Orlando
I spoke twice on Sunday, once in the afternoon to the “young people” (ages 15-30) and then again to the church that evening. During the 3 hour break between services, I met a young man and wife who had walked nearly 5 miles to get to church. She was pregnant. The local missionary offered to drive them home. So, I rode in the back of the truck with the guy (Orlando) and Whitney rode as a passenger in the truck with his wife.
Orlando and I are about the same age, we’ve both been married for the same number of years, and I would say our personalities are quite similar, too! However, our circumstances are dramatically different.
There are roughly 1 million Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Many of them have moved here as a result of the earthquake in 2010. Orlando is one of them. He lost family in the quake, and is now forced to start a new family here in the Dominican Republic. He is unemployed, living day to day off of less than $1 per day. The cost of a gatorade here is 40 cents. That means he makes enough money to buy 2 gatorades per day. Sadly, many of the Dominicans will not hire him because of his Haitian heritage. He is fighting an uphill battle.
Tragically, that is the story of many of the Haitians here in the DR. This truth is more real to me now because of a 15 minute conversation with Orlando in the back of a truck.
I have so much to be grateful for…
