Graduate

This picture is a very proud moment for this young man and for several surrounding him, including my own parents who have supplied his educational funding since adopting his sister 12 years ago. My dad had the honor of being able to attend his graduation ceremony a few weeks ago, and while there Manius gave a speech in Creole to family and friends. The circumstances my father witnessed with people's reactions to his speech that day prompted my dad to request it translated in English. It was so stunning that I wanted to put it up on the blog for everyone to be able to read and digest. For all who are sponsoring a Haitian child for school, this serves as a tremendous impetus for continuing to aid these wonderful and deserving children. Very few Haitian children ever graduate, they cannot afford the cost and the land deprives them so badly it is difficult to even survive, let alone get a full and complete education. But for change to come, Robinson believes in the necessity of education. This year with your help we have 64 children back in school! What a privilege for us to be a part of this kind of impact. Read this speech and allow the meaning to settle, it will surely stir your heart!

My warm greetings go to everyone this morning. Today I feel really enthusiastic about completing my secondary classes which, to me is a miracle, impossible, an enigma. After a past loaded with efforts I've been successful in making the impossible happen. Suffering, hunger, lacking clothes have motivated me to reach that impossible thing. I question now whether suffering is for destruction or construction; what is its role in a man’s life?

In my opinion, suffering is there not only to fashion our character and enable us to become mature but also it is presented to us as a way of better self-knowledge like a thinker says: "Trial is the time that reveals the truth in human beings; until it comes you never know all about a man." Suffering presents itself as the essence, the salt of our life, and a movie camera which records our past. It trains us for the future. Every time we remember that we have much suffered in order to get something, we value it. Besides, suffering is there to help us understand others in their suffering, like the great philosophers and protagonists of introspection say: "Who knows himself well also knows others." Jesus Christ, when He came on earth, went through so much suffering and that's what characterized his earthly walk. That's the reason He understands and has compassion for us when we call upon Him. As a matter of fact, anyone who wants to eat the best production of the city, of the land, and even of heavens must show determination, patience and courage. That person should even drink the cup of suffering because to get any good thing requires an extra and particular effort.

That contentment that I feel is not only my fruit but also that of other people because I am like a chain, a house built with materials from other houses in the same way that God created the world out of opposites and yet from the union of opposites came the most beautiful harmony. I don't know what I have to give to those people who have helped me achieve that seemingly impossible thing. No new word, no new expression comes to my mind for me to express my gratitude towards them. Anyway, I'd like to use my poor speech to address them.

First, I particularly thank my family, my father who accepted to bear all sorts of sufferings, like lacking clothes, going thirsty and hungry, for my sake. There were times when he was even exposed to death. Those sacrifices cannot be acknowledged with just thanking words but I believe that God who, in His love can give beyond my request, is able to reward him according to his works. Thanks to Pastor Louis Robinson who accepted to love me all the way. When my mother passed away I was on my 2nd year of primary school and I found myself in a dead-end due to my family’s incapability to handle the situation then. My father was on the point of moving to the Dominican Republic by himself. As for me, I thought it was the end of my life but yet it was the beginning brought about by God’s direct intervention.

God has chosen Pastor Louis Robinson to help me. This relationship that God has established between him and me is unexplainable; I see it as an enigma. Pastor Louis Robinson is from Desdunes and I am from Terre Blanche. It is unthinkable to everybody that Pastor Louis Robinson would treat me so well while we’re from different localities. He doesn’t discriminate against me like I would be his slave and he would be the master, nor as orphans and non-orphans. At some point I have been asked whether Pastor Louis Robinson was my father. That’s how God works; whatever He does is beyond our understanding, our intellectual abilities. Although we live in a world where everybody is after their own interests he (Robinson) makes the difference, he cares about the happiness of others. He agreed to help me selflessly, he accepted to be a father to me. I don’t have enough time to speak about his works. May God, in His grace, protect and bless him with all sorts of blessings.

My thanks go to the believers of Christ Community Church in Michigan, particularly the (Doyle) Berg family who considers me as their son. This family was not afraid to give of their life to me, to make personal sacrifices for me, accepted to walk in the snow, cared about me, worked hard every day so that my dreams could come true. I know the sacrifices and tribulations they went through in helping me. They always put aside their nationality, their skin color and their culture for my sake. What a love! May God, in His mercy and boundless grace, pour down on them all sorts of blessings.

Thanks to Mrs. Louis Robinson, sister Eloude, sister Paulette, sister Anie´ce, brother Emmanuel Pierre. Special thanks to Mrs. Hermane Fleurina, brother Cluvinson Ginius. I don’t have enough time to quote all the names but they are ineffaceable. I pray for special grace of God on every one of them, may God protect them each day. I say a large thank you to all of you for spending this moment with me. Americans say; “Time is money.”, which means time is precious, but still you put aside your personal business for being here with me. May God, in His love and grace, be with you ‘til the end of the world.

Thanks!

Hope you were as moved as I was, blessings always.

Frustration

Since I have been back from Haiti, life has been moving like a freight train, or perhaps a high-speed rail would be a better term. I was sharing with someone a couple days ago how when you go into Haiti the first days there seem to drag by. You enter this time warp where a type of freeze frame rate occurs to your life. As the week moves along the approach of returning home begins to warp your time awareness again, and a blurring effect commences. When you arrive stateside, you experience a kind of congestion as you try to re-acclimate yourself to our cultural rush. It leaves you extremely weary, and there is a kind of delayed re-engagement process. Part of the delay though is a rebellion of your mindset. A realization that technology and materialism have left you bankrupt in some very critical departments of your humanity. In Haiti you are always surrounded by people, someone trying to enter your space, desiring to be with you, especially the children. At times you can actually feel smothered. But the pull, the desire for relationship is fully engaged in that culture. They thrive on it, relish it, and live it. To our detriment, we forsake it for much more trite and trivial pursuits that promise much more than they actually deliver. I am settling back into my groove now, but I must confess a sphere of frustration has lingered longer this time. A sense of revulsion laces my soul, I long for deeper connections, for richer relationships, for fuller engagement. I am thankful for my recurring ventures into Haitian poverty, for there I am finding gold mines of meaning and depth desperately missing or sadly misplaced in my culture. My mining experiences in Haiti are helping me with my 'panning' practices back here at home. There is still "real gold" in this country, and a lot of it, but we have really muddied the waters and made the screening process much more cloudy than intended or what it should be. People are golden, but we get buried beneath the rubble of media, money, and selfish motives. But don't give up, richness lies beneath the surface still; frustrations fire, patiently tended will consume impurities and give birth to the pureness potential that lies within us still. The grace of God is sufficient to restore us to former glory and to genuine ancient love! Think about it! Blessings from memories of St. Marc.

Junie

This is a picture of our amazing orphanage house mother. This is a very special young lady. In the past she has lived at Robinson's house, but moved out last year. We have been sending her to school for the last two years. Last year she failed her tests and moved away because she was so embarrassed by her failure. But we saw incredible good in her, she has a zeal for life and a warmth about her that is genuine and pure. Beth was able to reach out to her last fall when they went in to get the orphanage underway. She encouraged her to try school again this year, invited her to help at the orphanage, gave her a place to stay there, and a miracle has blossomed! She is a living flower, radiant and exquisite! She has taken such good care of our kids, it shows in their attitudes, actions, and behavior. There are many good people around the children, from the director on down, but we are attributing much of the character change in the children to this incredible young woman. She faces some really difficult circumstances in her own life, she has had typhoid fever that gives recurring symptoms. But even when she is feeling down physically, she has this marvelous loving attitude that prevails through her difficulties. She attends school during the day while the orphans are in school, and then is at the orphanage for the kids through the evening and night. Unbelievably she is pulling really good grades in school, and is still able to provide an amazing loving environment for the little ones. She doesn't have to do all the work, we have a laundry lady, and a cook, and a house director, but when it comes to the management and mothering care of the orphans, she is that one. She gets them dressed, keeps the house organized, and tends to keeping the children clean, readies them for bed, and loves the daylights out of them. We are so proud of her and what she is accomplishing in her life, and we are glad for the opportunity we have afforded her to be able to fulfill at least some portion of her life destiny by serving with us in this labor of love. It continues to awe me at how God has provided through the steadfastness of one orphan (Robinson) through the years, and now that one orphan is bringing great hope and help to so many, and Junie is another one of those lives that is being touched by the generosity of so many! God bless you all as we impact these incredible lives. Blessings again.

Word

What is in a word. Words they say are powerful tools. They can be weapons for war, contracts of peace, litigation for defense, they can stage a nation for success or doom it to failure when used by the right person at the right time the right way. They are a puzzle that fits together many ways to contrive many pictures. One picture may be worth a thousand words, but one word can also command a thousand pictures. Take for instance the word 'Hope', this word alone contrives a thousand scenes, actually millions. A word that moves us at the core of our being, at least it should. The picture in this post is one small piece of what hope holds. The eyes of this little girl draw you in, unmistakeably, the setting for this child defies hope, but the arms that hold her carry oceans of hope, and hope has found her. She has been discovered, her beauty is raw and her depth is deeper than the sea. She is hope, and 'hope' is her. One word, a mountian of meaning. As I wrote this week at times my weariness was so vast it was hard to catch the right words, to spell the occasion, to pen the pieces together with the right tapestry of words. As I press the cursor across the screen of my computer tonight, tapping away at the keys, emotions are cascading through my heart and mind and the words are not being so cunning. With this post I wanted to send out a message of thanksgiving to all who commented this week. I have written somewhere around 6500 words this week, to all who commented, you wrote almost 8000. I copied them over to a Word document and read them to the team every day. It was so encouraging. Your words contained life force, and your hope spread hope to us, who in turn spread the hope to our beautiful family of Haitians. Already I have received promising words of wonderful life change as a direct result of our visit. I am reminded again tonight that true power is not in silver and gold, although at times I wish I had more to help these people, but the true power is in the Word, and not just any words, but the Word of Life himself. Therein is the greatest power of all. At the times we grow weary in this endeavor, and we do, let us remember that we have a powerful message to carry, a message all deserve to hear. A message seated in words that change lives forever. We cannot risk this message going unheard, lives like this little one hang in the balance, we must succeed. Blessings to all!

Home

Life is a journey. A common saying by Robinson. Tonight I am home physically, and my heart is getting here. But at this point, part of my heart will always remain in Haiti. We journeyed long and hard over the past couple of days, and tonight we are weary of the travel, but we will rest and attempt to return to normal over the next couple of days. Our trip was inspiring to us and our team. We accomplished much, and impacted many lives. We are so grateful to all who are supporting us along this winding path. I am reflective tonight and have so much to say. But for now I will rest my weary flesh. I have gone over a few of my posts and see I need to do some editing. I will work on that as well, please excuse my oversight as I was busy trying to get things done and missed some English along the way! I will be posting up more blogs following our return now. I have several thoughts started and will share as quickly as I finish them up. I will also be posting more pictures. The one I am putting up here is a of a fisherman fishing without a pole. The backdrop is stunning. Haiti is a country with so much potential. We can only pray that God continues to bring healing to this land. We count it a joy to be a part of that process, and continue to trust in the amazing prospects of the spirit of our Haitian brothers and sisters. Blessings tonight!

Secretariat

The movie night at the church was a fascinating revelation of differences in culture and people's ability to experience life on different levels. I loved this movie. I loved the story. I thought the people of Haiti would love it too. I was right and wrong, they didn't just love the movie, they went into it.  A horse race run over 35 years ago ran again Sunday night, complete with cheering, stomping, and outright screaming! It was thunderous. I'm not sure how many people were here, but it had to be between five and six hundred. I love the way Haitians are capable of celebrating life, of championing a moment, of relishing the joy and extracting the delight found in the simplest of things. I have become hardened to the majesty of the moments in my life. My culture has demanded polish and focused behavior, etiquette  above excitement, restraint in rejoicing. These are not necessarily bad things, but sometimes it brings distortion to our reality. As the horses hooves pounded down the track and the drama unfolded, I found myself transported to a different place and time, it was moving beyond words. The force of nature, the power of the human spirit, the high drama of hope and promise captured on a movie screen were absorbed into a bleak place of minimal hope, and swallowed by parched souls ready and expectant for greatness. These people continue to shatter my misconceptions and false senses of security found in my routines and my expectations birthed by the surreal world in which I live. At first I understood that their world was surreal, but then I discovered that my own is. We take things for granted that we should not, we focus on the wrong things at the wrong time, we cherish the trivial above true treasures. Haiti has brought a more central understanding for me, helped me purge out the dross of vain thought, and grasp with a greater clarity what it is exactly we are here for, how quickly time and circumstance can change, and to seize better what is right in front of me! Let us strive to be in the moment, to cherish the real, to love without abandoned. The seasons of time are sweeping by, let's not miss it by being somewhere else. Blessing always. 

Ice Cream

Today has flown by! We kind of knew it would, you hope it would go a little slower. But we did get much accomplished all the same. Early this morning Robinson went to the motorcycle store and got a number to purchase a bike when the store opened at 8:00. He went at around 4:00 am to get the #2 purchase of the day. They had 10 bikes ready to sell this morning, and they were all spoken for before the store opened! It was crazy to me. But Robinson bought a black 125CC, and we went to the gas station and filled it up. He went to the police station and registered it. It runs great and starts easy. I can tell he is very pleased. His birthday is tomorrow, and this is a great present he wasn’t expecting, but was so needed. I didn’t plan it this way, but God must have! It has a heavy duty suspension so will work great for those periodic heavy loads. Parts can be easily had for this machine, so it should give more service time than the last one. We are going to fix the old one up a little, and give it to a couple of the associate pastors. They are going to be shocked! Another great event of the day was hooking up our neighborhood well; it doesn’t produce as much as the other wells, but it is going to service this community. There was a lot of fun and excitement in the street as Kelly started a water fight, and Karen finished it. It included water balloons, a garden hose, and a five-gallon bucket. When all was said and done, I’m not sure who was wearing the most water, but it was definitely between Kelly and Karen! Some good laughs and soaked shirts later; it made for a memorable moment on the trip. The property owner had me run the hose into his glass and his exclamation ‘clear!’ said it all. We spent a portion of the day with the orphans, and that was also a magical time. The older I get the more adept I am at seizing a moment; these with the orphans are especially special! Tonight Rick took us down to the Deli Mart and we had Ice cream with the orphans, Robinson, Naromie, and Manius. We had a plan to surprise Robinson by singing Happy Birthday, and it came out that his wife had forgotten it! It made for another joyful and awesome time. We then went down to a couple of stands and the store to pick up a couple of souvenirs’ for the team members. It got eerily quiet on the streets and the announcement for president was made, and then suddenly it was as if a dam broke and they spilled into the streets. It’s hard to read, but there was a lot of celebrating. We made for the house quickly, as they were pretty boisterous. The announcement was an unofficial one, so it is a bit unclear. The musician is the supposed winner; it would appear that those who are knowledgeable of Haitian politics are afraid of more of the same. To have a president who has danced naked in music videos as president does tend to make one a little cautious. But time will tell. This is something only God can fix anyway. We will forge ahead, our task orders do not come from men, but from Him! We had burritos for supper tonight, the ladies have been fantastic with the meals this week, and tonight was no exception. The Haitians viewed their plates with suspicion, but they seemed to have all cleaned their food! We made too many to count! It is time to go deliver this final post from St. Marc. We will finish packing tonight, shower, have our final devotion in Haiti and set our destination north by south in the morning. Wish us God speed on our journey home, and pray for our sadness as we say good-bye once again to this incredible amazing family of loving people who relay on the provisions God seems to be sending through us. We stand faithful in our place on this journey tonight. As God give us strength we will continue to bring hope and help as long as we can! Blessings from St. Marc tonight.