June 08, 2008
Greetings from “The Forgotten People” blog. Although I’ve been doing a lot of writing for well over 30 years, this is my first attempt at blogging. What I hope to share with you in a meaningful way that will touch your souls are my thoughts, my feelings and my heart for the beautiful people of Haiti. Over the past 12 years since my first visit to Haiti, I have seen ~ over and over again ~ that they are indeed the forgotten people of our world.
Aslan Youth Ministries (www.aslanyouth.org) first began our work in Haiti in 1996. Our reason for choosing Haiti grew out of my oldest son, Daniel’s, summer in Uganda in 1991 as a fifteen-year-old boy on a mission to change the world. His experiences in Africa were the defining moment of his life, and he returned wanting to share his love for Africa with everyone he met. Because of his compassion and love for the urban, African American children that Aslan has served in New Jersey since 1975, Daniel (pronounced as in Spanish, don-yell) always wanted for us to introduce our youth to the richness and beauty of their African culture. Although his dream of our taking Aslan children to Africa was never realized, he encouraged and inspired us to travel to Haiti with 6 Aslan teens in the hot summer of 1996.
It was only after our first visit to Haiti that we realized it is the most African nation outside of Africa in the world. Barely 500 miles off the coast of Florida, Haiti is also one of the pooest nations on earth! Both Daniel and his beloved brother, Dustin, accompanied us on that first trip and returned with us many times thereafter. They quickly came to love Haiti with all their hearts, and they dedicated the rest of their short lives here on earth to their many Haitian friends. Both of my sons’ lives were filled with beauty, grace, sadness and tragedy. But ultimately, their lives were filled with hope.
A good deal of this blog will be devoted to remembering Daniel’s and Dustin’s lives and the tremendous difference these two wonderful bright lights made in such a short time, in this world so filled with darkness. Were it not for the two of them, there would be no work of Aslan in Haiti. It is in their honor and their memory that this work goes on. I hope you’ll walk with me on this journey; and I hope you will encourage others to do so as well. My wife, Lynn Ann’s, and my only hope is to one day hold our precious sons in our arms again. Then, as the Great Lion, Aslan, says, “All wrongs will be made right.”
