The Highway to Haiti

In the last post we briefly introduced the playground project and would now like to give more information on what we are trying to accomplish and how you can get involved.

We are currently working to raise funds to build a playground in our community. We envision this playground to not only be a safe place for children to play, but also provide a common area for families in the community to enjoy together.

To help accomplish our goal, we divided the project into three steps. In Step 1 we need to raise $2,500 for a community-size swing set. Step 2 will add in a play structure: fort-like towers, slides, a teeter-tooter, a sandbox, monkey bars and a zip line! And Step 3 will complete the project and create a family-friendly environment by providing a shaded pavilion, picnic tables and benches.

The playground project started with my sister and bro-in-law, and their desire to find a tangible, creative way to teach their children about giving sacrificially—a project they could participate in as a family. The families in our community will be involved in the building of the playground, and we’d like to invite your family too! Our blog posts will contain a “Hey Kids!” section where we provide fun, educational stories and pictures so that, if you have children, you can invite them to be a part of this process too.

If you are interested in participating with us, click here.

So without further ado…round up the kids and read on!

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Hey Kids!

Have you ever wondered what kids in other countries do for fun? We have learned that kids are kids no matter where you live, and all kids love to play and have fun. Here in Haiti, kids are incredibly creative and enjoy making their own toys out of things that they can find. They have taught our kids how to make a lot of neat stuff!

In this picture our neighbors are pulling each other around in a little wood car that they made entirely out of scraps from a construction site. How cool is that!

In this picture, our friend FeFe is teaching Silas and Luke how to make a battery-operated propeller. I wouldn’t have known how to do that!

They have shared a lot with us, and we would like to share with them too! That is why we are working to build a playground for all the kids in the community. Now, to give you an idea of what we are trying to build, I enlisted my boys to help out. They can build just about anything out of Lincoln Logs, so I put them to work and this is what we made for you to see…

We have already put up a fence to keep all of the cows, goats, chickens and pigs out of the playground! Our next project will be to build a big swing set…

Then we would like to build some fort-like towers with slides, a sand box, teeter-tooter…

…and maybe even a zip line!

And lastly, some shaded areas, picnic tables and benches for the mamas and daddies to enjoy…

We believe that kids can make a difference too. Come join us!

We sit and talk on the step under the warmth of the morning sun. I strain to hear her over plastic dumps trucks hard at work and children’s laughter filling the yard.

She finally asks. I was hoping she wouldn’t this time. Hoping she just came to visit. But she asks still and that is okay. She needs money, again. She has scrapped up enough for her daughter’s school bills, but needs a little more for supplies. I ask about her aunt, the one living in Miami whose sporadic generosity determines the bulk of decisions she makes in her life. She shakes her head. Nothing from her for a while now.

I am weary, at a loss for what to do. I have helped here and there, but deep down, I know I am not really helping her. And what is worse, she is learning to live only for the band-aids she can scrape up.

I sit quietly for a while, thinking, praying. I know the statistics. I wonder to whom and to what she will turn if desperation begins to tighten its nasty grip. I agree to give her some money, but we talk long. I remember the words of hard-working, middle-aged Haitian friends who say that there is work to be found for the one who really seeks it. I ask her gently if she’s seeking. I search her eyes as she looks away. Knowing that she swallowed a piece of her dignity in coming to ask me in the first place, I don’t want to push the issue. I give her the money and tell her that I know I don’t really understand what she is going through. That I really cannot relate to the struggles of a 23 year-old single mom. But I do care.

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The back door opens. Papo comes to play and my little boys’ English ramblings turn to Creole at the slam of a door. I smile. They play and we love Papo. We paint. Luke teaches him how to do a puzzle; Silas shows him how to flush the toilet.

Papo is eight. His mom: twenty-two. I do the math and my heart aches. The boys get to work making paper airplanes and I start on lunch. “Mama…” I look down at my compassionate four year-old. “Papo said he’s hungry and his mom isn’t making food for him today. Can he eat lunch with us?” I love his simplicity. “We’ll see bud, okay?” He returns to his paper airplane and I throw another cup of rice in the pot and cut the chicken a bit smaller. I quietly go about my work, my mind wrestling again with the complexities of poverty.

I wonder what is better, to feed the boy or teach his girl-mom to care for her son? And yet I know, that at the end of the day, at the end of the line of careless choices and irresponsible living, it’s poverty’s children who suffer its consequences. Even deeper down, I know that without the grace I have received, that girl-mom could have been me.

These are the tough questions we face each day. These are the questions we don’t always have answers to. But we continue to wrestle, think, pray, seek and learn. How do we love God and love our neighbor in this deeply rooted, tangling, thorny mess? How do I tell my neighbor about Jesus when her mind is preoccupied with survival? How can we give without destroying dignity and squelching desperation’s drive to find work?

We give ourselves. We roll up our sleeves and jump in. Their problems become our problems and their toils our toils. Together we push and we pull, we sweat and we hurt. And at the end of the day our heartbeat is to make disciples and our prayer is that this earthly toil will birth greater things, eternal things.

Development and discipleship: in the fabric of our lives here in Haiti, the two are so tightly interwoven. The kingdom of God to which we belong is both for today and for days to come—and for when our days are no longer. Christ our Redeemer is our hope for today as well as tomorrow. So through development, we pray that doors might be flung open wide to make disciples. And through discipleship, that we might develop followers of Christ who understand that the Gospel has everything to do with everything.

Side by side, we live and work together. And we pray that when the Savior beckons “Come”, they might leave it all to follow Him.

If you want to experience the energy of the 2010 World Cup as we do—you won’t want to miss these videos. Invariably these songs are blaring from radios and TVs all across Haiti and around the world!

Nothing quite says, Welcome to the neighborhood, like having your bikes stolen out of your backyard. Such was the feeling of violation in our new home last month. Incidentally, this is not the first time we’ve lived in a downtown urban area, nor the first time we’ve had our bikes stolen! When we lived on State St & Madison Ave in Chicago—same thing. Initiation? Rite of passage? Rookie mistake?

Years ago when I lived in Central America we used to joke about how easily things would “grow legs and walk away.” In Haiti, the easiest way to combat this is to live behind enough cinder blocks and bars, broken bottles and razor wire to rival a Supermax. Besides being ugly, living within utilitarian confines sends the wrong message and doesn’t quite jibe with the proverb in the previous post (which happens to be the November 18, 2008 post; we apologize for the long, yet intentional, hiatus). So, now we’re out a few hundred bucks in bikes—which had been great for getting around and meeting people.

About the same time the bikes were stolen, we had been planning a garage sale. We decided that we had enough stuff to merit a Thursday-thru-Saturday sale. On Thursday morning at 7am I set up a couple tables under the porch of a nearby vacant building and laid out the contents of a dozen boxes. Pam and I were going to work in shifts and we discussed in advance how much we wanted to try to get for the big-ticket items. Within minutes curious passersby turned into a crowd digging through all the stuff on the porch. By 9am, two hours passed, and so had the mob along with 90% of everything we had set out. When we counted the absurd wad of dirty cash and coin jammed into my cargo shorts—we made US$362!

Back to burglary: My wife could tell you that I’m a calculated individual. I study, research, and consider the risks at work or at play. When I gamble (don’t get the wrong idea, there’s a lot of theology here), the risk/reward ratio is the determining factor. The same could be said of the guys who stole our generator only two weeks after our bikes! We had an excellent little 2000-watt Honda generator that we secured to a concrete column outside. The heavy-duty steel cable was apparently no match for bolt-cutters, and the 45-lb. Honda that carries like a suitcase was easily handed over the fence in the darkness. It seems there are guys in this town who study and plan much like myself and share similar interests: in generators at least. I’m quite sure we could be friends.

This, however, caused us to step back and really think through home security and theft prevention. The idea is to create an environment where the risk/reward ratio, as it pertains to burglary, is so unfavorable that it isn’t even worth the hassle. Our neighbors say Dobermans work well. Ultimately, in the economics of our theology, the risk/reward ratio related to the choices we make in life only becomes favorable, or meaningful, when we live in obedience to Christ—even without guarantee of wellbeing or reward this side of Heaven. Sometimes it’s just the price we must pay to live in the hood.

Two weeks ago we were at the hospital getting health certificates—documents required for our residence permit. One of the requirements for the health certificate is sitting in on an HIV/AIDS counseling session and taking a “confidential” HIV/AIDS blood test. Another part of the process included getting a card indicating our blood types. So that day we dragged Silas and Luke around the hospital: to the exam room, to the counseling office, and to the lab for tests. After we finished, the doctor told me to come back the next morning to get the results—and the health certificates.

As instructed, I returned for the papers. On my way out a nurse stopped me and told me someone was looking for me. “Who?” I asked. She led me toward the radiology room and pointed me to the x-ray tech, a guy I didn’t know. He introduced himself and began by saying, “Eske ou ka ede-m?” On any given day, I find myself in at least three or four conversations beginning with these same five words (translated: Can you help me?), typically followed by a request for anywhere from $5 to $50—no joke. This happens so much, it becomes desensitizing, and it’s difficult not to tune-out and politely say, “no” and, “I’m sorry”. Since we were at the hospital, I presumed he needed help paying a hospital bill. But his request was different. (more…)