Places That Changed Us: Haiti

That same year, I got married. At just 23, my husband and I were navigating through mountains of advice, but one suggestion stood out: “In your first two years, go serve. Do something that matters, together.” By the summer of 2012, we were on a plane to Haiti, joining reconstruction efforts while the country was struggling to recover.

With international aid drying up, the focus was on building small homes to move families out of sprawling tent cities. Under the blistering sun, my husband and I joined local crews to construct tiny houses, completing several. Later, we helped build a school for an orphanage, surrounded by children laughing with mouths full of fresh mangoes from nearby trees.

The children’s joy was contagious. Their bright smiles and boundless energy paired with my very rusty French made for laughter and playful moments during our breaks. Local women braided my hair after long days of construction. In some afternoons, my husband entertained the kids with his guitar, singing silly, made-up songs in a hilariously terrible falsetto that had them laughing nonstop.

But silly songs weren’t the reality they lived. The orphanage had received 30 chickens the week before we arrived as part of a program to teach the children sustainable skills and provide eggs to sell. By the time we got there, every chicken was eaten. When survival is a day-to-day struggle, concepts like saving or planning for the future become a luxury.

That trip taught me what privilege truly means. A five-year plan, learning something new, enjoying nature, even believing in tomorrow — these are all privileges. How can anyone dream of growth or gratitude when they are starving, unsheltered, and unsafe? We wanted to leave Haiti better than we found it, to use our privilege to give others a fighting chance. Yet everything we brought — sheets, toiletries, even our labor — felt painfully inadequate. The people we met didn’t deserve their fate. They wanted to live, to thrive, but they couldn’t. They tried, and the world seemed to work against them at every turn. The experience reshaped our worldview forever. Haiti left an indelible mark on my soul. Its incredible people, trapped without hope of a tomorrow, changed me in ways I’m still grappling to understand.