The Highway to Haiti

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.

–

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!

As a college freshman in 1997, I became friends with some guys who, from day one, it was obvious we were going to get along really well: (more…)

Thank you everyone who has taken part in the immediate response to aid the millions affected by the earthquake! Our efforts have now processed over $120,000 in donations and have sent over 10 trucks full of supplies from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Our shipments have included nearly 50 tons of food and supplies—and will jump to 100 tons this weekend. We have delivered fuel to PAP five times, including a midnight shipment of helicopter fuel to Samaritan’s Purse last night. We have also transported hundreds of refugees out of PAP. Interestingly, this in not really the effort of a single organization (FIM, InnerCHANGE, Kids Alive, and Samaritan’s Purse are all sort-of working together to make this possible). There is basically no bureaucracy or red-tape. Our entire front-line speaks either Creole, Spanish or French. We have a distribution team of 3 in Port-au-Prince, a logistics team of 10 in Santiago, D.R., and an interface team of over 10 in Miami and elsewhere in the US, along with hundreds of Dominicans and Haitians working together to move aid items quickly—most of us met for the first time last week. Our donor base includes scores of people and churches we’ve never met before. Our supply line is an organic, grassroots effort that has gained momentum and become strong because of our relationships on the ground. Our ”task force” is not comprised of foreign professionals that have come to fix things and help, rather, we have become a network of people like: Jose, our fuel supplier; Jean-Baptist and Luis, truck drivers; Claude, at our transshipment warehouse—the list goes on and on and on. Most of us live here on the island; we’re invested. In years to come, these relationships will be key to healing and recovery. In the last few days God has exponentially increased our capacity to help and we ask that you continue to pray for us to be diligent and faithful to the opportunity to serve others. I got an e-mail from Tim Nelson—working in Honduras, now 10 years after Hurricane Mitch; and he, along with some guys here who live in post-Katrina New Orleans, have been a steady reminder of how such calamity can swing doors wide open to Gospel ministry for years to come.

Many have asked about flying in to help. Depending on how long our supply line services are needed, we will need several waves of helpers. The skills most needed on our end are: native Spanish and Creole speakers, accountants, computer “geeks”, scroungers and couriers—most importantly, flexible people who work well in extreme and unusual circumstances. E-mail Elaina Vazquez at urez.haiti@gmail.com for more details. If you, or your church, is interested in being involved in long-term discipleship and sustainable development, please contact us so we can dialog further when the time becomes appropriate. This will be a critical aspect of Haiti’s future.

As alluded to above, one of the many ripple-effects is refugees leaving PAP by the tens-of-thousands. This past week, while at my house in Fort-Liberte, I met with the mayor and city council on several occasions. The mayor told me that the town has taken in 1400 refugees, and this is expected to surge to possibly 5000. Fort-Liberte needs help. Neighbors have told me that family and friends are showing up at their doors with nowhere else to go. I feel this is a critical juncture in which how we respond now will open up opportunities for the rest of our life in Haiti. Our mayor, Ing. Moise Charles-Pierre, came to my house and gave me a list of food that is needed immediately. The list includes staple items: flour, rice, beans, oil, spaghetti, dried fish, oatmeal, sugar, milk, bedding and soap. Based on our estimates, his request will cost around US$50,000. We would love to provide a significant amount of assistance (we don’t have to provide all of it) by next week if possible. Consider giving toward this second-wave of need at www.fim.org. For donations of over $5000, please contact Dick Albright at dalbright@fim.org and he can assist you in wiring money directly to our ECCU account and notate it correctly.

Thanks again! It’s far from over.

She finally got around to writing. Click here to read more at Beth Moore’s Living Proof Ministries Blog.