Home Again, but Something has Changed

After a long day of travel, I arrived back home in Lubbock, TX yesterday evening.  What a different world.  Shiny airport terminals, all sorts of food and shopping in the airports, trash cans that people actually use!  Not that I don't like any of it all, but it makes me think of all those people living in deplorable conditions in Haiti, including the 36 teenagers and 15 or so staff at the orphanage.  People who I may never see again, but have grown so close to my heart.  For whom death and suffering are all too real in their lives, yet somehow, joy and gratitude are much more present too.  I have learned so much from the Haitians, and I can only hope that I enriched their lives as much as they did mine.  It was with a broken heart that I had to respond to the question I was asked over and over that I did not know when I would be back.

My friends in Haiti took such good care of me, and I am so thankful for the time we had to spend together. We laughed, joked, and enjoyed each other.  We argued and got angry.  We were protected from a hurricane.  We weathered political unrest and the fear of violence.  We washed our hands with soap constantly to prevent Cholera.  And as I sit on my comfortable couch, I know they are still enduring all these things.

And sometimes I wonder how they do it.  Many people in the US live in comfort that if they run out of food, they can go to the grocery store and buy more.  If they get sick, they have health insurance to go to the hospital.  If there is violence in the neighborhood, the police will most likely do something about it.  (This is certainly not the case for everyone in the US.  There are people who go hungry here too.  There are people without proper medical care.  There are some really violent neighborhoods.  But it is certainly not as widespread as in countries like Haiti.)  I wonder how the Haitians survive, how they find the will to survive.  But the answer is not too complicated.  I discovered, first, how little materially I needed.  Some clothes and food.  And maybe some books.  And when you don't have all those other things fighting for your attention, its much easier to see the things that really will give lasting comfort.  The people around them.  And their faith and the hope that only God can give.  Through this hope they find the strength to go on.  There were times for myself during the past five months that I was only able to continue what I was doing through the strength given to me by God.

Today in church, we were singing "O come, O come Emmanuel".  I've always thought it was a really pretty advent song, but it struck me differently today, so much so that tears began to fill my eyes.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Refrain

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Refrain

O come Thou Wisdom from on high,

And order all things far and nigh,

To us the path of knowledge show,

And cause us in her ways to go.

Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Refrain

I hadn't ever really thought much about it, but I always operated under the assumption that this was an Advent song, anticipating the birth of Christ, which has already happened.  Which it is.  But as I sang "and death's dark shadows put to flight," I thought of the shadow of death that still hangs over Haiti, the fear that lives there.  This is also a prayer of petition, asking for the world to be made right.  Because it most certainly is not.  But the refrain is the confident assurance that someday, all that is promised will be given.  "Rejoice!"  God is coming!  It is both remembrance that Christ has come and a declaration that he will come again.  He will come again, and all the things that are wrong in the world will be made right.  And that is great hope for us all.


I'm home again, and something is different.

Haitian Elections

So if you've been following Haitian news, you know that Haiti just had a big round of elections on the 28th of November, including new presidential elections. Its been a big deal, and its really important who wins. The current president, Rene Preval, is widely disliked. A lot of the foreign aid that was promised to Haiti after the earthquake has yet to be distributed because of the distrust of the current government. His son-in-law, Jude Celestin, is running for president. He is also fairly widely disliked, although he has his supporters. Corruption runs rampant through the government, and though a new president won't change all of that, it should help.


The results of this election were announced on Tuesday evening. Mirlande Manigat, the leading opposition candidate, got about 32% of the vote. Jude Celestin, who had been in third place, suddenly moved into second place the day the results were announced, with about 22% of the vote, Michel "Mickey" Martelly, the other opposition candidate and Haitian pop star, coming in third, 6,800 votes behind Celestin. The way Haiti's elections work, if no one has an outright majority after the first election (which is likely, given that there are somewhere around 20 candidates) there is a run-off election between the top two candidates.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. The day after the election, 12 of the 19 candidates got together and said that they wanted the election thrown out because of election fraud. There were accusations of stuffing the ballot boxes, people showing up and not being on the list of eligible voters, intimidation, and the like, including one guy who showed up to vote and he wasn't on the list, but his dead brother was. After the results were announced, Martelly's supporters took to the streets protesting, claiming the results were tampered with and Martelly should be in the run-off instead of Celestin. Celestin's campaign manager then said he was going to protest the results too, claiming Celestin should have gotten 52% of the vote, winning the election outright. (A pretty outrageous claim if you ask me.)

Since Wednesday, we haven't had school becasue of the protests. They haven't been too violent; its more of a volume thing. Wednesday, the whole city basically shut down becasue there were so many people in the streets that no one could get to work. The protesters have set fire to a lot of Jude Celestin's campaign banners across the city, as well as setting fire to his party headquarters. It has gotten a bit quieter, but people are still blocking the streets and a smoky/foggy haze hangs over the city. Its been pretty quiet up around us, as most of the protests have been more downtown and in Petionville. (If you're worried about our saftey, you shouldn't worry too much. There's been no protest activity in our area.)

Today (or possibly last night), election officials announced they would recount all the votes in the presence of the three leading candidates, Mirlande Manigat, Jude Celestin and Michel Martelly, and international observers. Which, I think, is a great move. The could have hardly done otherwise though. There are so many eyes on Haiti right now, and such popular discontent with the current government that it would have been difficult for the election comission to have ignored these protests. We'll wait and see what happens, but its good news for democracy in Haiti.

I don't have any pictures cause we're too far away from the action, but check out news sites for some photos. I know BBC and the New York Times have articles and pictures. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11964180 is where I found info about the recount.

Happy Thanksgiving

So I figured I'd not get any sort of celebration for Thanksgiving this year, being in Haiti and all.  But I did.  And it was great.

Dr Bernard invited us up to his house for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  But this is Haiti.  Thursday morning he called us and said we'd have to postpone the meal for a day.  Why you ask?  His stove was broken, so he couldn't cook the turkey.  Or more correctly, four turkeys.  There was a group of about 40 Americans staying at his guest house that we were joining for a Thanksgiving meal.  Anyway they got the stove fixed, and we came up yesterday (Friday) for dinner.  And was it magnificent.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy. Even cranberry sauce!  And there was desert.  Which never happens at the orphanage.  The closest we get is having cake for joint birthday parties every month or two.  But we had carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake, spice cake, and pumpkin pie.  It was wonderful.

There were a few really good things about having Thanksgiving dinner on Friday, besides the wonderful food.  For one, we were at the school on Friday morning, which happened to be party day.  They had music, dancing, games, and food for all the kids in the school.  It was kinda like a field day, except replace the field with a concrete courtyard about 20x30ft.  But it was a lot of fun.  And the kids had a TON of fun.

Secondly, one of the kids was coming up to Dr. Bernard's this weekend, so she got to have a typical Thanksgiving dinner with us.  Which was kinda fun.  Maybe just for me, though.  Mashed potatoes, stuffing.  Not really your typical Haitian fare.  And she wasn't impressed.  After we finished eating, I asked her if she liked it, and she shook her head emphatically, looking fairly disgusted.  Then, I asked her if she liked the dessert, and oh how her face changed in an instant.  Her eyes lit up with a huge smile across her face.  The head shaking remained emphatic, but with the opposite emotion propelling it.

The last nice side effect of postponing Thanksgiving dinner was that we get to stay up at Dr. Bernard's for the weekend, which is nice to have a bit of time away from the orphanage to rest and relax.  To be off duty.

How much we all have to be thankful for!  I'll leave you with the words of an song/prayer of simple thanks that I learned, well, I don't remember every not knowing it!  Maybe some of you know it too.  Savor these words.

"The Lord is good to me,
and so I thank the Lord
for giving me
the things I need
the sun and the rain
and the Appleseed.
The Lord is good to me.
Amen."

Miracle

Miracles can be a touchy subject. The Bible is full of stories of men surviving impossible situations, stories of miraculous healing, the deaf and blind receiving their senses back.  Some people say those stories just aren't true.  Some people try to explain them using modern science.  The impulses to explain them away or dismiss them come from the same place.  Miracles seemed to have happened so much during Biblical times, but it seems like they don't happen anymore.  Why not?

Many people much smarter than I have tried to answer this question.  And they have some good things to say.  I don't want to try to answer that question.  I just want to share a story.

Last week, we found out that there was a hurricane/tropical storm in the southern Caribbean eventually headed for Haiti.  We watched it, trying to see how bad it would be so we had some idea how to prepare for it.  And it looked like it would be bad.  For a city in which hundreds of thousands of people are living in tents (tents that have already taken a beating from the sun, wind, and rain of the past 10 months) and many more are living with fragile rusted roofs over their heads, any storm with high winds was going to do a lot of damage.  And Tomas was predicted to be a Category 1 or 2 hurricane by the time it got to Port-au-Prince.  We were a little worried.

Alright, a lot worried.  Thursday night the boys and I were watching the weather channel on Haitian TV, and they were predicting the rain and wind would only get stronger as it headed towards us.  There was nothing much to do other than pray.  And I think a lot of people were praying, both here and back in the US.  I was raining most of the day on Thursday, but Friday it was supposed to hit us hard.  As I got out of bed on Friday, there was a bit of rain and wind, but you could hardly call it a storm.  It was a light drizzle, and maybe a 5 MPH breeze.  It was actually quite pleasant.  We waited for things to get worse.

But they never did.  We had a steady drizzle most of the day, but we couldn't have gotten much more than an inch all day long.  At one point, Cecelia's mom called.  She was watching the weather in the US.  The radar said we should be getting buckets of rain and 75 MPH winds.  Couldn't be farther from the truth.  Still light drizzle and a light breeze every once in a while.

Friday morning as I lay half awake in my bed, I had a vision of a huge God-hand coming out from the tops of the mountains that surround Port-au-Prince and curving over the city, protecting it.  It turns out the storm broke up as it approached Port-au-Prince.  I know weather forecasters are often wrong about these things, but they were really wrong this time.  And I don't think it was because they're not good at their job.  I think God covered the city with his hand of protection.

And I don't hesitate to call it a miracle.

Psalm 46:1-3,10-11
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change.
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult
"Be still and know that I am God.
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth!"
The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Little surprises

I've actually been back in Haiti for three weeks now, but we haven't had internet for most of that time.  It was really good to have time at home with my family for a bit, and now it is good to be back here with the kids.  I was really missing them while I was home.  They can be really difficult and frustrating sometimes, and other times they are really wonderful.  But I shouldn't be too surprised; they're teenagers.

I want to share one story along those lines.  One of the boys spends a lot of time hanging out with me.  He's a really great kid, and I think I've gotten to know him pretty well.  He's a pretty smart kid, he likes making movies, and he's really outgoing.  But his interests are a little different from the rest of the boys.  To begin with, he doesn't like soccer.  Which, for a Haitian, is really strange.  Haitian boys will turn anything into a soccer ball, whether it resembles a soccer ball or not.  I think my favorite might be a dead AA battery that one of our boys was kicking around one day.  Really. Anything can become a soccer ball.

Anyway, this one boy spends a lot of time with me.  He talks a lot and doesn't really mind interrupting whatever I'm doing.  Sometimes its great; he's helped me a lot with learning Creole and explaining cultural things to me.  But sometimes, he's just annoying.  And it gets frustrating when he does something that he knows is annoying, and keeps doing it. Or when he asks every five minutes when the library is going to be open and we tell him every time that the library won't be open for another four hours.  Well, one evening I was sitting on my bed writing in my journal.  I just finished writing how frustrated I was with him (it was particularly bad that day) when guess who jumped through the door!  Yep.  But it wasn't with the typical "como estas are you."  He was very serious.  And in fact, he had something very serious to talk about.  It really surprised me.  He was genuinely concerned, observant, and quite mature about his complaint.

My first thought was, "Wow!  That's a miracle."  Which it was.  And with that, I realized that people can change.  I know that sounds like a very basic observation, and something I should have learned a long time ago.  But people can change instantly.  One moment they are annoying and frustrating, then the next, the considerate, concerned part of them is brought to the fore, coaxed out by some miracle.  And that gives me hope.  Hope that no matter how difficult or whatever a person is, there is hope that there is something inside is different.  Hope that there is some goodness in there that just needs to come out.  And I don't take credit for that, but its really a miracle.

I want to tell you about one other event from the past few weeks that was fun.  Every month the kids have one big celebration for every kid that has a birthday in that month.  We had the October celebration a few weeks ago.  There's cake for everyone, and the birthday kids get an extra large piece.  But there are two really cool things about this celebration.  First, they don't give each other presents.  They don't have much to money to give each other anyway, but they don't even try to make cards from stuff we have in the library.  Instead, they perform for each other.  Each birthday boy or girl will ask a specific person to sing for them.  And there is often some complaining, but they do it.  Of course, they made me sing.  The other thing I like about it is that it isn't a strictly secular affair.  Unlike most birthday celebrations I've been to, they began with prayer.  Then most of the songs were religious songs.  Then there was cake.  It was just the right amount of God in it all.  It was still about celebrating their birthdays, but God was still present in that celebration.

And one last quick thing.  There is a hurricane/tropical storm headed this was, expected to make landfall late Friday night/early Saturday morning.  I tell you this not to worry you, because all of the kids and I will be perfectly safe.  Our buildings are in very little danger from a hurricane.  They're solid concrete.  They're not going to get blown away.  I tell you this instead to ask for your prayers for safety for the rest of Haiti.  There are so many people still living in tents and other flimsy buildings.  And there are thousands of people who still have their homes who are also in danger of losing their metal roofs.  There are dangers of mudslides with heavy rain.  So I ask for your prayers for the people of this country who are still deathly afraid of natural disasters.  Pray for safety, peace, and comfort.

Revision

So I've been thinking, many of my expectations about what I would be doing at the orphanage were inaccurate, and I'm not doing as much "work" as I expected.

What I have been doing, however, is loving kids. And loving kids is so much more than doing things for them. In fact, sometimes it means not doing things for them. Before I went to Haiti, I was thinking I would show the Haitians how much I love them by doing stuff, by "working". But after a few boring days, some days filled with supervising the library, and generally just being with the kids, I'm discovering lots of other ways to love them, not just through what I generally think of as "work". Loving by teaching. Loving by learning their language and culture. Loving by admitting my faults. Loving just through living in community with them.

So while I still believe work is a powerful way to show love, there are many other ways that love is "made visible" and many of those have been more prevalent in my work at the orphanage than what we might typically consider "work".  For all of us, we have some many more chances to show love than just by the "work" that we do.  So, with that, I'm just going to amputate the first two words from my blog title. I think that will make it a little more accurate.

On the topic of love, a few weeks ago, I taught a Bible study with the kids on 1 Corinthians 13. If you've ever gone to a Christian wedding, chances are good you've heard this passage before, particularly v. 4-7. It talks about what love is, and what it is not. Interestingly enough, it doesn't say, "love is hard-working." It is, however, lots of other things.

Pictures. 'Cause I have decent internet

I'm going to take advantage of a fast internet connection while I'm in the US to post some pictures.

First, here's a picture of the boys' house. Its right across the street from the other building that has the school and the girls dorms. My room is in the back left corner of the boys' house.

And this is the "living room" in the boys' house. We watch TV, hang out, and have devotions in this room.

Me sitting in my room reading. (Credits for this picture go to Renick. He likes taking pictures with my camera. Mostly of himself, but sometimes he takes pictures of other things. Like me.)

Here's a picture of all the kids minus three who were taking exams that day (some of them aren't cooperating really well) with me and Mark and Marsha (the other two white folks). We took this picture on the roof of the girls' house.

This is the kitchen in the boys' house. All the cooking is done in the other building, so this kitchen is mostly for storing and washing dishes. And blue thing on the right is our water filter.

I think that's good for now.

A time for grieving

Some of you know part of this story already, but I though everyone might like to know

A few weeks ago, my maternal grandmother passed away. She was sick and we knew it was coming, but it has still been very difficult for me being so far away. Then, this weekend, my paternal grandmother passed away as well. She had also been fighting cancer. All three of her children were with her this weekend, and I know they were glad they were there.

As I'm sure you can understand, this has been a very difficult few weeks for me, especially the past 24 hours. I will be going back to the US on the 23rd for the memorial service for my mom's mother, and will probably stay in the US until after my dad's mother's service, although we don't know for sure when that will be.

I ask now for your prayers for myself and my family, that we would be given strength and comfort in this time of sorrow and grief. I ask your prayers specifically for me, as it has been extremely difficult for me as I have struggled to deal with their deaths far away from my family, and for the last two weeks, without anyone I can really talk to about it.

I think I have shed tears in quantities to rival a Caribbean thunderstorm in the past four weeks.

Up and Down (or the other way around)

Yesterday was sort of an up and down day. Mark and Marsha left for a couple weeks of vacation yesterday, leaving me here as the only American, which isn't really the end of the world. The hard part is that all the things that we were sharing responsibility for, now I have to do. Which, again, isn't really that much. The biggest part of that is supervising the library with the computers and the internet. Whenever someone is on the internet, one of the three of us needs to be in the library supervising. And to make sure all of the kids get time online, we set up a schedule where each kid gets one hour a week online. Which means the library has to be supervised for six hours a day, six days a week. Which is kinda a lot of time for me to be in the library.

In the last hour yesterday, I was getting tired and bored. I was ready to get out of the library. Its a handful to try to maintain some order in the library with teenagers coming and going for six hours. I decided to write in my journal a bit. As I wrote, I got just got more frustrated. Thoughts that had come up earlier in my time here began to creep back. "What am I doing here?" "There's no point in me being here." "I'm not doing any good, I'm just taking up space and consuming resources." (Yes, not eating food or drinking water, consuming resources. Thanks Swarthmore.) My writing began to morph from journal entry into prayer, asking God for direction and a renewed sense of purpose here. (Its something that I've struggled with in the past month or so, and keeps rearing its ugly head.) So I closed the library half an hour later, then, after a quick supper of Heart to Heart cereal, I went to check my email.

Before I go into all the details, I need to describe one of the boys for you. He's not really the easiest one to deal with. Since I've gotten here, he got into a fight with one of the other boys and hurt the other kid's eye. He's come close to getting in fights on other occasions, and generally doesn't understand his own strength. I wouldn't hesitate to say he's got some aggression issues. Since I've been here, he hasn't really been friendly with me, more quick to poke fun than show anything close to compassion. He's kinda a tough kid.

So I was quite surprised to find an email from him sitting in my inbox last night. It didn't say much, and it was in Creole, so I'm still not sure what it all says. But, for starters, HE reached out to me. It expressed admiration for me, and he said "I'm happy to write you and have you as a friend." A much softer side to this kid, and a wonderful place to begin a relationship from.

And maybe the coolest thing of all, I think he wrote this email about five minutes after I wrote my journal entry/prayer. Pretty quick response to a prayer, if you ask me.

Short Stories

In contrast to some of my recent posts, I'm going to keep this one shorter. I've got two short stories to share with you.

1-
Early this afternoon, I was about to walk across the street to the boy's house. There was a huge crowd right outside our door. Thinking it probably wasn't the best idea to walk into a large (loud) crowd of Haitians as a white American, I went up to the roof to see two long lines that merged into a crowd behind a small yellow truck. Inside (I could see in because it didn't have a roof) were a few guys passing out some stuff. I could see they were passing out collapsible water bottles, but I couldn't see what the other things were. I found out later they were mosquito nets, complete with instructions for their use and care. After consulting with an orphanage employee, I did go across the street, kinda circumnavigating most of the crowd. Everyone was mostly orderly and peaceful, but there's always that little reminder of what kind of country you're in: they had a guard standing by the back of the truck, complete with bullet-proof vest.

2-
Some of you may have heard about this in the US. Wyclef Jean, the singer, announced his candidacy for President a few weeks ago. He had some rallies, and seemed to be very popular. I saw many motorcycle taxi drivers wearing shirts supporting him. Recently, the electoral commission decided he wouldn't be allowed to run because of residency laws. (If you want the whole story, you can probably find it from a US news source.) I expected protests in the wake of their decision, but I haven't heard of any, which is a good sign. I know there are some folks who are really glad to know that he's not going to be able to run; I'm not quite sure if he would have been a good President or not, but I am looking forward to the elections (though not the riots and protests that I've heard could happen) as it might mean a new direction for Haiti and maybe some new hope. Hope that something will change.

There you go. Short and Sweet.

And what a day it was!

Yesterday (8/17) was such an eventful day that I just have to dedicate an entire post to it.

The morning was fairly uneventful. I spent most of the morning supervising the library. Things got a little heated at one point, but I thought nothing of it at the time (turns out I was wrong, but I'll get to that later). Then, at 12:30, we had our first Bible study of the summer. The whole school schedule got messed up by the earthquake, so this is the first week of the summer for the kids. A few of them still have exams, so it was a voluntary Bible study. The nannies wanted to make Bible study mandatory for all the kids, which I wasn't so excited about, but they didn't want mandatory Bible study to start before everyone had finished exams, so that gave us two weeks to do some voluntary Bible studies. And it worked! We had ten kids there (of 34 total). I taught on humility from Luke 14:7-14. I'd say it was overall pretty successful, although there is room for improvement. The kids were interested and listened attentively while I talked. They weren't exactly jumping out of their seats to answer my questions, but that's OK. Talking with Mark afterward, we figured there were probably a few reasons for this; primarily, most of my questions probably sounded like calls to public confession, which, though we may think of that as a common part of Bible study in the US, doesn't seem to be part of the church culture here in Haiti, and certainly not at the orphanage. But they did, first of all, come, and they seemed pretty engaged. All in all, it was an encouraging first Bible study.

The second thing we had planned for the day was painting crews. American short-term teams have been coming in during our summer in the US, and many of them have been painting classrooms in the orphanage, some of which probably haven't been painted since it was built. But we've got the hallways left to paint, and now that school is starting in the US, there are fewer short-term mission teams coming our way. But part of what HFC wants to do, is to get the kids involved in service, so a good place to start is helping out in their own building. They do have regular chores around the place, but summer can be a little boring without a whole lot to do. So we asked for volunteers to help paint. And 14 kids volunteered. And they loved it! There were a few sour grapes, but mostly, they had a good time, and we rewarded them with cokes at the end of it. It was really good to see them getting involved and learning something.

Then, the most dramatic event of the day. Sometime in the late afternoon, a big storm blew in. I don't think it was a hurricane, but there was a lot of rain and a lot of wind. I was sitting in my room, taking a little break and listening to my iPod when it started to get dark. I took out my headphones and the wind was howling and the rain was beating in the windows. Everyone was on their feet looking out at what the storm was doing. The rain flooded the streets, turning them into rivers. No joke, I saw a concrete block being pushed downhill by the water. That's how much water was in the street. The wind blew a few roofs off of some surrounding houses. And the tarps and tents, which many people have been living in since the earthquake, didn't fare too well. Some survived, but some of the tarp houses were blown apart, just like in "The Three Little Pigs." We had a few tarps covering an outdoor courtyard that has served as the kindergarten area since the earthquake (the kindergarten parents are too afraid of another earthquake to let their kids have class inside the 3-story concrete building). The wind ripped them up and tore them down. Most of them are now pretty useless.

There was one moment of this storm that really struck me. I was looking out of the window of the boys' house across the street, and I saw a woman with a big pile of charcoal. She had found a tarp and was struggling to cover her pile of charcoal with it. In Haiti, the wealthier folks cook with gas stoves. The poorer cook with charcoal. And selling charcoal is one of the lowest and most humiliating jobs in the country. You sit by the side of the road, covered in charcoal dust all day long. These bags of charcoal were this woman's livelihood, and if they got wet, they'd probably be useless, at least for a while until they dried (does anyone know? if charcoal gets wet, can it dry out and be useful again?). But the wind was not helping, blowing her tarp all over the place. And you could see the anguish on her face, the worry that all she had would be destroyed. It was hard to watch, and at the same time I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

And that's not all! The argument that I heard earlier in the day in the library, turns out it was actually a bigger deal than I thought. One of the boys called one of the girls a bad name that I'd rather not repeat. I'll just say that if you turned on the radio, this word would be bleeped out. I didn't have any idea that he had used this word earlier, because he said it in Creole. But the girl went and told one of the other girls who then told one of the Haitian nannies who then called Dr. Bernard, who basically runs the orphanage. He used to live right up the street, and he and his wife were the house parents of the orphanage; he's been a part of these kids lives for about 14 years now. Anyway, he punished the boy for what he said. My problem is, I think the story probably got exaggerated before it got to him. I don't always trust this particular girl, and she is often very disrespectful to me and Mark and Marsha. Its just a little frustrating. I was here, but I have no idea what actually happened. I don't think he deserved the punishment he got, but maybe he did. It doesn't help that I don't particularly trust all of the individuals that the story passed through to get to Dr. Bernard either, and some of the other kids seem to think the punishment was too harsh as well. Its challenging to say the least.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I wanted to share the whole day with you. Its funny: some days are packed full, and some days are downright mundane. You never know.

I just want to add one prayer request:
Life here can be quite overwhelming sometimes. Dealing with the kids, seeing poverty on such a massive scale, thinking and praying about my life and where God is moving me, and all the while trying to keep focused on God and where I am. Its challenging, and sometimes it brings me to the point of tears. Emotions here can go from laughing and smiling to anger or tears in a moment, and sometimes I don't know why. Please pray for strength and strength through God.

Pictures! (Finally!)

The school and the girls half of the orphanage, taken from the roof of the boys house.















Looking out from the roof of the boys house in the opposite direction. Lots of small houses packed in pretty tight.

I'll try to send more soon!

The simple things

As I passed the four week mark (yesterday) I realized a few things:
1.

Time has flown by! I can hardly believe I’ve been here four weeks already!
2.
There are so many things that I haven't been able to post about yet!

And I bet that there are some things that many of you are wondering, like, "what is the food like?" Well, sometimes, like yesterday, the food is really good! Yesterday after church we had white rice, a kidney bean sauce, chicken, and some veggies. It was VERY tasty. My favorite breakfast is peanut butter and jelly with bread and coffee or hot chocolate (and sometimes a banana). But its not always quite so good. One common breakfast (which we had today) is spaghetti with a minuscule amount of tomato paste. And oil. LOTS of oil. Marsha likes to say that she never has to wear chap stick because the spaghetti has so much oil. And then there's one meal, which I'm not quite sure what it is. I think it might be some sort of corn meal that they cook with beans and who knows what. If you turned it upside-down, the whole thing would fall out of the bowl in one clump, like jello, but not as tasty. That's a hard meal to eat much of.

I sleep in the boys' house, which is right across from the girls house and the school. I've got my own room, which is wonderful. The kids just finished the school year last week (they were delayed because schools were closed after the earthquake), so now much of our time is consumed with just hanging out with the kids. They watch movies, play computer games, send emails, play card games. We're going to have some of the kids help paint the hallways of the school while they're out. We'll take the boys (and girls if they want) up to play soccer. Mark, Marsha, and I are going to try having some Bible studies over the summer, and we'll see how that goes. They don't really have Bible study like we do in the US. Church is just culturally different than it is in the US. Some of that is fine, but some of it really grates on me, but that's for another post.

We don't get out much, cause its hard to get around without a vehicle and we don't always have one. We don't really need to go anywhere often, but it would be nice to be out and about a bit. Maybe in the coming weeks we'll be out and about more. We did go over to the church the other day and talked with a pastor there, and it was good to hear about what they're doing. And we've been making a few connections with other NGO's and hopefully we'll make some more soon.

I'd like to ask for your continued prayers as it can be very challenging sometimes to deal with the overwhelming poverty and all the frustrations that come with living in Haiti.

I'm trying to upload pictures, but the internet is being very slow, so bear with me.

Poverty

I've been thinking and reading a lot about poverty, in addition to seeing it every day. You all know that Haiti is a very poor nation. I don't have to tell you that again. And I've seen some extreme poverty before.

But something about Haiti seems different. Maybe its the damage from the earthquake that just compounded the damage. Maybe its that some houses weren't damaged by the earthquake, but are still worse off than ones that were. Maybe its the sheer scale of poverty here. I look from the roof top of the orphanage and see small, one-room houses with crumbling walls and tin roofs that have been rusted through by the torrential rains spreading as far as I can see. There is a single building that looks different: the 5 or 6 story headquarters of the largest cell-phone company in Haiti - Digicell.

Maybe its that the kids in the orphanage (and me with them) are living in immense wealth compared to the 600 people living in the tent city just up the hill. I'm reminded of a story that has come up a few times in the books that I've been reading. Its from the gospel of Luke, Chapter 16. Jesus tells the story of a rich man who walks past a invalid (Lazarus) sitting right outside of his front door every day and does nothing to help him, despite his great wealth. When they both died, the rich man went to hell and the poor invalid went to heaven. The rich man was punished because he ignored the need right in front of him. It was not what he had done that got him in trouble, but what he had failed to do.

The poverty here is overwhelming. I often think that there is not much that I can do to change that. And indeed Haiti needs something big. I was talking with a Haitian civil engineer the other day who said that Haiti need a huge investment to lift it out of poverty (something on the scale of the New Deal in the US). But he also reminded us that we have the power to help in small ways. And helping one is better than helping none. Sometimes even that is difficult though. We don't consistently have transportation to go buy the things we need. Deciding who needs help and what they need are tricky things, particularly without knowing Creole very well (although I'm learning quickly). And then I start thinking about all the things we could change if there was just an unlimited amount of money. My mind wanders to out to the entire city, the big picture.

Maybe we'll get there, but for now, its about relationships, working small, and doing what I can. Its about showing compassion and facing the poverty that is right outside of my door. Its about each day choosing to do what is right, choosing to everything I can, choosing to do what Jesus taught his disciples to do. Sometimes I just need to remind myself of that.

Every Day is a New Adventure

It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been here for four full days; each day has been packed full of action. Monday and Tuesday we were working in the orphanage with a team from Grace Chapel in Boston doing repairs, fixing ceiling fans, and repainting some of the classrooms. Its been hot and hard work, but we’ve got a great group helping us out. Tuesday night we came up with the Grace Chapel team to Dr. Bernard’s guest house up in the hills above Port-au-Prince. (Dr. Bernard is also the director of the HFC school and orphanage, as are Mark and Marsha Romens; it’s a little complicated.)

Wednesday I had my first day of vacation! Mark, Marsha, and I traveled with the team to the Baptist Mission headquarters and hospital. The Baptist Mission isn’t actually Baptist, but they keep the name for the recognition. They run schools and churches all over the country, many in places that other people aren’t going to. Sometimes they have to walk for two hours on foot after driving as far as they can to reach their sites. It was great to see their facilities and hear about the work that they are doing. When we got back to the guest house on Wednesday night, we discovered there were protests planned in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, and it wouldn’t be safe for us to go back down to the orphanage on Thursday. So we occupied ourselves with various tasks, and we’ll head back to the orphanage tomorrow to get back to work.

If I had any fears about working with kids in an orphanage, those fears quickly vanished. The kids are really wonderful. In some ways they’re very similar to kids in the US, but in some ways they’re very different. They care for each other and share with each other better than any other kids I’ve seen. They don’t have much, but they realize what they do have which is mostly each other. And they’ve been great about taking care of me too. They have welcomed me into their community with open arms and smiling faces. The first night I was there, a few of the boys started teaching me Creole, and I’ve been picking it up pretty well. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to have some decent conversations in Creole. But I really can’t say how great these kids are. I am so blessed to be with them.

I’ve not been here long, but I already feel at home. Mark and I started brainstorming ideas of how to get more involved in the community around the orphanage, and we’ve had a few ideas, but we’re still trying to make sure we’re not, in Mark’s words, “putting a band-aid on a mortal wound”. So please pray for guidance in that direction. And as great as it is, there are still difficult times, so, as always please pray for continued perseverance (which seems a little funny to say, seeing that I haven’t been here for even a week yet, but nonetheless).

*The internet is fairly reliable, albeit slow, so that’s nice that its working. Means I should be able to post updates fairly regularly. I’ve also figured out (actually my mother did) a relatively cheap way to use my US cell phone, although it is a little unreliable.

Here at Last

I arrived in Haiti safely without too much hassle, and I have settled in quite nicely. There is a team here from Grace chapel in Boston, so we got right to work yesterday. I've had to jump in feet first and over my head, but its been wonderful. Mark and Marsha (the American directors here) have been wonderfully welcoming and helpful, always with helpful advice.

Everything I've heard about the kids here has been right. They're wonderful, and although they're still kids, and they get into trouble sometimes, they are great. They share better than any other kids I've met, and they really look out for each other. A few of the boys have been teaching me Creole in the evenings, and my pronunciation makes them laugh.

Time to head back to work, but the internet is working for now, so I should be able to post more later.

Now Boarding

In less than 24 hours, I will be two feet on the ground in Port-au-Prince. There's always a bit of anxiety before a big trip like this; like going to college, its another step out on my own. There's a lot that I don't quite know what to expect, but I do know who is picking me up from the airport, so I should be fine. In my experience, the anticipation of the days prior to departure are the most difficult. I'm as prepared as I can be, so let's go!

Its tough leaving my family and all the people that I care about. But it is precisely because of all of you that I am able to do this. The financial support that has been generously given, as well as the advice, friendship, prayer, and emotional support from all my family and friends are what has allowed me to embark on this adventure, and I am sincerely grateful. I really could not do this without y'all, and I hope I do justice on your behalf.

A few notes about communication:
Latest word is that internet at the orphanage isn't working, and they're not sure when it will be up. So if the blog posts are slow, be patient. Apparently, cell phones are the most reliable form of communication, and I will have both my US phone, and a Haitian cell number.

The Journey Ahead

So in about three weeks, on July 18th, I'll be flying to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to spend 5 months interning with Hope for the Children of Haiti (http://hfchaiti.org/), a Christian orphanage in Port-au-Prince. I'll be living and working in the orphanage, and although I'm not sure of exactly what all I will be doing, I'll likely be doing some rebuilding and teach a little English or Bible study. But more generally, I'm there to teach the kids about the world, and be a mentor for them. There's a lot that isn't certain right now, but I'm excited to see what's in store for me while I'm down there.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, with 80% unemployment before the earthquake. The earthquake has just made a horrible situation worse. There was a huge outpouring of help in the days right after the earthquake, but since then, the general public has largely forgotten about the country. But the problems in Haiti, as in many other places in the world, won't be solved overnight simply by throwing money at it. They need long term investment. And that's part of the reason I'm so excited to be working with HFC. They've been in Haiti since 1996 and are committed to working with the Haitians to make life better. In addition to the orphanage, which houses about 60 kids, they also run a school of about 150-200 kids, and are working towards starting other programs in the community, including potentially some micro-economic programs.

If you believe that prayer has some real power, Please, pray for me as I prepare to go and while I'm down there, that God would use me to help these kids, and set a worthy example for them to follow. If prayer isn't your thing, please just remember me in your thoughts while I'm away, trying to do what I can to make the world a little bit better.

And one quick note on the title of the blog. "Work is love made visible" is a quote by Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. I think it captures both what I'll be doing in Haiti (Work) but also why I'm going (the love part). And it reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses (from one of my favorite books of the Bible):

"So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless... But I say, 'How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.' "
James 2:17, 18b (NLT)

*I'll try to keep updating as regularly as I can, hopefully with some pictures, but internet in Haiti isn't the most reliable, so we'll just have to see.