Monday, January 18, 2010

The Dark Hills



A little boy ran in from the darkness. Out of breath, he collapsed into the arms of a priest and cried, "My mother is going to kill my baby brothers."

The priest rose from his seat and ran with the little boy back to the shanty where he lived with his mother and younger siblings.

The mother stood outside sobbing.

The priest reached out for her, asked her why she wanted to kill her children.

"My babies are starving to death," she said. "I have no food for them, and I don't want them to suffer."

I heard this story several years ago from a priest who served as a missionary in Haiti.


On Saturday, I spent several hours watching national news organizations report on the current situation in the third-largest nation in the Caribbean.

"Rescue crews are having difficulty getting life-sustaining supplies the citizens of Haiti," one reporter said.

"People are dying. The situation is dire," another said.

But I say: "The situation there has always been dire. Where were your cameras before last Tuesday? And where will your cameras be when the ratings start to slide?"

6 comments:

MeganRebekah said...

Did the missionary priest say what happened to the family? Was he able to help them?

And I agree that people easily forget how much Haiti has already been in trouble, before the earthquake made them news worthy.

Kathryn Hupp-Harris said...

The priest was able to help them. He helped get the family some food so the children would not starve.

The problem with giving a hand out, however, is that it's not a hand up. There are no jobs, no sources of income, so everything that is done is a mere short-term fix.

I know this particular post feels a lot like a rant. It is, and I apologize. I get so upset when I see this happen with the big news organizations. When a bigger news story pops up or when they think viewers are getting tired of the story, they will turn their cameras elsewhere and forget that the problems still exist.

Every now and then New Orleans pops into the news, but that's only because it's within our borders.

When was the last time anyone heard a report on the regions impacted by the tsunami?

America is said to be this great land of equality, but I think we get wrapped up in our own materialism and place no value on the lives of people in third-world countries.

I do this too. And then I get mad at myself. And then I blog about it.

Shelli (srjohannes) said...

i agree - at least they are finally getting attention!

KM Wilsher said...

Wow, our preacher did a his first mission to Haiti. Said some of the same things. I never knew :0(

I hope aid will go beyond disaster relief.

Rosslyn Elliott said...

Kat - GREAT thoughts. Thank you. I also get frustrated at the lack of coverage of world problems on our news. But the news orgs are feeding the insatiable hunger of the public for trash news. They are responding to ratings. I've been especially disgusted with Fox News lately. Five years ago they were not as sensationalisic and garbage-filled as they have become in the last few years.

One major problem with our world news blackout here in the US is that very few Americans now know why we should be so grateful to live here. If they never see the suffering and oppression in other countries, they have NO CLUE how rich, free, and peaceful we are.

Anonymous said...

Great post, Kat. You make some big points here. I hope and pray now that they will be on the radar always. It's just too bad it took a disaster to make that happen.