Things I'd Rather Keep To Myself

I know.  It's a bit misleading to write "things I'd rather keep to myself" and then spend a blog post telling them to you.  You might rightly wonder if I'd really rather keep them to myself, and if so, why I am blogging about them.  It is occurring to me, as we begin this short-term journey of being missionaries, that there are a number of things that we, and perhaps other missionaries, would rather keep to ourselves.  

The thing about the modern missionary (or post-modern if you are keeping up with the philosophical times) is that a big part of being a missionary is communicating with supporters.  Two things about this communication are dramatically different than just a few decades ago:  dollars and time.  First, our communication is intended to help those who have sent us here be informed about our work and pray for us, but in these days those same people are making monthly decisions about where their donation dollars are going.  Wanting to be stewardly, those same supporters will want to make sure that the dollars they are spending on missions are having an impact.  So, we missionaries feel the pressure to prove that we are being "effective" and having an "impact."  The second thing is that our communication is no longer limited to a few letters a year or a quarterly prayer letter.  The internet brings the convenience of helping distant missionaries stay in touch with family back home regularly but also adds the pressure for missionaries to create websites, glossy monthly newsletters and (at least) weekly blog updates.  When you add in the convenience and immediacy of email, skype, facetime, pinterest, and just plain old "google hanging out," it is a pretty quick calculation to see that the modern missionary is called upon to produce much more "news" than their predecessors.  

Both of these reasons add pressure for missionaries to market themselves well, to produce a never ending supply of inspiring and positive stories, and of course to steer away from too much about the nitty gritty.  So, even though I have only been a missionary for two months, I know enough to know that there are things I'd rather keep to myself.  And, because this blog can't go on indefinitely, I'll have to limit it to a few things and end up keeping some to myself anyway.  

FOUR THINGS I'D RATHER KEEP TO MYSELF:

1. I am not changing the world.  Change, progress, growth, and fruitfulness all happen slowly and sometimes imperceptibly.  I can tell you what I am doing -- going to work, having meetings, reading reports, talking with partners in ministry, discovering things I didn't know, praying, scratching my head, and sharing beans and rice with co-workers over lunch; but I can't always tell you what effect it is having.  In fact, even though we put a lot of effort into measuring the fruitfulness of what we do, and the data and stories we collect are generally encouraging, they are generally not dramatic.  When my term in Haiti is over, there will still be lots of work to be done.  

There are also days where the change is so invisible that I cannot see it and wonder why I have come.  The progress I hope for is often met by setbacks because of things outside my control and words like "frustration," "futility," and "failure" enter my wandering thoughts.  Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly vulnerable, I dare to share these thoughts with supporters, but I am careful to package them as prayer requests so that I can invite others' partnership without diminishing their expectation that "really great and inspiring things" are happening through their missionary.  

2. I'm an emotional yo-yo who goes back and forth between being thrilled to be here and wishing I wasn't.  Missionaries used to be "other people," and frankly, I was glad they were.  Missionaries, I thought, didn't know the first thing about living in the real world.  Now I am one of them and I think, "Wow, I have learned so much about myself and the world and perspective in the last seven weeks, I can't imagine being the person I was seven weeks ago."  In other words, I feel sorry for my former self who hadn't yet had this experience and by extension, feel sorry for any who haven't had significant cross-cultural experience.  These fleeting thoughts of cultural superiority are then interrupted by miniature pity parties, like when I re-encounter daily hassles for the basics of living - like having my water cistern running empty, my batteries drain, or my propane tanks empty.   

In addition to that, the emotional work of living in a country where poverty is its most lucrative export is tremendous.  My eyes go back and forth between typing on my MacBook and seeing neighbours who live on less than $5 a day.  Driving an average speed of a crawl and adjusting to the perpetual mobility futilty of taking 30 minutes to go five kilometres forces a person to lower all sorts of expectations.  I am told this is normal.  

3. I don't attend a Christian Reformed congregation even though I work for a Christian Reformed ministry. I am a Christian Reformed pastor.  I work for a Christian Reformed ministry:  Christian Reformed World Missions.  There are, depending on whose counting you are counting, somewhere between 42 and 60 Christian Reformed congregations in the country, some of which are within easy driving distance of our home.  Yet, every Sunday morning, we head to one of the few English-speaking services in our part of town -- at a non-denominational chapel pastored by a Wesleyan.  As a pastor who has baptized an average of one child per month for the last fifteen years, the absence of a font at the front is just one of a host of changes in our Sunday morning routine.  But you know, I am loving it.  Expanding our perspective of the kingdom of God is not just about including Haitians, and not just about knowing in my head that all those good folks in other congregations are my spiritual siblings, but knowing it deep in my gut and my experience.  

4. Finally, I am not suffering as much as you think I am.  I have cable television, house staff, and beer in my fridge.  We can skype with parents and grandparents when we are homesick.  Grocery stores stock nearly every North American good item you can think of and while they are more expensive, they are accessible.  In order to focus on my work, staff take care of all sorts of details of life including filling the Nissan with diesel, mopping the floors, even driving to the beach.  Yes, beach.  We live on a tropical island and have been to the beach.  

Those are just four things I'd keep to myself.  Ok, not keep to myself, but you can guess they won't frame my next monthly newsletter, which is due in just a couple of days.  The challenge of course, is to continue to portray the challenge of ministry, the hope of transformation, and the evidence of God's blessing in ways that evoke prayer, support, and genuine missionary fervor.  

If you are supporting us in ministry, thanks for continuing despite my disclosure; If you are considering missions yourself, know that it's not that overwhelming both positively and negatively; and if you are just a casual reader of our blog, thanks for sharing the journey.    

Jameson

The following words from the song Hosanna by Hillsong have been swirling around in my heart and mind since I returned from visiting a feeding program through Child Hope yesterday afternoon. 

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Everything I am for your kingdom’s cause

As I walk from earth into eternity

My heart broke yesterday.  On Monday afternoon, Erin, Meghan and I went to the home of Bill and Susette Manassero, founders of Child Hope, a ministry that had come highly recommended as an orphanage where Meghan could possibly spend some time volunteering (http://childhope.org/) .  We had a lovely visit with Susette who shared her family’s inspiring story about why they are serving in Haiti and the history of the orphanage they started.  We agreed to come to the boys’ home on Friday afternoon to help out with the feeding program that they offer to neighbourhood children on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons from 3:00-4:30.  The feeding program began several years ago when Susette and her family noticed a need for children in their neighbourhood.   Since handing out rice and beans meant that the food might not get into the mouths of these children, she decided to prepare meals for some children off of the back of her truck.  It grew and grew to a place where they now meet at the boys’ home and serve about 100 kids 3 times a week.  Sadly, she told me that funds are running low and she’s not sure they will be able to continue this part of the ministry. 

We arrived prior to 3:00 and many children were already lined up outside the gate looking forward to this special time in their week.  The children were warmly welcomed into the yard by staff and volunteers who played and interacted with the children.  After a while the children sat at tables and were led in a time of worship by a volunteer who included vibrant singing, clapping and praising the Lord as well as a brief talk and a skit telling the story of David and Goliath.  Then it was time for dinner which included rice and a bit of sauce with a small piece of meat.  I noticed that there was also a gummy bear on each plate as a special treat.  Each child was also given a cup of water.  I was told that for some children, this would likely be their only meal of the day.  The children seemed so appreciative.  We assisted by passing out plates of food and helping small children who needed our help.  It was all in Creole and although I am learning the language, the talking was way too fast for me to understand.   I pondered the story of David and Goliath and couldn't help but think about how these children are in situations that seem like they are up against a giant.  I realized it for myself also as the needs are so great here that I feel like I’m up against a giant.  My comfort is in the fact that God is on my side!    

I noticed that Susette was carrying a small child.  We found out that his name was Jameson and I'm guessing that he was 3 or 4 years old.  It was obvious that his neighbourhood friends had carried him to the feeding centre because he would not have had the strength to walk that far on his own. When she came and sat down beside me I could see how skinny he was, yet his belly was distended.  He was listless and held a blank stare.  She told me that she hasn't seen a child in this state come to the feeding program for a long time.  He was starving.  She knew right away that he must have worms, which is why his belly was bloated and that worms are taking what little nutrients he is receiving.  She felt the Lord leading her to go to his home and talk to his aunt who is his care-giver.  She asked us if we wanted to come with.  At first I just stood there motionless wondering if my heart could bear this, but I knew that I needed to go with her.  Meghan held the precious little boy as we drove to his home.  When we got to the place where he lived, there were many other children there also.  Susette and Olene (the woman who runs both the boys home and the girls home) asked the aunt to please bring Jameson to the feeding centre between 7-8 tomorrow morning and they would make sure he gets fed.  They also plan to take him to a clinic to get medication so that he can get de-wormed.  It was so hard to give him back to his aunt who looked so distraught and overwhelmed with all of the children she was caring for and she did not look healthy either.  I took some comfort in knowing that Jameson will begin getting the help he desperately needs this weekend.  When we returned to the feeding centre, the neighbourhood children were gone and we just sat with Susette and did some processing.  I could not contain my tears any longer.  I know that there are hungry children in the world, but I've never held a starving child and this experience broke my heart.

I woke up many times in the night and my first thought and prayer was for this precious little boy with big brown eyes and long eyelashes whose face I will never forget.   I realize as I am writing that the words to the song in my heart from Hosanna by Hillsong are having an impact on me especially the words Break my heart for what breaks yours and show me how to love like you have loved me.  God’s heart breaks for the injustices in this country and around the world and although I've sung this song so many times before, I think I finally understand vividly today what these words really mean.  I pray that God will use my brokenness so that in my imperfect way, I can love as he has loved me.   

Normal

I keep on putting my underwear on backwards.  Let me explain.  After years of folding my own laundry, I have been used to being able to unfold my underwear and put them on without looking, knowing that the front will be in the front and the back in the back.  However, now, with our staff person, Nanotte, folding all our laundry, my underwear, shirts, socks, and pants are all folded differently.  This is how my days often start: with some vivid reminder that normal is being redefined.

I think it was Patsy Clairmont who said, "Normal is just a setting on your dryer."  Normal.  Websters tells me normal is "conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern." Sometimes as I think about how we are settling into life and ministry here, I think that things are becoming normal.  Sometimes, as I engage the myriad of challenges of ministry and life, I think that things are anything but normal.

When things were normal for me, like 44 days ago and before, leaving the house in the morning involved getting in the car, pressing a button to open the garage door, backing out of the driveway, pressing the button to close the garage door, and then driving away.  It was normal, and took all of 30 seconds, and didn't make me sweat.  Now, leaving involves temporarily putting the guard dogs in the garage, unlocking the three locks on the 16' wide sliding gate across our driveway, sliding the gate open, backing the SUV out, turning it off, locking it, sliding the 16' gate back across the driveway, letting the guard dogs back out, and exiting through the double locked man-door (sorry to not be gender-inclusive) in the gate.  Then, sweating profusely from the 90 F degree 7:30am heat, get back into the SUV and drive away.  Time lapsed:  4 minutes.  Now, this is normal.

When things were normal for me, back in Cambridge, I would see children walking to school in the morning and walking home at night.  Crossing guards ensured safe passageway across roads.  Children, at least most of them, would have had breakfast and would be carrying a lunch.  They would be on their way to classrooms where teachers with teaching degrees and lesson plans had spent time preparing for their day of learning which would include a pair of nutrition breaks, plenty of DPA (Daily Physical Activity), and time to eat the food they had brought with them from home.  Then, at the end of the day, these same children could go home and if they had homework to look up on the computer, they could do so at home.  Here in Port-au-Prince, normal is different.  Children of all ages are escorted by parents to schools dotting the landscape, sometimes crammed into what are otherwise houses.  Three doors down from our house is a house of a similar size which is a school for a few hundred uniformed children every day who arrive to a teacher who may have a grade school education and who leads them through unprepared curriculum-driven, one-size-fits-all "lessons" of rotely repeating exactly what the teachers say.  Yesterday, I heard a class of 3rd-graders practicing saying the numbers from one to thirty.  It was audibly cute but genuinely disheartening.

Normal, at least looking back at life in Cambridge, had pockets of relaxing in it.  Evenings out at soccer, sitting at music lessons, walking to friends houses for a visit.  Occasionally, when I was feeling creative or ambitious, or on the rare occasion that something was broken, I would have to go to my tool box and do some work.  Now normal doesn't feel to include as much relaxing.  It's not just the four minutes vs 30 seconds that it now takes to come and go but it is a host of other things -- the mental preoccupation of whether we have enough water in the cistern, in the roof tanks, or in the water cooler; the keeping track of whether the dogs or the chickens or the fish have been fed.  The constant monitoring of how much electricity we have stored up in our back-up battery/inverter system and guess-calculating whether I need to add power in the daylight through running the generator before knowing the if/when of whether the city will turn on the power tonight and if not that I need to go out in the dark and strike up the generator.  And with these and other things contributing to a state of un-relax, it makes sense that I am tired and most of my family with me.

Compounding this is the challenge of ministry in Haiti.  In a country where record volumes of every kind of aid has come in for more than a generation, there are times when I wonder, like Timothy Shwartz did in his book "Travesty in Haiti" whether all the aid has created dependency rather than empowerment.  I mourn the reality of relationships between populations in Haiti and Elsewhere where the common language is neither Creole nor English, but Dollar; and I struggle how we from Elsewhere who bring the Dollar must negotiate that fine balance of empowerment which neither abuses nor ignores the power Dollar brings.

As I think about these things, how my normal is shifting and how hard an adjustment it is for me and for my family, it strikes me just how short of a time we have been here so far.  Today, for Carol and the boys and me, is Day 44.  For the girls it is day 21.  I have met people here who have been here for 21 years, 30 years, and more.  They have said, "It doesn't get normal."  I find this both troubling and encouraging.  On the one hand, I want it to feel normal soon; on the other, I never want to get to a place where the chaos, poverty, sadness, futility, and frustration of this place seems to me like the way it should be.

Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is near.  Repent and believe."  A lot of people over the years have taken the repent to mean that you are supposed to beat yourself up internally or emotionally about how much of a shmuck you have been, but that is certainly not what Jesus had in mind when he said, "Repent."  Repent, as the Greek language so wonderfully phrases it in the word "metanoia" is to "change one's mind."  Repentance is turning from the broken that is to the rebuilt that could be.  Repenting, here is Haiti, as the plaque in our hallway says, is "Seeing light with our hearts when our eyes see only darkness."

So, today, again, I will choose, as this anniversary of my Uncle Bill teBrake reminds me, to walk by faith, to change my mind, to believe that the squalor, chaos, sadness, and road ruts are not all that life here is paved with.  I will choose to live in Haiti this year but also to live in the Kingdom, a place that my inner self yearns to one day be normal, to be everywhere and everything, and by God's grace, everyone.  

...in the shade of a solar panel...

I wouldn't have thought until today about the fact that solar panels, when mounted on top of poles, can provide shade.  But they can.  Just a small patch of shade, but shade none-the-less.

It happened like this, my noticing the shade of the solar panel.  I had just dropped off my colleague, Larry Luth, at the airport for his trip to Guatemala for the week for meetings.  Heading back home I stopped at a light, one of the very few in Port-au-Prince.  As I waited at the light, a young boy, probably 8 or 9 years old, began wiping my SUV, one of the ways children try to earn a living.  Instinctively, I waved him off, having just had my vehicle wiped clean the day before.  As he made his way to the car behind me, I noted the two people he had been sitting with on the sidewalk.  One, an even younger child, maybe five, was begging the old man they were sitting with for something the old man had.  It looked like a straw, but I couldn't tell and couldn't imagine.  The old man, looking to be somewhere around the life-expectancy age here in Haiti: 62, was sitting cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard.

As I waited for the light to change, I wondered what might possess an old man and young child to sit at this dusty, noisy intersection.  And then I noticed the patch of shade they were sitting in.  The traffic light, not able to count on electrical supply from the public utility, was powered by its own solar panel at the top of the pole.  This panel, probably 3'x6' (1metre x 2 metres), threw a patch of shade.  This patch of shade was the Sunday afternoon living room of the old man, the straw-begging five-year-old, and the nine-year-old car-wiper.  The one I had just waved off.  I thought about taking a picture, but with the image already pressed into my memory, it wasn't necessary.  My Sunday afternoon living room, when I got back from the trip to the airport was not only indoors in the shade but had fans, cool water, comfortably furniture, and a meal I shared with my family complete with meat, cheese, vegetables, and even a rare luxury of ice-cream.  And with all that, I'm a little uncomfortable.

Now, I know enough to know that the solution isn't for me to hire every towel-waving eight-year-old I see to wipe my car.  Nor is it to find my own patch of solar-panel-shade and forsake my living room and fans.  That would be futile.  I also know that these folks in the shade of the solar panel are not the worst off in the city or the country. The eight-year-old wiping cars near the airport is actually pretty good marketing, strictly speaking, and that they are probably pulling in a few hundred gourdes -- the national minimum wage rate for a day of labour -- in just an hour or so, even though those few hundred gourdes happen to be the same as what I paid for caramel sauce for our ice cream sundaes yesterday.

The solution, or perhaps a better word would be response, is multifold.  First, nurturing a reflexive emotional response of compassion.  This first one might seem like a no-brainer, but believe it or not, when you get asked a few dozen times a day if you'd like someone to wipe your car, stop traffic for you, change your windshield wipers, sell you a bag of water, or a host of other ways the less fortunate try to gather cash from the 'haves' like me, you start to develop what I described in my second paragraph, where I 'instinctively' waved the boy off.  Even while I continue to need to wave off eight-year-olds who want to wipe my car, I need to proactively nurture  compassion.  Otherwise cynicism will creep in.

Second, like this blog post, we need to give things a second thought.  I don't want to become numb to the gaping need all around me, that the people on the canvas of my day become little more than wallpaper.  I want to keep seeing people and wondering about their plight and life and at least entering the struggle with them enough to feel what I am feeling now.  Sometimes those second thoughts will extend to others, like sharing in this blog post, because those folks in the shade of the solar panel probably won't be posting it in their blog.  I didn't see a laptop among their belongings.

Finally, even if I can't do anything more than paying folks to wipe my car a little more regularly, I can think creatively in my own circle of influence about how my living is affecting the poor where I live.  Maybe for you in California, Cambridge, or Calgary it might mean tipping the waitress at the diner a little more healthily.  Maybe it means thinking strategically about our political activity -- when voting or appealing for something, that that thing is about the benefit of the folks who live in the 'shade of the solar panels' of our cities.  I don't think we all need to get on an airplane to find them.  My guess is that anyone with a compassionate reflex, able to give a second thought, and think creatively will be able to find them.  I did, and I wasn't even trying.  

dlo

Since coming to Haiti, a number of words have found their way into my everyday vocabulary.    Delko is the Haitian word for generator, largely because the first generators here were 'A.C. Delco.'  EDH is what folks in Ontario call hydro and what our friends in Michigan simply called electricity.  Gaz is fairly easy to figure out, although the twist is that it is nearly always propane and not natural gas like many North Americans use to heat their homes.  And then there is dlo.  Water.  My guess is that the Creole word 'dlo' is a derivation of the French "de l'eau" for "some water."  Whenever I see the word 'dlo' it makes me laugh, the economy of letters to write the word, the simplicity that is so uniquely Haitian.

But when I think about dlo, then things are not simple, in a way that is also uniquely Haitian.  You've all seen the Facebook postings of the little boy from a developing world asking incredulously about the uses of water in what is commonly referred to as First World (I think 'The Hunger Games' would call it "The Capitol.")  The little boy in the Facebook posting says, "What? You mean to tell me you use perfectly clean water to....wash your human waste to the sewer....clean your car....dump over your head in a challenge to not have to give money away...." or something to that effect.  When I think about the uses of water that I have been used to the first 48-1/2 years of my life, it is now shocking to me as I think about how precious dlo is here.

Let me tell you how we get our dlo here and what it takes.  First, dlo comes to our home two ways, and neither is by pipeline.  Dlo can be delivered by truck or by weather.  All over Port-au-Prince, the vehicles to avoid in traffic are the dlo trucks.  They are everywhere and they are big.  And, as my colleague Zachary King likes to point out, "they make their money from going, not stopping, so you can't trust that their brakes work."  A dlo truck can carry 2500 gallons which costs 2500 Haitian gourdes or about $62.50.  If I lived further up the mountain, it would cost more; further down would cost less.  Turns out you are paying for the gas to get it to your house as much as you are paying for the water.

Ordering a truck of dlo is a matter of calling them up and giving your address.  A few hours later, they arrive.  Since our cistern (the concrete tank in the ground at our home) is at the back corner of our house, it takes both the 4" hoses of the dlo truck to get the cistern, and even then the driver needs to position the truck just right with the front wheel right up against the barb-wire-topped wall around our yard.  Rolling out the dlo hoses, two workers position the hoses neatly around our vehicle and plants to extend to the cistern.  Then, while worker #2 holds the hose in the top of the cistern, the driver crawls under the dlo truck, which upon closer inspection I notice is partly held together with a wooden 4x4, not exactly inspiring confidence.  Under the dlo truck, the driver turns a gear which opens the tank into the hose and the dlo begins to pour.  Most of it ends up in the cistern, but dlo truck hoses in Haiti also do a lot of spraying through the holes they have accumulated, and so we find that the dlo truck does a nice job of irrigating our plants along the side of our home, which saves us some effort later on.

Inspires confidence, doesn't it? (fyi, stock photo, not our wall, but similar)

Some days dlo simply falls from the sky - "free dlo" - and when it hits our roof it finds its way to a series of downspouts which deliver the dlo directly to the cistern.  And so now, you might think, that is how we get our water.  But we are not done.  What we are accustomed to back home are two other conveniences that go with dlo -- water pressure and water purity.

Let's start with water pressure.  On days that we have EDH (remember, hydro, or electricity?), we can go outside to one of our outbuildings and turn on a pump that will send the dlo from the cistern to the two dlo tanks on the roof.  On days we do not have EDH, we can turn on the Delko (generator), making sure it has deisel in it, and then flip the switch in the house from EDH to Delko and then go back outside to the pump room and switch on the pump to pump the dlo up to the roof.  We would then let the pump run for approximately 45 minutes until we began to hear dlo running back down the downspouts into the cistern telling us that the roof tanks are overflowing.

Now that the dlo is on the roof, we have pressure, but we still don't have purity.  And we don't make all of our dlo pure, that would be too time-consuming and too costly.  So we have clean dlo and pure dlo.  Clean dlo is what we would call the water in the tanks.  It is clean enough for all things not related to our mouths.  Clean dlo is clean enough to flush toilets with or shower with or water the plants with, and so clean dlo is what runs through our pipes.  But, clean dlo would make us sick to drink it.  Or to brush our teeth with.  Or make ice tea, or ice cubes or to wash dishes or our faces.  For that, we need pure dlo.

Pure dlo -- and we drink a lot:  today I had my usual 4  x 32 oz bottles to stave off heat or supply my sweat glands, not sure which -- pure dlo is a precious commodity and a bit more work, involving both of our staff in our house.  On Tuesday and Fridays, Nanotte purifies dlo.  Nanotte is a wonderful lady who works in our home and does much of the laundry, cooking, and some cleaning.   We have six 5 gallon "water cooler" jugs and approximately 30-40 1 gallon jugs.  To fill them, she runs 'clean dlo' through a series of two filters -- first a carbon filter water purifier and then an Ultraviolet purifier - and into these jugs.  These jugs are then either brought indoors by Gusman, a fine young man who works in our home, with the 5 gallon jugs lining the end of the main floor hall and the 1 gallon jugs packing the cavernous space beneath our kitchen sink.  Some of these 1 gallon jugs are brought to the bathrooms where there are picnic cooler jugs (the kind with spouts at the bottom) beside the sinks which are then filled, ready to be used for brushing teeth, washing faces, or taking pills.  The five gallon jugs take their turns being mounted on top of the dlo cooler (which only works when we have EDH, electricity) so that we can all fill our many water bottles for our daily drinking.

Remember to first fill your cup with water before putting your toothbrush in your hand so that you don't accidentally use 'clean' dlo instead of 'pure' dlo :) -- so far, none of us has made the mistake which would likely make us sick.

Even though it only cools the dlo when EDH is on, this little machine is one of the most useful things in our home, filling each our water bottles multiple times per day.

So, that's dlo.  Or, at least as much as I know about dlo before the rainy season starts here.  Then, I am guessing, I will have a lot more to say; and my guess is that I will need to call the dlo truck much less, too.

Thanks for visiting,

John

Existing

You've probably heard the phrase, maybe even said it.  I know I have.  It's the kind of phrase we might utter when we are feeling that the pressure simply to get through the day is enough without the added pressure to actually DO something.  We might say something like, "It takes all I have just to exist, let alone do something."  Well, in the past few weeks, a number of experiences have collided to help me reflect on existing, on being, and perhaps why God might have revealed himself to Moses simply as "I am" (Yahweh).

The first instance was one my colleague, Larry Luth, wrote about in his blog -- http://ltluth.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/restavek-freedom/ .  In short, on Saturday August 23, we gathered with thousands of others in the Stade Silvio Cator (National Soccer Stadium) to watch a concert.  The concert was headlined by Chris Tomlin, known throughout North American churches as a prolific song-writer and worship leader, but the heart of the show was 11 contestants, or groups of contestants, each winners in their particular Department (like a Province or State) of a competition for Restaveks.  Restavek (from the French words, "reste" and "avec") simply means "stay with" in a literal sense, but the word here refers to children whose parents are too poor to keep them and so they are sent away to "stay with" wealthier families under the assumption that they will be better off.  What turns out, though, is that these children, often as young as 7 or 8, end up being virtual slaves, working from the time they wake til the time they go to sleep, often being beaten and mistreated by their "hosts."  At this concert, organized by www.restavekfreedom.org, we heard heart-breaking song lyrics about children crying out in the night that beatings might stop.  The goal of the concert was that someone, a group of people, a nation, might increasingly stand up for these entrapped children and insist that they matter, that they exist.

Over the past few weeks since this concert, I have begun to notice the different children working all over Port-au-Prince in a new way.  I have noticed young children with bald spots on their heads, a tell-tale sign that they spend much of their day carrying baskets, buckets or bags on their heads.  I noticed the young girl working in a store, being rudely bossed around by her supervisor who sat on a chair.  I noticed that while most Haitians are smiling and look bright, there are many, usually bearing loads, who have the look of many years of hard life despite their few years of life.  While it is likely I am reading more into what I see than is there -- just like many of us in North America do when we see families interacting at the mall -- I am becoming aware of the layers of socio-economics and how this affects the posture and stance of people.

Second instance, Thomassique.  Thomassique is a fascinating story, especially for a child of Dutch immigrants.  You might know that for decades, Haitians have fled Haiti hoping for a better life in the neighbouring Dominican Republic.  In much the same way that Restaveks leave their biological family for the hope of a better life with a rich family and find their dream dashed on the rocks of virtual slavery, so also Haitian families have fled Haiti for the hopes of a better life in Dominican Republic only to find themselves in generational poverty as cane-cutters and perpetually unable to become citizens.  A few decades ago, a number of these Haitian-Dominicans fled the DR at a time when Haitians were being treated especially badly and they ended up in the Thomassique region of Haiti, in what is called the Central Plateau.  There they began churches much like they had in the old country, a story similar to what I heard of the origins of the CRC in Canada by Dutch settlers from the Christian Reformed Church (roughly).

The 135 Kilometre trip from Port-au-Prince to Thomassique took just 3-1/2 hours.

Together with five other staff, I took the trip over two mountain ranges -- Montagnes Du Trou D'Eau and Montagnes Noires -- and through at least two river beds, both of which had shallow water barely wetting our SUV's hubs, and arrived in the town of Thomassique.  We were there to share in the reading of the report of the team that had been doing important community development work in the region.  We heard a report of how many families had been helped to obtain goats and cows through an agricultural aid program, something that touched me personally as our children had bought Carol and me a World Renew goat last year.  There were 10 beef cows and 110 goats in this region alone.  We heard how many latrines had been built, an essential tool for community health as drinking water is so often sourced in the very spot they generally dispose of waste.  There were 40 latrines built, perhaps one was the one we had bought together with Carol's siblings for her parents last Christmas.  What struck me most was the children.  In that region they had done a study that showed that 3886 children had not been registered, meaning they did not have a birth certificate and therefore, as far as the government was concerned, did not exist, could not vote, could not be registered for school, etc.  It was shocking as some of these children were in their teens.  However, again through the work of our ministry partners in the region, help was being given as a small dent of 140 children received their birth certificates.  It was amazing to me -- a father with five children who not only have birth certificates, passports, drivers' licenses, bank accounts, phones, email addresses, facebook accounts, and social security numbers, but all the benefits Canada offers alongside that -- health care, education, and many other rights.  It has always struck me as normal since my children have enjoyed these privileges, to simply assume that these things ought to be afforded to every person who exists.  Seeing the children eagerly lining up with their birth certificates in hand gave me a picture of their being recognized, officially and for the first time, by the land of their birth.

13 of the 140 Birth Certificate Recipients

As we drove back from Thomassique, I couldn't help but be inspired by the work of the committee in Thomassique to initiate and follow-through on so much transformative action.  Not only had they promoted healthy living through latrine use, fostered dreams and thriving through the distribution of goats and cows, and established programs and volunteers to continue the same, but they had communicated through vivid legal language that 140 people exist and another 3746 ought to be able to say the same (once their committee's work is truly done).  

I was thinking about this, helping Restaveks "exist" and undocumented children "exist" when another, uglier memory surfaced.  It was back at the concert.  About 2 hours into the five hour concert, one of our boys had to use the rest-room.  Having been to hockey games at the ACC in Toronto and Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, I had something of an expectation that a stadium might have a bank of bathrooms. But this is Haiti.  There was one bathroom.  Yes, one.  It was in the VIP section where Chris Tomlin was hanging out before his set.  When we inquired of the Haitian usher if we might use it, he took one look at our skin colour, smiled, and let us in.  A simultaneous experience of bladder relief and uncomfortable privilege.  I am not sure which was stronger.

There is something wrong when a population allows some of its own to become virtual slaves, others to officially go un-noticed for lack of paper-work, and then to elevate a group of visitors by virtue of their skin colour to a place a privilege.  And Haiti is not alone in this.  Ask a Korean living in Japan, First Nations member living in Canada, or the residents of Chicago's Cabrini-Green.  Every one of these people exist.  Every one made in the image of God who identifies himself simply as I AM.

It's funny.  These first four weeks, as we have learned to drive in Port-au-Prince traffic, negotiate the currency, adjust to the heat, discipline ourselves to always use clean water and always use keys, and simply learn how to live, I have been thinking that phrase at the beginning of this article a lot:  "It takes everything I have to just exist."  Now that we are getting into the rhythm of living here, existing is getting easier, or at least "normal."

Which leaves me -- and by extension, you -- with a burden/responsibility/opportunity:  What would it look like if the energy I have beyond my own existing were used to help others exist?  For me at least, the beginning of the answer is to take my cue from Jesus, who slummed it out on earth with us, "emptying himself" of his being in very nature God, with all the privileges which go with that, so that we can go way beyond existing, but truly living, in this life and in the life to come.

Erin and Meghan Arrive!

Friday afternoon, after a good day of flying, Erin and Meghan and lots of suitcases arrived in Haiti!  We were overjoyed when we saw them and their brothers were downright giddy to hug them and spend time with them after weeks apart.   All of our joy was of course tempered by our experiencing this stage of our time in Haiti without Kristin as she departs Monday for her semester in Winnipeg, learning such courses as "A Theology of Peace and Justice," "Introductory Sociology," "Anabaptist Beginnings," "Worship Team" and "Choir."  It will be a year of learning for all of us, even if in different ways.  We all look forward to seeing & hugging Kristin in December.  

Unlike the trip Carol and I and the boys had with lots of chaos at the airport and unpacking suitcases, the girls had a smooth day, having come to the airport the day before and confirmed their luggage so that they could know they would be able to check all six 70 lb suitcases.  They spent their Thursday, the day before flying, running from store to store in Cambridge, picking up shoes, cleaning products, kitchen utensils, a new phone and laptop for John, and a host of other things and pressing them into their computers.  Their flights, including the landings, went smoothly, and they were out of the airport and on the road within 75 minutes of landing.  

The ride from the airport to our home -- about 5 kilometres or 20 minutes (because traffic was good :)), was an eye-opener, as they took in the sights of stray dogs, chaotic traffic, endless street vendors, and roads, buildings, and vehicles in various states of disrepair.  Though they didn't say so in so many words, it was palpable that their arrival inside our compound and into what will be their home for the next eight months was a physical and emotional relief.  

We showed them the home we will be sharing and they were eager to see it and to get unpacked, but not before a trip to the roof to see the views which include being able to see the Gulf of Gonaive (Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea) and the mountain range just north of Port-au-Prince, as well as the neighbourhoods just down the hill from us and dotting the ravines, and scads of tropical plants and trees.  It was breathtaking for them -- both climbing onto the roof and seeing the views -- and for us to see their smiling faces together.  It warms a parent's heart.  

(of course, now that Meghan is here, expect all video and picture quality to go up :))

Our first day together was a Saturday and since the girls were keen on resting up from their trip and all the gathering and packing that preceded it, we enjoyed a nice slow morning.  Top on the list was celebrating Nathan's birthday complete with presents and our family tradition of pancakes, one of which is shaped like the number of the person's birthday.  While our normal tradition includes strawberries, a small package of strawberries here (the kind Zehrs often has on for 3 for $5) are approximately $17.50 each!  So this year the pancakes are topped with a local favourite and cheap alternative: pineapple!  One of the many little adjustments to living on a tropical island.

We took the girls up the mountain to the grocery store and on the way they could take in the sights:  see the tap-taps (local "buses" converted from miniature pick-up trucks with a cover and benches in the back), roadside vendors of everything from dogs to socks to mangos to leather shoes to baskets to raw meat, and of course the crazed and snarlingly slow traffic.  Again, although the grocery store is only a few kilometres away, we invested nearly 30 minutes in driving to it.  At the grocery store, while Carol selected some breads and vegetables, I made my way over to the dog food section, picking out a 50 pound bag that set me back nearly $50, but that is a small price to pay for a month's security since they are guard dogs, so I like to think of it as part of my utility bill.  I then went looking for a surge protector for the girls' room so that they can plug in a few things.  Apparently, the grocery store is not the place to buy them, as what would have cost me $12.00 at Home Depot is here on sale for $55.00.  Again, part of getting used to living here is knowing where to buy what to get the better price.  Thankfully, and this is just one of the many ways we are reading that God is with us in the details, just then our new friends Randy and Karen Lodder (from Ontario) showed up in the grocery store and he advised me to buy surge protectors at the Office Star store on Route Delmas (which, surprisingly, I know where that is :)).

The day ended with a viewing by Nathan, the girls, and I, of "The Hunger Games," a movie based on the book which Nathan and I had read aloud together in our first week here (the theme was a little too intense for Stephen, so he and Carol sat it out).  If you have seen the movie or read the book, you know the basic plot that the wealthy and powerful 'Capital' enforces an annual 'hunger games' on the inhabitants of the 12 districts who must each send one boy and one girl to fight to the death, but that the districts are ridiculously poorer than the Capital and its nearer neighbours, districts 1 and 2.  Nathan quickly picked up on the powerlessness of the districts and the opulence and power of the Capital and how they function as a metaphor of the real world, noting that Haiti is District 12.

The difference between "The Hunger Games" and real life, as it relates to Haiti, in our experience, is that people from the Capital, benevolent, other-centered people, have sent us to be here on their behalf, not to collect tributes for a fight to the death, but to be their tributes here for a fight for life.  We grin at the irony of the way that God works, counter-intuitive to the death-struggle Suzanne Collins wrote about in her book.  We also grin at the way God not only uses agencies who bear his name but also works his power and grace through a host of other agencies whose trucks and people we see all over this pock-marked nation:  UN, MINUSTAH, Red Cross, and others.

We are glad that now 6 of the 7 of us are here and we are eager to see ways in which we can help.  We start our language training three mornings a week for the next four weeks, and hope to be able to become conversant in Creole by the end of the month.  It is our hope that as we continue to learn our way around, that we will be increasingly helpful in the overall effort of renewal in this country.  As I think about the amount of joy I had in seeing two of my daughters arrive at the airport, I can only imagine the joy of my heavenly Father who cares about every one of the 10,000,000 people who aren't just visiting this nation, but call it home.