The Power of the Powerless
by D. S.
I tried to convince my friends to move across our town and into my neighborhood. They would make wonderful neighbors. Adeline1 is educated as a nurse, her husband Samuel as a lawyer. Their oldest child who just started high school is, I tease, his future class president. He seems to know everyone and charms them all, including me. The other day when Adeline was sharing a video of her son participating on the worship team, I suggested he might make a good pastor or a lawyer like his father. She lit up and replied, “Maybe both!”
For reasons of convenience, Adeline and Samuel are not likely to move into my neighborhood, but they will be moving and not for the first time in the last few years. Their first move brought them to the U.S. from difficult circumstances in Haiti. In part because of natural disasters and gang violence, Haiti has long been unsafe and insecure. Since the 2021 assassination of their president, the situation has grown dire. As a different friend explained, currently “no one is safe.” In 2024, for example, in a country with a population of 11 million, gang violence led to 5,600 deaths. In addition, 2,212 people were injured, and 1,494 kidnapped.2 Children are being exploited, forced to work for gangs; girls on their way to school or running errands are vulnerable to sexual assault; half the population faces acute hunger. Even though living in the U.S. is, in their words, “really hard,” people like my friends feel they have no choice for the safety, security, and stability of their families.
After their initial move, Adeline and Samuel moved their family within the U.S. to my small city where they have settled in. They are both employed by a local facility that cares for the elderly. Given their education levels, the job is technically “beneath them.” However, they both bathe, feed, and care for their patients responsibly and with compassion. One week in our English class during a lesson on feelings, Adeline shared that she was sad. With tears in her eyes, she spoke of a patient who had died. Both Adeline and Samuel could make more money at a different job but feel like this one is a way to serve.
Because of her training as a nurse, their caregiving job perhaps fits Adeline’s skill set more than it does Samuel’s. As a lawyer, his second job in a warehouse is no more fitting than his first. He rarely makes it to our ESL class. I’m not sure he has time to sleep. They’re saving to buy a house. Although they’re not quite ready to make that investment, they will be moving again soon because the place where they are living no longer feels safe.
A few months ago, Samuel was on shift at his warehouse job while Adeline was getting her younger two ready for bed. The three were sitting together on the bed singing and saying evening prayers when a neighbor’s gun “accidentally” went off. The bullet pierced the wall of their bedroom and then went through the headboard next to Adeline and her daughters and into the adjacent wall. Although the man was initially arrested on both gun and drug charges, they were later dropped. Then, when Adeline and Samuel asked to move to a different apartment in their complex without fees or signing a new lease, the repeated refrain was, “It was an accident.” Their fear, though justified, was dismissed while the man who caused it was excused.
And so, they are moving again. The neighborhood they came to for safety no longer feels safe.
In the meantime, the country they came to for security is becoming increasingly insecure as the president and his administration chip away at Temporary Protected Status and other means of finding refuge in the United States. How far will the administration go?
Yet, through all these challenges, my friends’ faith in the Master has not wavered, and their smiles remain bright. Those who hold power—a president and his administration, a local government, an apartment manager, people whose skin is the “right” color—have nothing on my friends. Adeline, Samuel, their charming son, and young daughters are not powerless. They have a Protector, Redeemer, and Friend. One day they will bow at His feet and hear, “When you bathed and fed the elderly, you were doing these things for me. Come, and enter my rest.”
- All names have been changed for privacy. ↩︎
- For comparison, the state of New York in the U.S. (population 20 million) had 693 murders in 2024; the state of Illinois (population 12.7 million) had 1058 murders the same year. ↩︎
Further exploration
- Matthew 25:31-46
- “Haiti: Over 5,600 killed in gang violence in 2024 UN figures show “
- “Gang Violence and Unrest in Haiti“
- “How have the Trump administration’s policies impacted refugees?“
On your knees
- Ask the Master Teacher to show you how to welcome and befriend strangers as if welcoming and befriending Him.
- Pray that policies will change so that people seeking refuge find what they are looking for in the United States.
In your community
- Who in your community may be powerless? How could you offer them power? How could you find inspiration in their stories?
- If you are a U.S. citizen, contact your representatives and tell them how you feel about people like Adeline and Samuel https://whosmyrep.org.
Post Author
D. S. started off her TESOL career in Asia many years ago. Currently, while maintaining contacts in Asia, she teaches in a community ESL program in the U.S. that includes people from Haiti.
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