Haiti, From the Point Of View of a Kid - by Nathan, 12

What I Pictured

When my parents told me that God had set it on their hearts that we might move to Haiti, this is what I pictured. A straw hut (I had hoped I would get my own), I would be the guy to run down to the well everyday, and I did NOT imagine electricity! But when I asked my mom if it was going to be like that, she assured me it probably wasn't. I asked my dad to show me the pictures of the place we would live in, and I realized it wasn't a straw hut. I was pretty bummed out because i was starting to look forward to having my own place! Another big question on my mind was schooling. I had always wanted to be home-schooled because the idea of no homework sounded awesome. I again was wrong. My parents told me that i would probably go to a school called Quisqueya Christian School. I had pictured a room about 20x20 feet all around with completely Creole speaking kids led by a teacher who also wouldn't speak English. I was way off. Quisqueya Christian School is pretty much a school for all of the rich people in Haiti. Most of the kids in my class have a smartphone and/or Ipad. For once in Haiti, I was the poor one! 

My Trip to Haiti

Now I know that most have you have heard what happened in the airport from my parents point of view but this is my point of view of possibly the most stressful moments of my life:

I woke up at about 4:00 am. Wow I thought, Today, I will fall asleep in Haiti! I got out of bed and realized that everyone else was awake. I saw  the bowl of oatmeal on the counter and devoured it. I helped my dad pack up the trailer with our suitcases and then  hopped in Mr. Degier's truck. I surprisingly didn't fall back asleep! I guess I was nervous. When we got to the airport I noticed how long some lineups were. I also noticed a short Irish woman barking out orders. When we got to the front of the line to get our bags weighed, an Asian lady  was arguing with my dad. I was pretty confused, and my dad looked stressed. My dad turned around and told us we could only take 10 of the 12 bags we had. Immediately, my moms face grew into horror. My dad insisted that we had checked the website 20 times over (Which was probably true.) Then the asian lady called over her manager. By this time, the people behind us grew impatient. I heard the insults coming from their mouths and i continually told them that we were sorry. They were getting more frustrated by the minute. I didn't understand. The manager said that she had a compromise. That we could put stuff from our 4 bags that couldn't come, into our other 8 bags and she would mark them as overweight.This next part could have been in a cheesy comedy movie! In Haiti, toilet paper isn't cheap so half of our bags were filled with rolls of toilet paper. Next thing you know, toilet paper is flying everywhere. We did manage to get rid of 4 of our suitcases. It was now about 6:30 and our plane departed in an hour. Then we had another issue. Long lines. I'm sure you have all read the other version of the story but i gotta say, I was pretty scared when the manager wheeled my mom in on a wheelchair. My dad explained to me that handicapped people got wheeled to the front of the line so mom was pretending to have hurt her leg. As we ran down the terminal, we heard our voices called through the intercom. We stepped on the plane about half a minute before it took off. And you wont believe what came on the tiny T.V in front of me. A commercial for american airlines. All I remembered was this. "And with american airlines, we assure you a no stress, no hassle, flight. Have a good day." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I decided laughing would be best on a plane loaded with people. We stopped in Miami on our way to Port au Prince. There, we waited for about 3 hours. I told my mom that i wished we could've evened out our times at the airports. In Toronto, we didn't have enough time whereas in Miami, we had nothing to do for 3 hours. But at least we knew we would make it to Haiti, unless the plane crashed (Which it almost did). We arrived in Haiti mid-afternoon and met Mr. Zachary King. He drove us to the house we would be living in until the Kings moved out. I was in Haiti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3e0WSiBti8

- I'm pretty sure this is the commercial that was on the airplane :)

A Day In The Life of Me

My mom wakes me up for school at 6:45 insisting that i am going to be late for school. Groggily, I get out of bed, grab my towel and hop in the freezing cold water of the shower. I get changed into my QCS school uniform, (I didn't even know schools still HAD uniforms!) and went downstairs to eat my oatmeal. Then I hop in the car and drive down my street, into the big rut at the end of it, and drive on one of the few paved roads in this country! We stop at the Krul and Luths house because we usually carpool with them to school. When i get to school, i run onto the astro-turf soccer field to play soccer. I go through a regular american/canadian school day. When I get home I don't even jump anymore at the 4 lizards on the wall. I feed the dogs, occasionally see a rat, and go read a book somewhere. Then its time for supper. I love haitian food! Usually we have "Diri ak pwa" which is creole for "rice and beans". We also sometimes have Greyol which reminds me of Canadian bacon!

After supper I either get out of dishes by volunteering to play music, or I do the dishes with my siblings. Then I go to bed. Repeat...

WTH

Most of you interpret WTH as an abbreviation for a bad sentence. Likewise for our family. I would say that daily I or one of my parents will say "WTH" after someone rants about Haiti. Allow me to explain. WTH is a new sentence that I made up meaning "Welcome to Haiti" ex:

Dad: So then he arrived 30 minutes late when he was supposed to come early!

Me: WTH!

This has occured several times before and occasionally it actually lightens the mood. WTH everybody.

~Nathan Vanderstoep, a kid in Haiti.

A Day in the Life (it was a long day, so this is a long post, pour yourself some tea)

Wednesday, October 22, 2014
5:00 am.
My alarm went off and I headed down to the kitchen.  On this morning, uncharacteristically, I would be up before Carol.  Normally, she has already made the pot of oatmeal and the pot of coffee by the time I get up, but this day I have a long day ahead and I am starting early.  While the water for the oatmeal and coffee is boiling, I fry a couple eggs, thanks to our chickens who yesterday left us six fresh ones.  I go to one of the charging stations (because our electricity gets turned on and off and has spikes, we only plug electronics into surge-suppressors) and retrieve my tablet and laptop, eventually to be put in my bag for the day, but initially to spend some time in "Seeking God's Face," a great prayer guide that I am trying to work back into my routine after watching my devotional discipline get inconsistent through all the transition of this summer.

After eggs, oatmeal, one cup of coffee, a shower, and all my allergy and breathing medications, I am standing outside our house but inside our compound, waiting for my ride, slated to come for 6:30 am.  At 7:00, my ride arrives, 30 minutes late being no big deal in a country where traffic and fatigue wreak havoc with schedules.  I take the wheelchair which has been in my front hall for the night and place it in the back of Nelson's 4x4 pick-up truck.  Lunise and Nelson are in the front buckets.  They both work for World Renew; Lunise is the head of the team and Nelson does his work primarily in the Leogane region, for those who remember: the epicenter of the earthquake almost five years ago.  I squeeze my 6'1" frame into the back of the Nissan quad-cab.  It's going to be a long 3-1/2 hour drive, though we will only cover about 80 kilometres (50 miles).  At 6:30, the temperature is already 25 celsius and the heat index by afternoon should be in the low 40's.  Mercifully the pick-up truck has air conditioning.  As a bonus, it seems to be working.

We wind our way through the craze and maze of streets that is Port-au-Prince.  Since the city is built against the side of a mountain range, there is no shortage of steep grades.  And where the roads are not paved, you can bet that rain storms have carved crevices into crevasses, making a backseat passenger wonder how we will get down (or up) the next hill.  This will prove to get even more interesting as we near our mountainous destination in a few hours.

En route to our destination we make our way through the downtown of Port-au-Prince, including a massive street side fish market, jammed with a sea of antiquated rusty residential freezers and broken camping coolers, holding the catch of the day, or week, or month.  It's hard to know.  There is no packaging or code dates.  Rather than meat inspectors and butchers in white coats, there are vendors, mostly weathered women with vacant stares, sitting on boxes, blocks, or crates.  Fish aren't the only things for sale today, or any day.  Among the many products splayed out on sidewalks each morning are charcoal bricks, phone chords, jeans, t-shirts, mangos, papaya, avocado, plantains, bread, sneakers, propane, bags of water, and a host of other things.  One person commented the other day that Haiti is the only place you can buy a goat and a prom dress from the same vendor.  Information overload is starting to set in after just an hour and all I am doing is looking out the side window.

Looking out the front window produces considerably more stress.  Sometimes the stress is because of oncoming traffic.  The road is usually 2 lanes, one each way.  I say usually because the meandering width of the road is reminiscent of the lines on my lawn when I mow absentmindedly.  Sometimes the road is exceptionally wide; other times and it is clearly not wide enough to accommodate oncoming traffic.  So, the view through the windshield often looks frighteningly similar to what one would imagine a head-on collision might look like just before the collision.  In addition, Nelson is a confident driver, willing to pass on a curve, up a hill, pretty much anytime, including times there IS oncoming traffic.  For that he lays on the horn and creates the third (center) lane that becomes our safety zone.   Other times the stress comes from wondering whether the truck in front of us will lose its load.  At one point we were trailing behind a flat-bed truck carrying bags of rice, seven layers high.  The first four layers looked to be tied down with ropes from the bag and sides.  The top three rows of rice bags though were simply loaded on top.  In addition, there were half a dozen people sitting up top of the rice bags.  While travelling behind a load like this, you can't help but make mental contingency plans of what to do if the whole load comes loose, even if you are sitting in the back seat.  My heart rate imperceptibly creeps higher.

In Carrefour, the city just west of Port-au-Prince on the north shore of Haiti's southern arm, we stop to pick up Paste Ernst.  Ernst works for PWOFOD, a ministry which does diaconal development.  Ernst is a man I met a few days ago as we began this week-long evaluation of MDK, an impressive leadership development network that is proving itself through tangible results.  When I met Ernst, still practicing my Creole, I asked about his work and about his family.  He spoke slowly so that I could string together what he was saying.  Most of the words, I was finding, were actually within my vocabulary.  However, one sentence, though I could understand the words, was packed with more meaning than words can contain.  I had asked about his wife, wanting to know what she does.  He replied, "Li kraze nan tranbleman de te a."  "She was crushed in the earthquake."  At the time Ernst and his wife were living in Leogane, the epicenter of the January 12, 2010 earthquake which snuffed out 200,000 wives, husbands, daughters and sons.  On that day five years ago, I was with a team in the Dominican Republic, building a trade school.  Ersnt, a pastor and father of five children, the youngest being three, was doing what too many people were doing: grieving and trying to move forward.  Now, here he was five years later, not only raising five children but working with PWOFOD to raise up deacons and giving a week of his time to help evaluate a ministry that is raising up other leaders.  Though only 6' tall, he is a mountain of a man, despite what mountains of rubble have done to him.

Ernst and I sat in the back seat of the truck.  As far as I could understand, we were at capacity, maybe beyond it with our knees digging into the seat backs in front of us.  I continued to look through the front windshield to ensure we would miss yet another head-on collision.  The air was often clouded with dust from the street or pitch black smoke from a truck that hadn't had an oil change in decades.  Dogs, vendors, school-children in bright pink, yellow, or green uniforms darted through and alongside the traffic.  The view out the side window reminded me of the old Flintstones cartoons when Fred would be running through the house, repeatedly passing the same couch, same window, same table, then couch, window, table again.  We passed an unending series of lotto shops (often with names like "Grace of God" or "Eternal Father"), meat vendors, soda markets, deep friers, shoe and clothing vendors, and dust-covered homes, often with someone out front doing the daily morning chore of sweeping the loose dirt off the packed dirt front step.  Each scene was washing into the next with sights that three months ago were jarring and today were calmingly familiar.

About two hours into our trip, we were passing a gas station when a man shouted out, arms raised, "hey!"  It was another member of our evaluation team, Jean Brenor, whom we had thought we were meeting at our destination.  Here he was, waiting with another man along the side of the road, waving us down for a ride.  Without even considering sardining themselves into the cab, both men, bags in hand, hopped into the back of the pick-up and sat on the side walls, holding onto a frame above the cab.  Moments later we were again making our away along the sea-side road, although because of the shacks along the road blocking the view, the only hint of sea was the smell in the air and the occasional peak where a home had been demolished but not yet rebuilt.

We were on our way to Meye, a remote community in the mountains, halfway between Leogane and Jacmel.  Meye is one of many towns in Haiti not only not on any map, but barely on any road.  We began our ascent into the mountains along a main road, it was even paved.  Winding its way up and around corners, our ride, mostly in low gear was a series of blind corners, horn blaring, and at least one back seat passenger in prayer.  I envisioned, naively, that once we got to the top of the mountain things would level out and we could relax.  I was wrong.  The adventure was just beginning.

We turned off the main (read: paved) road and began our way along a dirt road.  Now dirt roads in Canada are often flat, at least smooth, roads.  Sometimes they have fresh gravel and sometimes they are two tracks.  Maybe after a bad rainstorm they are 'washboarded' meaning they have bumps a few inches tall, lasting sometimes as much a few hundred metres when it is really bad.  Canadian dirt roads would be luxuries here.  Dirt roads in Haiti are exactly what you might expect in a place where road construction graders are virtually non-existent and where torrential rains carved new ditches - right down the middle of the road!  This dirt road, though, made every other dirt road I had seen before look like a superhighway.  Not only were the ruts in the road deep enough to make us continually stop our 4X4 to scout a route through much like a whitewater canoer would approach a set of Class IV rapids,  but these rutted roads were narrow and winding around the edges of mountains with sheer drop-offs and no guard rails.  All that would be enough to bring up breakfast, but to add to the fun, every once in a while there would be another 4x4 coming the other direction, sometimes forcing us to "take the outside lane" also known as the edge of the cliff while we passed one another. And again, just as we had seen them in the dusty streets of Port-au-Prince, so also along the remotest stretches of mountain edge road:  children in bright school uniforms, the little girls amoung them sporting large white hair braids.  Later that night, these sights would haunt my sleep as I continually dreamt I was falling off a mountain or into one of the ditches in the road.

Finally, we arrived in Meye, a tiny mountain village with a church and a Christian school right across the road from one another.  We were there to meet with local leaders who had participated in a leadership training program, MDK (Ministry of Development for Christians).  We were evaluating MDK as a ministry partner, wanting to be stewards of the funds God allows to flow through our hands en route to his purposes.  To evaluate MDK, we were going out to the communities MDK was serving, asking questions like, "What did MDK teach?  What do you remember?  What did you put into practice?  What obstacles did you face? and What has grown out of your implementing what you learned?   There in the Meye church building, it was a joy to see 12 local leaders, 2 of whom were women, all actively taking part in the discussions.  Using large white sheets of paper, they drew pictures of ways they have connected with other organizations.  They were laughing and slapping one another's backs and when it was all done and we were ready to go, they were asking if we could leave the large pieces of white paper behind to help them dream and plan.  We were all smiles.

The chart on the left categorized what was learned, how they applied it and what resulted.  The Venn Diagram on the right depicted the leadership development network (only 2 years old in this village) and its relationship to many organizations including churches of multiple denominations, Christian schools, government, and businesses.  It was inspiring!

Our smiles, however, paled in comparison to the smiles of one little girl in the village.  I wrote above that I had put a wheelchair in the truck.  It was for someone in Meye.  MDK had initiated a ministry to serve many post earthquake victims who had lost legs, feet, or the use of either.  They call the ministry, "Ban m' yon pye" which translates "Give me a foot."  Not wanting to crowd around the girl, one of us, Jean Brenor, presented the girl with her new wheelchair.  While she wouldn't be able to take it around town for lack of sidewalks or smooth surfaces, she would be able to use it around her home, at her church, and at school.  It was powerful to see this tangible affect of MDK's work.  MDK is developing leaders and those leaders are initiating and carrying out ministry and we were the privileged observers of the end result.

Another tangible result of the leadership development group was a bridge.  Just down the hill from the village is a gulch.  Gulches are the dry beds of what become raging rivers in raining season.  While the gulch was walked through regularly by many going to and from the village in dry season, rainy season was cutting these folks off from their community, their church, and their sources of income.  The leadership development network spawned an initiative that built a bridge.  It's funny, in ministry I have often talked about building bridges, but they were always metaphorical -- between the church and community, between people who aren't connecting -- but here was a group literally building a physical bridge to connect people in a meaningful way.

Before we had left, the one long-term missionary in the village, Anelise, asked if we could bring her three empty propane cylinders back to Port-au-Prince to be filled.  The propane cylinders were at least four, maybe five, feet long.  The two who had been sitting in the back on the way up were glad to have these cylinders in the back of the truck with them since they could serve as seats to sit on as we made our way back down the mountain.  Let's just say that it made the ride back down the mountain, at faster speeds going down than on the way up and now with three large propane tanks and just as many open air passengers, much more interesting than the ride up.  Here's a few photos of the view on the way down.

Heading north down the mountain toward Leogane.  The Gulf of Gonaive is in the distance.

The picture doesn't quite capture it, but what the camera shows as a grassy hillside is actually a very steep drop-off.  Notice the absence of guardrails and proximity of the edge.   Then multiply it by 20 kilometres.  Yeah, it was that kind of drive.  

A few conclusions or learnings from my day:
1. Leadership Development, when done well, leads tangible results as evidence of the Gospel propelling people to compassionate action on behalf of others.  The wheelchair and the bridge are just two examples.  I am inspired by my Haitian brothers and sisters to expect tangible results from leadership development.  Though I am working on my doctorate on this same subject, I learned from these humble mountain-dwelling farmers.
2. Four-passenger Nissan Quad-Cab pickup trucks can hold seven people and a whole lot more.
3. Mountain driving can inspire both prayers of praise (for the incredible sights) and supplication (that you don't fall off the side of the mountain).
4. Missionaries need 4x4's.  I can remember thinking before as an American and Canadian pastor, "Why do missionaries need 4X4's?  Isn't that a little excessive, expense-wise?"  Just a few months of experience here is teaching me that not only do missionaries need 4x4's to do their work, but that for a 4x4 to survive these driving conditions for any length of time in mileage or age is a small miracle in itself.  It will be easy to give to missionary vehicle fundraisers in the future :).
5. Haiti is a beautiful place.  Yes, it is jammed with poverty and chaos and too many ugly results of both, but it is a place of natural beauty, of a resilient, passionate people, and of church leaders who expect to not only speak the Gospel but to live it out for the sake of others.

Thanks for sending me here.  It is my privilege to bear witness to what I see.

Time to put the empty tea-cup on the counter and get on with my day.  

May I Rant?

Kob.  It is the Creole word for money.  In the Creole Bible, Jesus talks about it a lot.  So does Paul.  Some have pointed out that no single subject receives as much attention as money.  So, it should be no surprise that money has to be part of our life, even, or maybe especially in a place where there is so little.

My rant, today, is how Kob changes relationships.  Let me give a few examples.  Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to preach at Jacquey Christian Reformed Church, the congregation pastored by the overworked Executive Director of the CRC in Haiti - Pastor Romelus.  It was a wonderful morning.  Their singing nearly raised the concrete roof.  Their attentive listening, to this English preacher and the Creole interpreter, and their joyful disposition:  all memorable.  Unfortunately what was most memorable was the four English words a young Haitian boy strung together at the back door as I was greeting worshippers on their way out.  The boy couldn't have been more than five.  His bright eyes and wide smile matched the inviting expressions I had witnessed all morning.  And then he uttered those four words, hand outstretched, "Give me a quarter."  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to cry.

The next example was later this week at an inspiring Timothy Leadership Training event at the Ministry for Christian Development.  There, 70 congregational leaders had gathered together for three days of training, going through lessons with one another, holding each other accountable for growth and action plans, and sharing and praying with one another.  At the end of one small group session, we got together in pairs to share ministry plans with one person and hear their feedback.  A young man selected me as his partner.  He shared his vision that all of his village would hear the gospel, just the kind of faith-inspiring big vision that makes a person smile.  I asked him how he planned to share the gospel with his whole village and he told me that he planned to show them a movie, "the Jesus Film" in French.  My smile turned to curiosity, wondering why a black Haitian would want to show his black Creole-speaking neighbours a movie with a white, French-speaking Jesus to introduce the gospel to them.  My question to him was more mundane, asking how he would go about arranging to show the movie.  That was when it became obvious why he had chosen me as his partner.  He explained that he would buy a projector, a sound system, a laptop, speakers, and a screen -- and that I could provide the funds.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to cry.  Instead, I told him he misunderstood my purpose as his partner, and no, I would not give him my email so that he could send a funding request letter to me.

I could tell more.  I could tell you the sheer volume of times I've had homeless children stop my vehicle to wipe it down for the equivalent of 12 cents.  I could tell you about the time my daughter was sitting in the traffic eating a cookie and a grown man tapped on her window to ask for the cookie. This morning at church, the pastor pointed out that five members of the worship team hadn't eaten in two days.  Two weeks ago our housekeeper attended the funeral of her brother, coming back with a request for us to pay for the education of her dead brother's grand-daughter.  Our house staff, paid more than average, have each asked us for raises multiple times, even though today only marks two months that we have been in this house.  These and other examples demonstrate the way Kob affects relationships here.   It's not easy being rich in a place where everyone is poor.

Don't get me wrong.  I understand our need for generosity, for doing as Jesus did and looking out for the least, the last, and the lost.  And following the lead of those who sent me here, I will look for ways to be generous and experience the joy that gives.

What I mourn though, is the way Kob shrinks relationships.  What could have been a nice exchange between a preacher and Haitian boy at the door of the church was sold for a quarter.  What could have been two Christian leaders collaborating about how to share the gospel was reduced to an unanswered plea for funding sound and video equipment.  What could have been a sharing in the mourning of a staff person in the death of her brother was shrunk to a plea to finance an education.  What was a wonderful time of being led in worship by exuberant singers is now a constant reminder of the inequalities of this earth, wondering which of the musicians has eaten and which has not.

I suspect, as much as I want to simply rant, that the healthier response is to mourn, to mourn in a way that draws me closer to those in need rather than repels me with disgust and fatigue.  I suspect that if I am to grow in the coming months I will only do so by staying in the Kob-induced struggle of constantly seeking the line of careful compassion between the obvious ditches of careless giving and uncaring selfishness.

I suppose that is a road we all travel, no matter where we live.

End of rant.  

Followers Welcome

When we came to Haiti, we left Canada.  Not permanently, but for a year.

Leaving the people you love and who have formed you is a painful thing, even when you have something good to go to.  So, when we moved here on August 6th (Carol, the boys, and me) and 29th (Meghan and Erin), we brought some pain of loss, a void, and though we wouldn't have named it as such, we had a need for community.

Since coming, we have been welcomed into community in so many ways, and in each one, I can feel the love of One greater.  Through this, I have found my own desire to welcome others increase.
It started with the staff of Sous Espwa.  In our first visit to the office, they not only had a big welcome banner and an equally big cake, but they added meaningful sentences of welcome, including World Renew's Lunise Cerin-Jules who said, "Thank you for coming.  It means a lot to us simply that you have come here to live among us and to know us."

Our co-worker, Larry and Tracey Luth, not arriving until mid-August, welcomed us to use their home until the Kings, who were leaving mid-August, vacated theirs.  The Kings - Zach and Sharon - bent over backwards to make their home ready for our use and to show us around, orient us to laws, locations, and customs of our strange and chaotic home-nation.

Our first Sunday, we attended Quisqueya Chapel, an interdenominational congregation serving to help English-speaking Haitians and ex-pats advance the Kingdom of God in Port-au-Prince and beyond (words from their mission statement which I found clear and inspiring).  Their worship team quickly welcomed our children to play and sing and within a few weeks we were sharing a meal with the pastor and his wife -- Bobby and Magalie Boyer.  Since then, Bobby and I have gotten together three times, as colleagues and new friends, for mutual encouragement.

Quisqueya Chapel became a place where many other new friends were introduced.  It has become the place the girls can go for their twice-weekly "Cross-Fit" and where, increasingly, there are familiar faces we can greet during the extended time of welcome at the beginning of the service.
We've also been welcomed into friendships, which is a wonderful thing.  We've been to a number of folks' homes for dinner -- Randy and Karen Lodder, Will and Judy White, Jason and Wilhelmina Krul, Larry and Tracey Luth, Lunise Cerin-Jules, Zachary and Sharon King.  And we have been welcomed into a small group with five other couples to study Kyle Idleman's "Not a Fan."

In small group this past week, we reviewed chapter one of "Not a Fan."  In our review, we talked about the distinction between being a follower of Jesus versus simply being a fan.  A fan is one who knows all the lingo, identifies themself as a Christian, maybe even enthusiastically, but whose life gives no real evidence of actually following Jesus, to carry the metaphor, of "being in the game" with Jesus rather than on the sidelines.  We talked about the ways we are tempted to shrink back from Jesus' example.  Like when he was drawn toward people with pain but away from people of status.  Like when he resisted the temptation to win arguments so that he could instead win followers.  Like when he hung around with people who dragged his reputation down instead of padding his resume and facebook friend collection with all the folks in high places.

As I reflect on all the welcoming that has been extended to us, it is clear to me that the welcomers are followers, and because of this, we have felt the love of the One who has gone ahead of all of us to welcome us.  This is both gift and calling.  It is a gift to know and experience the true and greater love of God through tangible expressions of real people who could have easily had better things to do or decided that investing in what would turn out to be a short-term relationship just wasn't worth it.  This gift, when any of us receive it, is a grace, an unexpected breaking in of something we cannot earn or contrive.  All of this welcoming we have received is also a calling.  The welcoming others have done has pointed us to the one whom we are following, and in so doing, called us to, as followers, also welcome others.

Tomorrow is another day.  Another opportunity to meet folks and make decisions about whether to live an insulated life or a welcoming one.  In my heart, I know which one I will choose.  Only time will tell if my actions will follow.  I hope they do, because as much as we can see that God was using this place (Haiti) to help us grieve the loss of where we've been (Cambridge), we also know that he is using these days to prepare us for what he has planned for our future.  And my desire, and I believe God's, is that I would use all the things I am learning today for whatever he has planned for our tomorrow.    

Stephen's Child-like Dream

Stephen is 8.  When you are 8 and your family moves to Haiti, it is a confusing adventure.  On the one hand, it is exciting.  Stephen finally has dogs (sure, they are guard dogs).  Stephen's school classroom overlooks a soccer field he plays on before and after school.  Haiti means wearing shorts all the time, collecting chicken eggs, feeding fish, being nearly the only white person in his school classroom, and having his big sisters around all the time to play "Skip-Bo" with him.  Haiti is Sunday mornings with Dad home and having either a pancake or french toast breakfast all together.

On the other hand, Haiti is confusing.  Haiti is seeing poverty as we drive back and forth to school and church and shopping, and then seeing affluence among classmates whose parents drive them to school in Porsches and Lexuses (Lexii?).  Haiti is living in the natural beauty of a tropical mountainside but having to block out much of the view with 8'-barbed-wire-topped walls.  Haiti is colour and chaos.  Haiti is seeing broken down vehicles -- every day, and broken down streets all the time.  Haiti is seeing devastating poverty decorated with more Lottery shops than you can imagine.

Tonight as I was tucking him in, he was talking about what he missed about Canada (mostly because he was really missing his sister Kristin who is still in Canada in school in Winnipeg until December).  As he shared what he missed, he talked about the way he used to play with Matthew across the road, or how he didn't see all kinds of poor people all the time.

Somehow, we started talking about heaven, about a place/time where/when everything is good all the time, not a dream but a reality.  Like how in heaven there won't be barbed wire or locked gates at the ends of our driveways and we can go down the street and play with anyone.  Like how in heaven there won't be anyone poor or anyone feeling bad or anyone not kind.

Then he said something profound, the way only an eight-year-old can.  "Dad, I wish that whoever invented money would have thought to share it better around the world so that there wouldn't be places with too much money and there wouldn't be places where there wasn't enough."

Yeah, me too, bud.  Me too.

That would be heaven.  Until then, it is all of our job to spread a little heaven until one day, there will be no more room for hell on earth.

Fog

If you look over my shoulder on a clear day, you'd see the Port of Port-au-Prince and a mountain range beyond that.  Today, whether it is pollution or cloud, there is a fog blocking the view.  I thought showing that would give a visual for thoughts and emotions which have been swirling inside of me over the last few weeks as my heart has been drawn toward and saddened by too many pervasive realities of Haiti.

The other night we had friends over and they asked the question, "So, how are things going?"  It is a reasonable question, in fact it is the question I am asked the most by friends and family back home.   At first the answer was simply, "hot" as we adjusted to a daytime heat-index averaging 45 degrees celsius (about a billion fahrenhuit) and the experience of drinking 4-6 32oz bottles of water and feeling it convert into just as much sweat in seconds as the heat drew it from our bodies.  Then, as we began our linguistic transition, we stopped saying "hot" and started saying "cho" (the Haitan Creole simplified version of the French "chaud" meaning "hot").

As we continued to adjust to being here, each adjustment framed our answer to "How are things going?"  We'd say, "We learned to drive this week and figured out how to get to the grocery store" or "We are getting settled into work and volunteer roles."  In other words, each response to the "How are you doing?" question was able to uncover some small level of success and we were able to answer with something positive.

But there I sat on Friday night, the question, "How are things going?" was hanging in the air.  I didn't have a "new thing" I had learned that day or that week to frame my positive response.  In fact, thought, I had learned a new thing, and it wasn't positive.  It was a learning that is coming (I say, "is coming" because I am still working it out) as a result of what actor Sean Penn has said about Haiti, that "Haiti gets a hold of you."  Haiti, in all its adorable frustration, was getting a hold of me.  So I knew how I had to respond to my friends.

"How are things going?  Things are pretty hard.  Things are frustrating.  Haiti makes me sad."  There, I had said it.  I had boarded the plane in Toronto two months ago with loads of hope and idealism; now, I felt it was all unpacked and messy, transformed to frustration, hanging in the conversation.  Graciously, our friends helped me unpack the ways in which Haiti makes me sad.  It wasn't so much that I was complaining about Haiti, or expressing regret about having come here.  I was that, perhaps because Haiti is beginning to "get a hold of me" that Haiti was making me grieve.

In an effort to help you enter this fog of conflicted hopes and emotions, I will describe some things that are broken about Haiti.  In doing so, I may sound like I am complaining or being critical.  I am not.  I am mourning.  I mourn the effects of generations of poverty, tragedy, injustice, and a disempowered people striving to eek out an identity while being regularly emasculated by the world's wealth flooding them in a shower of pity.  I mourn the brutally low expectations that hang over this city like the fog that clouds out the mountains and the sea.  I mourn the simplistic reduction of relationships between NGOs and local community leaders that devolve into discussions about money.  I mourn the fog itself, that as much as I can name what is broken, "solutions" are, at best, obscure.

First, Haiti is poor economically.  "Poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" was a title thrown around before the January 12, 2010 earthquake that snuffed out 230,000 fathers, mothers, and children.  The annual GDP amounts to just $2 a day per person.  For the 30% who are employed, a minimum wage hovering around $5 a day sets them well ahead of the average, yet at a daily rate any Canadian high school kid wouldn't accept for 30 minutes of flipping burgers.  But these are just numbers.  I mourn the poverty represented by the tarp covered homes I see in my neighborhood, by the naked children I see playing in the provinces, by the grown man I see sitting in a pile of gravel all day crushing rocks with a hammer as a meager way to put food on the table, assuming he has a table.
Second, I mourn the way Haiti's impoverished economic reality has created a host of welfare-state reflexes among those who would be leaders.  The other day I was sitting at an outdoor restaurant sharing lunch with the pastor of the congregation we have been attending services at.  As I finished my meal, I noticed a boy, couldn't have been more than 7 years old.  He had saucer eyes that locked onto mine as his little hand extended, palm up, begging for money.  He wasn't the first child I had seen trying to eke out a living, but his face was hauntingly familiar, as was the posture of his palm.  I had seen that face before, on ministry leaders here, willing to reduce their relationship to Christian Reformed World Missions to an exchange of dollars, to filling their outstretched palm.  Don't get me wrong, some of the things World Missions is doing are vital and encouraging, but the economic disparities between Haiti and Canada/USA are a set-up for our being viewed as benefactors even if our title is "ministry partner."

Third, I mourn the way the chaos and economic disparities create conditions where isolation from community is the norm because it is safer.  Around our property here, we have an eight foot tall stone wall with broken glass on top and then a row of barbed wire above that yet.  We have two guard dogs.  We have not, and likely will not, have occasion to walk down our street.  I have no idea who is living across the street from me and don't expect to find out.  I do know both of my neighbours on either side of me, but in the six weeks we have been in this home, we have only had occasion to even see each other less times than can be counted on one hand.  Evenings, though peaceful, are spent locked into our homes, away from our neighbours, relationally disconnected from being able to foster community.  Beyond that, even those we do see regularly -- our house staff -- are forced by their circumstances to not only see us as employers but as potential benefactors, stripping away the likelihood of true community.

One author I have read since getting here suggests that things will never change, that because "poverty is Haiti's most lucrative export," they have an economic incentive to remain impoverished and with their hand out, either to the international community or to the flesh-and-blood visitors who bring in 20% of what is spent in this country in their pocket change.  It saddens me to think that the broken reality I long to see healed has a self-pertpetuating incentive to remain as it is.

For some, all this fog provides just enough incentive to diagnose that "nothing can be done" except to book a ticket home.  For others, these griefs draw them in like the wounds of a puppy lure a child into taking him home.  For me, today, the fog simply tells me where I am.  With you, on mission, in Haiti.
All this makes me wonder about the fog Jesus had when he was growing up.  Luke 2:52 tells me that Jesus "grew" and therefore wasn't fully developed or fully knowledgable right out of the gate.  He "grew in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and people."  As he came knowing himself to be the Son of God sent to save the world, he entered into the fog of joining the mass of humanity, and not everything was clear to him from the get-go.  He knew our poverty in every way and the chaos and isolation it created.  And yet he came, on mission, into the fog of the world, for us.

Tomorrow morning, I plan to allow Haiti to, just a little more, "get a hold of me."  I plan to take up my fog, and follow him.

thanks, again, for listening.