When people in abject poverty face difficult decisions, good options seldom exist—the choices are simply bad or worse. When a mother has more children than she can feed, where does she find help? In Haiti, there is a culturally acceptable and clandestine child-trafficking arrangement resulting from these difficult decisions and those who prop-up and benefit from the structural evils that force these decisions in the first place.
Restaveks: 300,000 child-slaves blend into the landscape here. They are visible only by understanding what to look for—most foreigners do not. Conversely, tens-of-thousands of families in Haiti rationalize this form of trafficking by promising food, shelter, and education in return for household help. Unfortunately, in too many instances these arrangements fall victim to human depravity, and children are exploited.
The following video was produced by Compassion UK:
The following letter was mailed to our family and friends in December. Since then we have received a considerable amount of positive feedback and felt it appropriate to post online.
December 4th, 2007
Dear Family and Friends,
There’s a story about two farmers who desperately needed rain. Both of them prayed for rain, but only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it. Which one trusted God to send the rain? God will send the rain when he’s ready. We must prepare our fields to receive it. (more…)
A few months ago I (Matt) was riding with another missionary named Bill. Along the way, Bill was telling me about his family’s experiences in their first year in Haiti. He told me about strange noises they used to hear. He said every night they would hear something walking on and in their roof. Whatever it was would walk from one end of the roof to the other, and stop right above their bedroom. The tin roof would crunch under its weight and the wooden rafters would shiver and creak as the prowler moved through them. Night after night, they would hear it, but they could never see it.
Bill told me his family began praying over their house—and they prayed with their son who was in elementary school at the time. Sometime later, Bill was talking with another missionary named Ray and the topic of strange noises came up in the conversation. Ray told Bill that the same thing happened to his family in another town pretty far away. Ray said that he had some relatives visiting and they actually tried to trap whatever this roof-walking creature was. In the daytime they planned how they would stakeout the corners of the roof as well as access points, such as trees. In the evening, like clockwork, the intruder began making noise. Within minutes, everyone had a flashlight and got into position. They found nothing. Ray told Bill that in Haiti there is actually a spirit being that is believed to walk on rooftops.
Later that day I came home and told Pam about my day and recounted some of the things Bill and I talked about. I told her about the roof-walker. Just then, she reminded me of something unusual that happened to us when we lived among the Haitian community in Miami last year—something I had totally forgotten about. (more…)
There is a particular boy in town, who, since we moved here, has made it his life goal to make my life miserable. Every time I (Pam) would go to the open market, Wandly (12-years old) would persistently follow me around; pestering, provoking—antagonizing me. One day, with glaring anger in his eyes, he told me in English, “I’m going to kill you, b@%$#!” (Wandly does not speak English)
I would often return from the market and vent to Matt about all the awful experiences I had that day. Then came the climax: (more…)
