LESPWA

Short and Sweet:

Lespwa is my friends' nonprofit with the orphanage. Click to know what they are about and/or to donate.

As of now they need tremendous amounts of acute monetary support. Messailler (where the orphanage is) is currently a place of shelter for the people fleeing Port Au Prince. Lespwa is in a unique position to support Messailler and be a place of calm refuge in a time of chaos. The compound has already served as a makeshift medical clinic and boarding house since the earthquake. They will need continued prayers and support in the days to come.

LESPWA

Are you kidding me?

Those were the words I uttered upon hearing of the devastation in Haiti last Tuesday. This is a place that has captured my heart and mind as evidenced by the four previous posts. I was just in Port Au Prince not three weeks ago. My friends were still living there not five days ago. I have been overwhelmed this past week as to what to do.

I have come to realize that all I can do is pray, currently. I cannot physically be there, but the Father is there. I have also found it useful to stay updated in the goings on through friends' first person accounts, emails, and news sources. Hopefully when the time is right and an opportunity arises, I will be able to mobilize quickly and be used in a tangible way.

I do not think it will be useful to recap things that have happened, that can be done by reading Jay and Diana's blog or Jeremy's blog, which are linked on the sidebar to your left. I have also chosen a few articles that have been of interest to me and linked them below.

I urge you to let your heart ache if necessary, pray in abundance, give if you can, and go if you are called.

200,000+

This is not Katrina

Aftermath, Disease, and Water

Future Rebuilding Considerations

Rescue Stories

Haiti, pt. 4: TIH

There is almost too much to say about Haiti. There are ideas huddled beside feelings and concerns piggybacking resolutions spinning around emotions. It is all very overwhelming. The improvement projects needed branch off into a forest of tasks and the root system of all the problems seen in Haiti is no less complex.

From day one, Haiti is impossible. Everything about Haiti seems broken. Everything: government, sanitation, spiritual climate, community, courtesy, patience, agriculture, zoning, education…and the list goes on.

As a rich white intruder I want to clean it all up in a week long volunteer effort to put on my resume. This of course, is impossible. But, even so, I think with enough time and effort, Yes We Can!We can come in and clean up this sin drenched place. I find that this attitude yields so many problems, though. The first question must be asked: do they need to be “rescued”? Well clearly this place is not living in perfection, it is far removed from the Garden. However the next question is what does it need? Does it need “our way?” The American system is also ripe with injustice and sin….it just smells better.

The real hopelessness blooms, when, sitting and talking about all there is to Haiti, one realizes that even the solutions have problems. Progress, as so valued by us, has so many ornate trapdoors.

For instance: dropping shoes from a plane to distribute to the Haitians will protect and cover the children’s feet from the jagged rocks of the landscape (but will it also take jobs from local shoemakers, creating…more poverty?) Surely some initiatives like a nationwide trash collection or sex education are paces to start, but those are far too massive for me to feel like I can even consider! And even if those things were started, the long term effects of what those projects could turn into remain unknown. There are many caveats to progress.

Progress unleashed without a moral barometer can be utterly devastating and create situations worse than were present before. Just look around you, inquire into the food industry, inquire into the clothing industry. The consequences of unbridled advancement in the name of progress are all around us. This was one of the problems that kept coming up in late night ponderings. To improve or help Haiti always was paired with the system being polluted or taken advantage of or done in the wrong way to produce a different, sometimes more complex problem. It all seems so hopeless.

So, what shall we say now?

I was encouraged after reading an article in the latest issue of The Economist*. All these thoughts on what to do about Haiti had been weighing on me since I touched down in Port Au Prince, and this article reinforced the confusion at first: it discussed the fragile balance between progress and destruction. This concept had been debated countless times over the week at the orphanage. We would wax on our ideal visions of Haiti, then others would point out how that wouldn’t work for one reason or another. The term “be realistic” was thrown around a lot, and not angrily, but gently and often with a depressing sigh.

In the Economist article, philosopher Susan Neiman wrote that “every time someone tells you to ‘be realistic’ they are asking you to compromise your ideals.” I found this to be extremely interesting and remarkably accurate. But ideals are hard, and I learned this week they seem too grand to actually be possible. The encouragement lies with what Neiman says next: your ideals will never be met completely, but sometimes, however imperfectly, you can make progress. She writes that often we create a false idea that a choice must be made between Utopia and degeneracy. Neiman argues that this is not true and that moral progress is neither guaranteed nor hopeless.

I think her conclusion was a more eloquent version of what I had been musing towards the end of the trip: We can only try to resolve or nurture what we see set before us today.

Operating with love and compassion we can only take small steps forward on an immediate and daily basis. Of course, we must constantly recheck our motives, goals and hearts to be sure they are consistent with our original intention. Haiti cannot be saved in a day, but small, consistent efforts of love over a long period of time is how it will be done. We may never live to see full healing in our physical condition, but that timing does not matter.

I belive this concept becomes even more hopeful and beautiful under the grace offered through Christ. The hope of Haiti lies not wth us, and our hope lies not with helping Haiti. Rather, the hope of both parties rests with Christ. We can be vessels of change, but ultimately our efforts will be kinked and skewed with sin. Thankfully, He is the hope of all things. One day He will do more than make progress, He will restore to perfection. And until then, His enduring grace will fill in the cracks when we inevitably take a wrong turn or make a mistake while trying to do His work.

* I dont want to give false impressions of grandeur here, this is not normal reading material for me. That was the first time I had even picked up The Economist. The cover article "Progress and its Perils" caught my eye in the airport.

Haiti, pt. 3: Ki jan ou rele?

There are few things as beautiful as when a little one remembers your name. And comes running.

It is such a surprise that they remember, such a sweet acknowledgement that you have connected with them.

Upon arriving in Haiti, there were children that called out “Luke!” and “Alex!” and “Diana!” I knew they were remembered because they’ve been there before, or because they lived at the orphanage. But I must admit I was jealous. I wanted to walk up to a group of kids and have just one of them remember that I had thrown them in the air the day before, or spun them around, or carried them on my shoulders. Gloriously, this happened with three children while I was in Haiti.

Waldo – He caught my eye because he was wearing a Gators jersey. He was also the only child to list his full name when asked: Waldo Douswali. He loved to be picked up but he didn’t like the insanity of throws, spins and falls like the other boys. Waldo was content with just having his hand held or sitting in your arms. He loved to do the Gator chomp and say “Go Gators!” Or at least he seemed to think it was a fun thing I taught him.

Waldo was a village kid, but he was not a fixture at the compound like other villagers. I only saw him on two days, at Vacation Bible School, then he disappeared into the wilderness of Haiti. But I will always remember him running out on to the playground, amidst a field of wild banshees, headed right at me and saying “Aiiiii Geeee!”

And I picked him up and hugged him.

Gimsley – With goofy teeth too big for his head and an insatiable appetite for spins, Gimsley was quite a character. He is one of the orphans that lives within the walls of the compound, loved and cared for on a daily basis. His smile showed so much more contentment and safety than many of the other kids we saw that week. It is clear that Gimsley’s heart has been softened while at the orphanage.

Unfortunately, he has an iron-tight stomach and demanded to be spun around at all times. Over the course of a week, he singlehandedly made me more nauseous than all the burning garbage on the plains and the sewage flowing in the rivers. When not being twirled about, he demanded to be hoisted up upon my shoulders. Gimsley was a guy who liked the high life.

Walking over to the orphanage one afternoon with Luke and Katie, Gimsley came around the corner. He immediately started running at me. He exclaimed “AY JAY” and, of course, once he was right in front of me he said potem, meaning “hold me.” Soon he was back up on my shoulders as we headed to the makeshift soccer field.

I cannot wait to go back and spin him around until we both collapse.

Nadine - She came up to me one day on our first walk through the village. It was a sneak attack as she ran up behind me and slipped her little hand into mine and looked up, hopeful. This was the beginning of a strained and heartbreaking relationship.

She kept motioning to her throat and saying something in Creole. Over and over again I looked down, unable to respond because I didn’t know what she was saying. Then she patted her stomach, then she patted mine. Then she pointed to her mouth and said that word again. All I could do in response was shrug and put her up on my shoulders.

I learned later that Nadine was a village kid, she did not attend school nor was she an orphan. In fact, her parents are voodoo clergy. I also learned that she was telling me she was hungry, apparently she always says she is hungry, even when in the process of eating.

She has an odd way about her: very touchy, but not in a sweet way, odd and almost inappropriate. Touchy in a way that hints she knows what she’s doing. She can’t be more than 10. I don’t know what she has been taught or what life has shown her to create this behavior. I long for her to discover a more beautiful way.

Nadine became a representation of my hardest reality in Haiti. She was the village at large, the people untouched by the safe walls of the mission, the hopeless ones. She didn’t get the presents handed to the orphans or the snacks given to the school children at the Christmas party. We did, however, acquire a plate of popcorn and cheez puffs for her one afternoon (which she ate half and stuffed half in her pockets) and I gave her a half-liter of lemonade (which she downed in literally 5 seconds). But who will love Nadine after we leave? Who will remember about Nadine?

She remembered me, she called out my name, and it broke my heart.