Why Does a Kid Wearing a Broken Belt in Haiti Matter?

You see many things in Haiti. A dog lying dead on the side of a crowded road. Towering walls everywhere. The boys bathroom for an entire orphanage and school being "go behind the tarp."

One of the boys who live in this world stood in his red checkered school uniform with khaki shorts and a brown belt undone hanging below his shirt. I saw him walking around with other parentless kids playing on dirt and gravel that makes up his world.

He finally gets close enough to check, and as I begin to point enquiring about his belt I realize that half of it is torn off. But he is still wearing it. It isn't capable of holding up his pants. It isn't capable of completing a well-dressed uniform, because it is never fastened. So I wonder why he wears it? It has no purpose.

I have him take it off and evaluate if it is fixable. I have a drill nearby so I drill a new hole. Problem solved, broken belt fixed, I think, as he puts it back on. He wraps the belt around himself and uses the newly drilled hole, but the belt hangs there, way too large for him.

My first attempt to fix the belt.

This means the belt was not only broke. It was also not the right size for him. Yet he wore it. Why? Dangling there. Hanging out in the loops of his khaki shorts, serving no purpose. If anything it was a burden.

I take the belt again and drill 5 additional holes a couple inches apart. He places the belt on again and ratchets it tight around his waist using the tightest hole. With a large smile he shakes his head yes and walks away holding the belt buckle and looking down at it talking to other boys.

Why did he wear a broken belt? Broken and too large? It served no purpose. He didn't wear it for any of the reasons I wear a belt. He wore it because he could. Because he had one simple item that was his...so he wore it. Somewhere along the line in a box of clothes donated to them there was a broken belt and he chose to make it his. So he wore his broken belt. He smiled a and played. And peed behind a tarp.

  

I hope that the fixed belt will serve a purpose for him. I pray that he will find and pursue God's purpose for his life. That he won't be broken, lost without a purpose.

Finally giving the belt a purpose adding more holes.

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