Despite government efforts to address the problems plaguing Haiti’s import economy, this article describes the severe failures in the supply chain. Since Cap-Haitien is where we purchase our supplies, we have experienced the shortages and high prices firsthand. From our observation, corruption still flows very freely through the bureaucracy. Pam saw vendors selling the dirt cookies in the market on Saturday where we live in Pignon.
We have been particularly impressed by the teaching of Ray Vander Laan and the Faith Lessons DVD series produced by Focus on the Family. Dr. James Dobson says, “Nothing has opened and illuminated the Scriptures for me quite like the Faith Lessons series.” One particular lesson puts an interesting twist on a familiar passage in Matthew, and steers it in a beautifully missional direction. Though the advantage of the Faith Lessons is that Vander Laan teaches on location, we have summarized his exegesis of the Matthew text and attempted to preserve his stream of thought in a way that we hope you find insightful. To learn more about Ray Vander Laan or the Faith Lessons DVD series, visit: www.followtherabbi.com
Banias (or Banyas), at the foot of Mount Hermon, is where the Jordan River begins in northern Israel. More precisely, the Jordan River is fed by several springs that come together in this region, and Banias is one of the springs. Banias is also the place known in the New Testament as Caesarea Philippi. Herod the Great built a temple at Banias and dedicated it to Caesar Augustus. Later, his son, Herod Philip the tetrarch, made his home there and renamed it Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a pagan place, notorious for its evil.
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Yesterday we joined the exclusive company of those who can actually say that a tank—yes a tank—has showed up at their front door. We were doing some work in the yard, when a UN amphibious Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) with a large mounted semi-automatic weapon pulled up our driveway. The soldiers got out and asked if we had an extra generator, since their generator was being repaired and they had no electricity at their base. That’s all.
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:
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