Goat herder

Good evening from Haiti. So much for the cool weather! Today things heated right up, in more ways than one, but that is Haiti. One thing I never miss yet when I leave here to go home is the rooster’s crowing at 3:00 am. It’s not bad when you can block it out with fan noise, which works more often than not, but then there are nights that are the exception, like last night. I guess I get now why Haitians like chicken so much, it’s a staple you have because you have to kill them to silence them! On to bigger and more important things though. Kelly, Rob and I hit the road early this morning to see about starting our well machine and getting it under the cover of our new building. We were successful, even though we encountered nasty biting ants, huge spiders and their webs, and a big hornet’s nest. They will be pouring the floor in our building next week and that will give us a much-needed equipment storage space. Another early morning blessing was the opportunity to engage with the orphans when they were just getting up and around. Their energetic hearts were a treasure to experience. I believe this has been a necessary trip to reconfirm these beautiful lives that have been placed in our care. Several are at challenging ages, and this country is anything but kind to hopes and dreams. This has been a great team to redress the needs of their young hearts. It’s particularly tough when they go a whole year without us. I am constantly reminded this mission is nothing if not about the hearts we are meant to touch and change by being that loving hand of God extended. As I type away on my computer, they are all staying with us at the Mission House tonight, enjoying popcorn, Kool aid, and Peter Rabbit. A room full of their laughter, and one might imagine how Monster’s Inc. actually became a thing. One by one they will drift off to sleep, cherishing this moment in the brave history of their lives. Swept along by the complexity of the mundane, they must at some point own this life, or die trying. As I bump along their dust laden streets, the drift of a unique smog all their own grays the sky, I wonder at the stories they could tell. The child whose father breaks rocks to make gravel every day for a living. He doesn’t come home and kick off his shoes, turn on the TV and crack a can of beer. He comes home to a dark hut without electricity and running water, with something called a door, he sleeps tired and hungry with his children on the floor, to die and be buried in a nameless tomb, no epitaph, just the fact that he was here, and now he is gone. I think about these things because that is something of the story line of the lives of our orphans. For most of these kids their history has been erased, they have fake birth certificates, the only sense of belonging is the one they get a few days of the year when we show up. Don’t get me wrong, I think our staff and director are some of the best people in the world, but even Robinson confessed to me he didn’t ever know love until he came to the United States. The harshness and brevity of life here border on a stroke of evil almost too much to comprehend. To this darkness we are called, and to this calling we try to remain faithful. Apparently, I will get the comedy award of this trip with the Haitians. There were two goats at the orphanage that are a part of a birthday feast for the kids this weekend. As we were leaving the house and bringing all the kids to the Missions house to stay, the goats could not be left behind for fear they would be stolen. As I was trying to leave one of the kids handed off his charge to me. And I happened to have the stubborn one of two. I led out on a determined mission not to have anyone else have to deal with this feisty little creature. As the Haitians tell it the poor goat never had his feet on the ground. That is not true, because for most of the way I had to drag the poor little guy along. He would jump into the air and land on all four feet set dead against me, but I kept walking. By the time we arrived at the Mission house I wasn’t sure who was most tired, me or the goat. But he immediately started head butting the other goat so I figured he had fared better than myself. I have never seen Robinson laugh so hard at the telling of the story. I guess I will live on in infamy as the bizarre American goat herder! I guess I’m grateful to have brought some comedic relief to an otherwise repressed culture. One other point of clarification, you experience some of the greatest joy people can live in while here in this country. But the markings of deep sorrow and hardship are carved upon every face as they carry added weight to the normal burden called ‘Time’. A disappointment to our day was that after spending several hours at the dock today, we still don’t have our trailer. Now it will be a bonus if it gets out before we leave. Time to lay a new plan for our setbacks, and finalize what this trip was really about, and in case you’re wondering, no my voice has not returned. I’m beating out my frustration on my computer keys. I hope this post is not overdone! Blessings to all from a heated-up St. Marc.   

Noise

On this day in Haiti…the trailer is still in customs. There, that is now out in the open. On a positive note, it will be tomorrow. We called after the men’s meeting at 5:02 p.m. and our customs agent said to Robinson, “I’m sorry, you’re too late.” Really, we’ve only called 50 times since we have been here, and you couldn’t call with authorization? We called at noon and she had said no word. Well, word came sometime this afternoon, and everything was authorized to move as I suspected because the dock has to be emptied for the next ship arriving Saturday. There is a never ending list of things to do while we are here though, and as there has been a year since our last visit, everywhere I turn there is something to fix or add or get done. We are picking them off one by one, and it’s making people very happy. One unique thing happened yesterday that I thought should receive mention in my posting was a meeting that happened at the courthouse. Robinson was advised by the government that they requested an appointment with him on the day we were arriving, and he had to respond with a letter stating he could not do that date, so it was changed to yesterday at 11:00 a.m. I asked him what the meeting was about, and he told me it was about the church in town, no big deal. This peaked my curiosity and upon further investigation it seems news of the long night service has reached Port Au Prince. He informed the League of Pastor’s in St. Marc of the meeting, and they told him to go but if there was a problem they would come with support. As it would turn out there was word on the street that the government might shut the church down. Robinson came out of his room yesterday dressed to the hilt, and I knew in that moment this was a serious meeting. As it would turn out, it was a noise issue. The man from the government turned out to be a Christian pastor, and the meeting was a cordial one. A small agreement was made, as Robinson made the case in point that there was no effort to restrict the disco’s in town which was met with chuckles. They had been called on their own game. The surprise came when I found out there was a demonstration put on in front of the courthouse by other area churches before he arrived and while the meeting was in session and that people had gone through the courthouse trying to find him to protect and defend him! But the meeting was in a special, private, air conditioned room. It would seem the city is not going to surrender our long-night service for a long time to come. At our new location, they are already asking Robinson if he will start a long night service when we open there. One thing it seems our Haitian Christian family and community are seeing is true answers to pray! ‘Praying without ceasing’ takes on a physical commitment here, not just a mental one going on in one’s head. I don’t want to minimize anyone’s prayer life in this blog, but the commitment of the church community in this city in to be commended. And most certainly Pastor Robinson and his commitment to making sure it prevails. Without fail across the years that our teams have come, after bedding the team, the one night Robinson does not stay with us at the mission house is Friday night because he still goes and prays with his people all night long. And then without any rest, he serves the team all day long on Saturday. Sean spoke for the men’s meeting this afternoon and did a great job. It’s always a challenge when one speaks with a translator for the first time, but he did well, and the young men appreciated his talk and message. I saw my post was long last night, so I will wrap up for now lest I labor you with too many words! One small issue that has come to light is the failure of the comment section. Google has apparently disabled ‘open’ comments in order to protect from scam, which my post has apparently suffered from. You have to sign up for a google account, sign in, and then post your comment. If it’s too much trouble, no worries. I usually share the comments with the team and they have missed that feature this trip. I have linked the blog to FB, but it is too daunting here with the internet issues to try to sort through the news feed to follow the comments there, and I know some are doing that. We will catch up with that trail when we get home. Blessing as always!

-->

Ironic

We have been fortunate to have a couple of the nicest days we have experienced in Haiti in ten years of travel here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still plenty warm, but our first two nights have been down right cool. Today has been another day of hurry up and wait. We took off early to run a couple of errands, one being to take a compactor out to the property to ready the floor of our building for concrete. For all who have done equipment rental in the U.S., something very different here is that when one rents equipment here, it comes with an operator! When we made one quick stop after picking up the compactor I was startled to walk past the back of the truck and find a Haitian lodged in the back. I said to Rob, ‘what’s he doing here’? And then he told me. Both he and the engineer were stunned to learn I could rent a piece of equipment without someone from the rental company coming with me. One determination we made on our site visit was there is more leveling to be done for our new tent. When I measured it out for our engineer, there were many wide eyes! In the world of tents, this is not a particularly huge tent, for these Haitians, as well as for me, this is a monster. This tent is 3 times bigger than our current tent in town, it’s going to be amazing. It’s ironic that we find ourselves in a waiting game on customs just like we did our very first trip in all those years ago. Hopefully this is not a complete ditto of that journey. We did have partial success today, our people at the dock took mercy on us and let us into the trailer to pull our food and generators for this trip. We were living off backstock today, some serious improvisation has been going on with our chief cook and bottle maker…my wife! But everyone has been staying very upbeat. This afternoon there was some intense crafting going on with our kids, Krystle is in high demand! Ray played soccer with the boys for a couple hours, he’s getting some serious workouts in! Did I mention he’s the tallest guy in every room he enters! As I type out this blog, the women’s service is in full swing, Beth, Deloris, and Lee are there. Meanwhile back at the orphanage some big soccer game was on TV, I think some local team was playing and there were about 10 of the young guys here. Sean commented it was funny all the ladies were in church and all the guys were here watching soccer! Also, that we must be the only location in town with power on and a TV. The electrical problem in St. Marc remains the same, that is, no power. When we were pulling the food off the trailer a bit ago, I was confused as the generators were pulled off as well. When we got out to the truck and loaded everything, I told Rob my surprise they let him take the generators. He told our contact person he was taking them, that the church needed them, and he was not willing to wait anymore for them! As we walked back through the customs dock, he kept saying ‘hi’ to many people and then would drop this line, ‘they go to my church’. It looks like he owns the dock! I had to chuckle to myself. He went to school with the customs inspectors, the head security folks go to his church, some of the very top customs folks are close friends of Rob’s. The reach of our church community here is vast and far reaching. The stall with the trailer delivery is not a local issue, it’s an attempt to crack down on corruption, it’s a delay tactic to minimize bribery, Robinson said it is a good idea, they just don’t have it working well right now. One thing in our favor is the fact that the dock is full, and a ship is coming in Saturday, they need the dock emptied by then. So hopefully it’s pushed out by tomorrow. It is minimizing what we are going to be able to get done physically on this trip, but one thing I have learned about working in Haiti, if you don’t have patience to deal with the push-back that comes with doing good, don’t get involved here! Haiti has tested my resolve so many times, were it not the great cloud of witnesses around us and this mission, perhaps we would have fainted long ago. As evening descends on another day, I remain consumed with gratefulness. If nothing has changed in this country the last ten years, my consolation prize is that I have. I read through some of my early blogs before we left on this trip. I can see with great clarity I am not the same person I was all those years ago! Time will judge us all, the seasons of life pull us along with ever changing tides that strain us to our very cores, who we are, who we will become. Thank you to all our supporters who pray and team with us financially in this major endeavor. More to come. Blessings to all once more!

Crayons

How much changes in ten years? Good question. If you live in Haiti…not much! I’m being a little facetious, but only a little. In my post two nights ago titled ‘Decade’ I talked about reminiscing, but now I’m actually reliving part of my first family trip ten years ago. Our trailer is still in holding at customs. We have paid the fees, the paper work is complete, but the voice of a man in Port is the only way our trailer comes out of the dock. We were told in the morning, we will see, we were also told that yesterday. Krystle bet me this afternoon it wouldn’t be out today, optimist vs. realist… she won. In the meantime,...we have had to make many adjustments to accommodate our schedule. Today was our big children’s service at the church, and all the crayons are in the trailer, as well as food, tent, new engine for the Toyota, new generators, and a long list of other necessities for this visit. So, we dug around a few left behinds from other trips and found 2 boxes of Cracker Barrel crayons, we started loading the 500 craft bags and when the last verse and coloring page were loaded into the bags, there were about 10 packages of crayons left over. It felt like the loaves and fishes all over again. Also, we started the daunting task of loading the plastic bags for the service with about three of us and before we were done, we had a room full of young Haitian men helping us, it has been amazing to be a part of their lives these 10 years, and to see the impact of our ministry on them. Are they making all the right choices, likely not, but then who is? In the critical moments, they know how to show up, and how to help, how many know how to do that? Last night was a bright and cheery reunion, with lots of hugs and a few tears. We had the orphanage repainted, (we do this yearly now) and the guys were wrapping up the outside today. We did a lot of sorting and organizing today, I’m still terribly under the weather and my voice is not returning. A very frustrating circumstance to say the least. When we arrived at the current church property this afternoon, we found a lot of our benches for seating in desperate need of repair, so we contracted our welder and carpenter to get them fixed, and before we left the facility crews were already hard a work to fix them. Lee and her acting team did a great job with the story of Adam and Eve, Rob pulled me away for a few minutes to diagnose a well in the neighborhood that was broken. We will have our resident up and coming well driller fix it in a day or two. While we are here there is a storm of activity and people visiting, coming to say hi and catch up. Did I mention I can’t talk? Honorable mentions today are Sean playing ‘God’ in the Adam and Eve story because he’s such a ‘godly man’, Ray riding a motorcycle taxi in Haiti for the first time with his grandma nearly having a heart attack. I mentioned our newbies doing well in last night’s post, on their first full day in Haiti, they are rocking it. The weather has been kind so far, and our first day is just about a wrap. The team is doing very well together, and we are confident we will achieve what we are meant to achieve this trip. Pray for Deloris and I to get our voices back, and that no other team member suffers this plight this trip. I have managed all of my trips to Haiti to date without being sick, this is a first for me. But others are stepping up, I feel like the priest Zechariah who was made dumb just after he received improbable news that his wife would bear a son, such great news and couldn’t speak a word of it to anyone. LOL Well, that’s me right now, but my team is filling in the gaps well, as perhaps is now due! We are tired and weary, so we will finish early tonight and try to rest everyone in hopes of a trailer of goods to manage through tomorrow. Blessings to all from St. Marc.

8A

Destiny, there’s a word for you! We live our lives moment by moment, and yet we look at it like a package deal, work time, family time, dinner time, it gets clumped together, so that we look forward to vacation, or spring break, or summertime, winter time…I think you catch my drift. Whenever I head into Haiti, this time decompression happens, time slows, much like the drag I feel as the pilot comes to land, and especially when you hit the runway and the air brakes engage, the thrust is reversed, and you are reminded why they are insistent on your seatbelt being fastened. We flew Jet Blue this trip and have actually been very impressed with their service. The planes were on time, and we were so grateful that our connection with Deloris and her grandson Ray happened smoothly. As we boarded in Fort Lauderdale, I was separated out from our group due to a booking detail. My seat was 8A. As I walked down the aisle about two rows back from my seat a stewardess was standing overseeing the boarding process. As I approached my row, sitting in the middle seat between the aisle and my window seat was an elderly Haitian woman. I couldn’t help but notice her discontent. She was writhing in her seat and seemed to be trying to communicate to anyone who would lend an ear, but neither the stewardess nor myself understood her attempts to speak to us in Creole. The stewardess said she could see about moving her and I said no, she was fine. As I took my seat, I noticed she was pulling on her seat belt that was already buckled and was a twisted mess. Then she looked at me and I knew what she was struggling with, she wanted the seatbelt unfastened. I assumed she was a free woman, and if she wanted the seatbelt undone, I was just the guy to set her free! And that is what I did. She exploded with a grateful outburst, I was her new best friend. But just as quickly as she had erupted with thanks, she also reached under the seat in front of her, snatched her bag and was up out of her seat. The stewardess shrugged her shoulders as the woman moved back into the aisle crowd and headed toward the back of the plane. A few minutes later, the stewardess came back and told me they had discovered the older woman’s daughter was on the plane and they had seated them together, problem resolved. Toward the end of the flight the stewardess came back to me and said, “you know that older woman you helped this evening, we discovered she is 108 years old!” I was staggered. Haitians have a much shorter lifespan due to the lack of a proper and steady diet among other things, and here my path would intersect at row 8, window seat A with a woman who was defying time. As we struggled through terrible traffic this evening and finally arrived in St. Marc a little haggard and worn, I have given pause all evening to reflect on this beautiful soul and the undoubted anguish and suffering her life has seen, how she reacted to the freeing of a seat belt, a simple gesture on my part, our lives connected for that brief moment and I captured it. I am not sure I will make it to 108, but if I do, I hope someone will be kind enough and patient enough to be marking moments in a way to be of assistance to me should I find myself trapped by an airline seatbelt. Yes, time has slowed once again. The drag of Haiti is upon us, the trailer was not released to us today, we are hoping for the morning. We will see, but for now, I’m giving myself to the moments, surrendering to, and being a part of this day. Tonight, I hope you can, and will too. We are all here, the team is bedded down, our two newbies, Ray and Sean are adjusting fine, my mat is calling me, and my laryngitis is needing reprieve and healing time, more tomorrow. Blessings from St. Marc tonight!

Decade

Ten years...what can happen in ten years...well if you go to my first blog on this site, over 400 posts ago...so many posts ago my beautiful and talented daughter made a book of them and gave them to me for posterity's sake! It's hard to believe I sit here tonight on the threshold of another chapter in our journey to aid and minister among the Haitian people. I suffer with a nice case of laryngitis, fortunately I don't need my voice to get a blog together, I cannot harness Siri tonight, an incredible technology that has arrived in the last ten years. There are some similarities between this trip and our first one all those years ago, I go to set up a tent just like I did ten years ago. The tent sits in customs tonight as it did ten years ago. But something has changed across all these years of work in Haiti. Me, I've changed. We have been pushed through knot holes, twisted up by circumstances, thwarted often, and yet today the bright light of love and compassion have seen thousands of lives impacted by faith, hope, and love. Tonight as I contemplate, which I most likely will a few times through this trip, I am staggered at what we have been allowed to, blessed to be a part of. As bone weary as we often are, and frustrated by circumstance, we are not discouraged, we are not dismayed. As much as we have been able to carve into this beautiful people a new legacy of hope for a new generation, they have carved into my heart a fresh courage for whatever I face in the driven culture in which I live. And so it is we go tomorrow, to see with fresh eyes the culmination of all the efforts and gifts of grace and mercy we have received across this decade to help and sustain so many lives, the hearts of orphans, of school children, of the destitute, the thirsty, the hungry, the down trodden. Our anxious hearts bed restlessly, as we ready to go, pray for our success, for our way to prosper, for love and light to be shed on many. Blessings to all and goodnight!

Symphony

Yesterday was what I call a symphony of chaos. A strategy in randomness. A whirlwind of disorder that landed with everything right side up. As I watched Robinson navigate the customs universe of Haiti it was something to behold. He knows his country, his people, and the system that runs it all. His connections are brilliant. As we sat in one place listening to the noise of so many negotiating people, he said to me: ‘I never need to do this’. The dear friend that is doing all the footwork for us is a very powerful and smart woman, but she has had to go all over the place getting our documents stamps and properly verified. I said to Robinson one time as she was walking away from us, she is really sweating. He said, she is really working hard! I knew in that moment that without her, there is no way we would get our trailers for days.  In the midst of this activity I purchased new mattresses for our orphan boys beds, their old ones are really worn out. Stuff here is terrible in quality, and the boys are a little rough. On the way to the house I asked Rob how we could get rid of the old ones and he said, someone will need them. I cringed on the inside. But then I remembered the woman I have noticed each day who spends hours sitting or sleeping on a concrete ledge on the street corner close to the Mission house. Sometimes she was naked, sometimes clothed, and I realized she would not even notice the condition of the mattress compared to what she has now. Rob said they have a song in Haiti, whatever you don’t need or want, someone else will. He went on to say it’s the same with people. If there is someone you don’t think you can use, someone else will. How out of sorts does our thinking get. We are a country that proclaims tolerance, and yet divisions abound. 70 churches here in St. Marc work together for a city wide evangelization one time a year, on so many levels this is profound. When I asked Robinson about the differences in the churches, he said we need to set those aside for the greater mission. How quickly we race to judgement on what divides us rather than entertain discussion and forward momentum on what unites us. The woman who is such close friends with Rob is a Seventh Day Adventist, but they way they get along with each other one would suppose they were brother and sister. Back to the symphony, as we tumbled through all the minor cords, all the confusion and chaos, something amazing began to emerge, out of all the twists and turns of the day, we were getting our trailers. The day they came off the ship they come into our hands. Someone recently challenged me on how God does all he does. I was reminded of a saying my Great grandpa used to repeat, 'a God comprehended is no God at all'. We received the trailers into our care after the dock was closed, all the offices were closed, and people were staying around to make our shipment release happen. It’s a miracle people. You may have wondered were the post was last night. Well, we never stopped working all night long. The symphony had a crescendo that landed with me and Robinson at the police station at midnight with them having confiscated the license plate of the Toyota over a parking issue on the street while we unloaded the larger trailer. I was out of my mind with disgust. When you have been in Haiti for ten years and witnessed the kind of parking violations I have that have lasted years, yes, I mean years, take for instance a broken down car parked in front of Rob’s house for years with dogs dying under it. I was ready to give them a piece of my mind. But grace prevailed and I waited for an hour in the Toyota while Rob worked with the police inside the station. I had given him $100 to pay them off, when he finally came out and told me what went down, I was ashamed of myself. His gracious and truthful demeanor along with telling them of the day and his work, ended up with him with his license plate back for free. As he was leaving he said to them all, I am Pastor Robinson Louis and I want to thank you for your good service in the town. Eyes bugged and arms flew up, and shame stormed through the room. They exclaimed to him he should have told them he was a pastor. He said there was no reason to do that, that he was human and was capable of mistakes. They were astounded by his response and told him they were sorry. I think this will be news in town today. It was humor laced with incredible grace. It was a reminder how God takes the chaos and confusion of our often sorry decisions and renders them into a stunning symphony of angelic proportions. As I stood in the darkness at around 12:45 am this morning at the new church property with the new trailer parked on it, I looked up at the star studded sky and couldn’t help but wonder at the accomplishment of the day in spite of everything that had gone wrong, much more had gone right. I won’t lie, I’m exhausted today, at the end of the busiest last day in Haiti ever, but it’s a good feeling. A couple days and we’ll all be fine. It’s been another great trip. Blessings from between St. Marc and home.