was supposed to help. I was supposed to spend time with them to see how they were doing, and what the organization could help them with. I met a lot of people who were very different from me. Some of them had just got out of jail, some had drug and alcohol addictions, some were accidentally pregnant, some were abused by their families. As I got to know these people, I realized that most of them didn’t get to where they were on purpose. I realized that it wasn’t because they were bad people or that they didn’t try that they needed help. I realized that this could have easily been me and my situation. This realization left an ugly feeling in my heart. I was suddenly so aware of the differences between the things I had that they didn’t - the comfort, the support, the family, the material things. As I tried not to be overwhelmed by the amount of suffering that exists in our world, I started to think about my place in the world. Why am I here and not there? How can I be genuine about helping these people?

The more I learn about what it means to really follow Jesus as a Christian, the more I see how he loved everyone he encountered; how he ate with the people society viewed as sinners [1], how he taught that people who give out of their poverty really give more than the rich who toss in the excess they can live without [2]. He understood the people who suffered because he was with them, and because he understood them, he could help them. He was intentional in everything he did such that he not only physically healed those who were outcast because of their illness, but also said it aloud so that everyone could hear that this person was now clean - restoring their social status [3]. As it is for me that God loves me in spite of my sin that he would offer me a way out - a gift and not something I can ever earn [4], with this same unconditional love I must give all that I can to help those in need. So it is not in my place to judge how or why they are where they are, but it is my duty to go and care for the people. I must go to the people who have not yet heard the good news: that although we live in a broken, sin-filled world, there is still hope in knowing that God is sovereign and will bring justice to the oppressed and peace to the suffering, to tell them that they won’t have to live like this forever [5].

I was introduced to World Orphans by my mentor who had recently come back from a trip to Ethiopia with this organization. She shared with me the brokenness she saw there and her experience with the orphans she met there. To find out that there are actually 240 children who are orphaned every hour [6] breaks my heart. As I absorbed this information, all I could think about was that something needed to be done. An opportunity came when my mentor told me that the same organization was looking for people to go on a learning/mission trip to Haiti. This is a trip where I will be able to learn about orphans and poverty, while also hold medical clinics with a hired local physician to look after the people who come. As I believe that the only way to really begin to understand a problem is to go there and be with the people who are suffering - so I am going.

I am currently raising funds for this trip that will cover the airfare as well as costs of medical supplies that we will be bringing. I don’t believe in blindly throwing money at causes, so since I am asking for your support, I will do my best to make transparent what I am actually doing there, and where the money is going. I hope to be able to continue providing updates as I prepare for the trip and also share about my experiences when I come back. If you would like to know more about how you can support me on this journey, feel free to contact me (through any means preferable to you) or visit my donor page here: http://worldorphans.donorpages.com/ST7212Haiti/RochelleChong/. Please note that this is an organization based in the US, so the amount donated will be in USD. If you wish to donate in CAD, please let me know!

Here is a beautiful Haitian song I stumbled upon while trying to learn the language, it is called "Ayiti Se", which translates to "Haiti Is".: