And the Home of the Slave

Takin' it back....January 18th, 2004

Today I question freedom as a right and possession I have always claimed.

This morning, as I find myself settling into a land with few obvious freedoms, I suddenly find my grasp on freedom rather empty.  I wonder, for the first time in my life, if I have it at all as I watch a people who own a freedom in Christ like I've never seen.

I had thought that my freedom came with my ability to choose.  I get to choose to come, to go, to eat, to sleep, to work, to worship, to vote, to study, to travel: my freedom.  However, if having choices is what freedom is, then these friends around me and most of the world have no freedom at all, and I have seen that this is not the case.

This new year is a year of meaning for the Haitian people.  It has been 200 years since they successfully threw off the shackles of slavery, though restavecs, children living as slaves, are still found in many households, and women and young girls continue to do unspeakable things just to feed their children.  

In that same year, 1804, the country dedicated itself to Satan for a promised 200 years.  Now, 2004 represents a break from this bondage of fear and lies, though voodoo symbols still cover buildings, hotels, restaurants and cars, and sacrifices are still key in holiday celebrations and in personal and public disasters, and the sick and troubled continue to seek out witch doctors for healing and blessing.

Yet while its people celebrate the close of these 200 years, Haiti is plagued by poverty, a self-seeking and undeniably corrupt government, riots, violence and fear...surely freedom is to be found far off.

But today in a church so hot that my sweat pours while sitting, in a church so full that the rickety benches cannot be seen, in a church so poor that its people sacrifice food in order to tithe, I learn something about what freedom is.

I have seen a body shackled by cancer be freed from sickness and pain, free to sing eternal praises to the God of all healing. 

I have seen a hundred lives suffocating with sin crawl to the cross and leave there dancing.

I have seen a bedraggled, spotted woman shuffle from the back of this church to the cinderblock stage to sing a familiar tune with a power unmatched by her frail body.  The chorus broke her voice down to joyful tears as goose bumps charged my body: "I sing because I'm happy," she whispers, confident.  "I sing because I'm free!  His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

I think that perhaps freedom has little to do with having choices, except for the choice of joy in all circumstances.  I think that freedom has little to do with being healthy, independent, or even financially stable.  Maybe it has little to do with which government reigns, what language is spoken, or what land is inhabited by who.

Freedom, I'm thinking, is being content in Him, and if so, then today I find that the land of the free is not only available to America the Privileged as I had thought, but to Haiti the Impoverished, as well.

I think I might stay for a while."