Don’t Cry Over Spilt Beans – Forget the five second rule

Carrie, Adam, and Diane filling gallon zip lock bags with beans and rice

Carrie, Diane, and Adam carefully filled gallon zip lock bags with beans and others with rice.  The next day we would be delivering them to the neighbors of Soul Harvest’s Haiti property.  The beans and rice came in 50-55 pound bags and they were meticulously divvying them up.  Here they paused for a photo and Pastor Todd, our host, turns around from what he was doing to join the picture.  Happy faces working on behalf of the organization ‘Happy Kids‘ in Gressier, Haiti.

A grandmother, grandson, Marc, and I pick spilled beans from the dust.

It was a blessing to give them to the people.  Adam and I had our backpacks loaded down.  Each bag of beans and bag of rice Carrie instructed us to give away lightened our load and blessed the thankful people. “Two bags of each” Carrie called out to me at one home.  I pulled two bags of rice from my backpack and handed them to the person beside me to give away.  I pulled out the first bag of beans.  Anxiety flooded over me as nearly the entire bag of beans spilled out on the dirt.  I had spilled the precious beans onto the dirty ground where animals trod and babies peed at will.  Marc, our translator, said “Not to worry, not to worry.”  The grandmother came over and, as she had obviously done on other occasions, used her fingers like a rake to draw the beans from the dust.  One by one we picked them up until every last bean was back in the bag.  It wasn’t the American ‘Five Second Rule’.  It was the Haitian ‘Don’t Waste Food Rule’.  If something fell to the ground, they picked it up and wiped it off.  If someone didn’t finish food they were eating, someone else was happy to take over the plate and finish it.  There was no need for a garbage disposal as there is with what is left over on our plates at my house.

It was a reminder that we were not in America.  We were in Haiti.  We were not in the land of plenty, but in a land of great need.  We were in a land where people don’t take a single bean for granted.  We were in a land full of people who have to take to heart Jesus’ instructions ‘not to worry about what you will eat or wear, but remember you have a Father who knows what you need’.  This day the Father was sending us to provide for their need, and they weren’t going to waste a bit of His blessing.