Haitian Proverb

This is another Haitian Proverb that really stood out to me when I read it:

Timoun ki kriye nan kay ak sa kriye nan pòt se menm.

“The child who cries in the house and the one who cries at the door are the same.” Treat other people’s children as you treat your own.

So often, we are only looking out for ourselves and our immediate family. We may say that we care about suffering children in other countries, but most of the time we don’t really mean that. We don’t treat orphaned children like our own when they are out of sight and out of mind.

I read this analogy one time about children. If you woke up one morning, opened your front door, and found a child curled up there that was dying, you would drop everything, rush that child to the hospital, and pray fervently that he/she would pull through.

The thing is, thousands of children die EVERY DAY. But because they’re not dying on our front doorsteps, we often ignore them. Now I’m just as guilty of that as the next person. My actions don’t always match my words. But they NEED to. I am a hypocrite to say I love the children of Haiti and then not do anything about their suffering.

It’s amazing how much one simple proverb can make you think!