*Haiti 2011*
*DISCLAIMER- FIRST OF ALL THIS ‘JOURNAL ENTRY’ IS EXTREMELY LONG, BUT BARE WITH ME AND READ THE WHOLE THING, I PROMISE YOU WILL BE CHANGED. SECOND – SOME DESCRIPTIONS MAY BE GRAPHIC BUT THEY ARE REALITY. THIRDLY- READING THIS WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO GO TO HAITI….* ENJOY :O)
Haiti 2011 has already come and gone, at least the February trip :o). It is so hard for me to believe that this all started approximately three and a half years ago when I felt the Lord was telling me; no actually screaming at me, “Go to Haiti”, and the journey began walking blindly through open doors. Now, here we are three years later, having taken 19 people to Jacmel, Haiti; 5 of which have returned every year… I am not even quite sure where to begin, besides stating that the Holy Spirit has begun wreaking havoc on a lot of our hearts. This trip was very different than the previous 2 years, we learned a lot about living in the tension in between community and justice (thanks Leslie Jordan for wording that so well). I went on this trip having absolutely no idea what to expect. The things that were comfortable to me had been removed, and new things were happening. What did this mean for Hands and Feet and our relationship with them? Well I will do my best to explain…
While in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida while trying to ‘prep’ the team for what to ‘expect’ (maybe I forgot for a moment that we were traveling to HAITI, you can’t ‘expect’ anything ha-ha) once arriving in the Port-au-Prince airport; I shared with them the chaos that would ensue upon exiting the airport, people everywhere, literally trying to take your belongings. I stressed the necessity of keeping your things close to you and staying with your ‘buddy’. Well let’s just say our airport exit was the first of many things that would be different about this trip. We exited the airport, ran directly into “big” our Haitian friend who helps us with our bags every year, who is a friend of both Pastor Drex and Pastor Lex. There had been a new awning built with a fence preventing people from trying to grab your things, it was so easy it was nearly uncomfortable. We still weren’t sure of whom our driver would be, but we trusted that Big was taking us in the right direction. Shortly before arriving in the parking lot Frantz (our driver) met us and took us to our cars to begin our journey over the mountain. We put our luggage in one vehicle and the entire team loaded in the other van with our non-English speaking driver (it is moments like those that motivate me to learn creole). He did his best to keep up with Frantz who was driving the vehicle with our luggage in it, however, I don’t think Haitian drivers understand the concept of caravanning, but it is all a part of the adventure right? :o) We stopped just outside of PAP to meet Drex, Jo & Will to drop off some supplies. Since there are many items that are more difficult to access in Haiti we bring in as much as we can. It was nice to see familiar faces! After leaving them we still had about a two and half hour journey over the mountain. Even though many of us were exhausted few of us actually slept on the drive over because we wanted to take in as much of the country as we could. During the drive over the mountain I realized that the people of Haiti had actually made quite a bit of progress in cleaning up from the earthquake. If I am completely honest I had expected the exact rubble to still be in the same place in the road that it was in April of last year, and that we would just drive around it. But to my surprise that was not the case, yes, there is still a TON of work to be done, but progress is evident. I hope that gives some encouragement to those of you who donated to earthquake relief, but that is a whole other topic of conversation. After our four hour journey to travel forty miles, we finally arrived in Cyvadier at the Hands and Feet Project! Pulling up that driveway with palm trees and approaching the rod-iron gate gives me a feeling that I cannot explain. It brings me back to a place nearly three and a half years ago when I would research HAF on YouTube trying to best prepare myself for traveling to Haiti and watching videos of that driveway entrance…It reminds me of how far the Lord has brought me on this journey and being able to see the other side is surreal. I wish I could explain my emotions to you, but watch this video and catch a glimpse of the driveway to our home… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qLuqHed4Y , 2:17 is where the driveway entrance begins… We pulled into the gate and exited the van and the first thing we hear is “Jesse!” That’s it, that moment summed up why we go every year… It has been ten months since we were at HAF and these kids were calling our names. My first thought was, “maybe the staff told them we were coming” then they asked for Tasha, Mark, and Steve… They missed those who were usually with us! Children amaze me… This is why consistency has been a part of our vision from the beginning of this journey. I have walked away unfulfilled by too many trips. We invest our time, money, lives, and emotions into individuals for a week or two then head back to the states and never see them again… Where is the hope in that? It shows me that people always leave... I don’t say that to say that these trips aren’t effective but I do not believe that they can create intentional relationships, but rather damage them… Again, this is why consistency has been a part of our dream for these trips.
After greeting the kids (who remembered all of the ‘veterans’ by name :o) ) we went inside and met with new staff – Diane, Ken, Emily, Stacie, Cameron, Josue & Fanel. We did some ‘ice-breaker’ type things to get to know one another. Sitting around the tables in the dining room just gave me that overwhelming sense of home… It was hard to believe that it was only two years prior when Brittaney, Tessa, and I sat at those same tables learning kreyol from ‘Papa Drex’ and having him teach us to play farkle :o)…It honestly felt like we had never left. The staff shared with us their vision for HAF and some of the ‘technical’ things that had changed. It was exciting to hear their passion and excitement for HAF and to see their love for the kids! After our introductions we relaxed, unpacked, and loved on our kids… We were able to meet the seven newborns (this is the most newborns HAF has had since opening!) One of the children’s homes that we had helped recovery in 2009 from Gustav was now the home of the newborns, and it looked amazing! After winding down for the evening everyone was pretty exhausted so they went to bed, except for Brittaney, Hannah, and I…We stayed up for the next couple of hours just chatting about what we thought the upcoming week would hold and discussed how far we had come on this journey. Around 11 pm it started to pour, like Caribbean island pour, ha-ha, so we look outside and one of the nanny’s is trying to grab all of the kids clothes off of the clothes line, so Britt, Hannah, and I run across the yard and help her, let’s just say I was soaked, like I had just jumped in a pool… good times. After our water adventure we decided it was best to get some rest since we had an early morning at church and helping in the nursery… Sunday morning half of our group attended church and half stayed back at HAF to help in the nursery so the nannies could attend church. It was so peaceful to just sit and hold the little ones, and I am going to speak for Brittaney for a moment, but this is when her life took a dramatic turn :o) This young girl who was not a ‘baby person’ fell madly in love with a baby named Schneider :o)…She held him, changed him, fed him…it was beautiful… Brittaney’s motherly instinct kicked in very quickly and it was exciting to be a part of that.. That is part of what made Monday so difficult…. Baby Schneider was simply being nursed back to health by HAF because he was very ill from the water that his mother was making his bottles from, from the tent city they were living in just outside of town… He had been there a little over a week and was slowly getting healthy when his parents decided it was time to ‘take him home’ they came in Monday morning and picked him up, this was emotional for all of us, especially Britt. Diane explained to his parents the importance of using the water she had given them and told them if he gets sick to bring him back or take him to the hospital, they said ‘ok’ but we knew it would be a matter of days before he returned extremely ill. We prayed over him and with his parents, that they would be humble enough to ask for help if needed and they would not take pride thinking that they know best, but rather to trust Diane’s advice. Well, let’s just say our intuition was right. Within 24 hours baby Schneider was back at HAF. Diane had gone to the market and ran into his mother and asked where Schneider was and how he was doing; His mother said, he is back at the ‘tent city’ very sick again. Diane told her to bring him back but this time she would not be able to pick him up for at least a couple of weeks, it was necessary to bring him back to full health, so later that day Schneider arrived back at HAF and Brittaney made her home in the nursery :o)
Monday was also a life changing day for my brother Cameron and I…Emily (the Pierces daughter) has a hospital ministry that she participates in, actually she is the only volunteer that Hospital St. Michele has. You see, in Haiti if you do not have family or friends to bring you your prescriptions or bring you food, you don’t eat or get necessary meds. In addition to administering shots and filling prescriptions, among many other things, Emily stands in for those who don’t have family or friends to bring them things that are literally necessary for life. On Monday, Cameron and I went with Emily to St. Michele’s and Sisters of Charity, where they house the terminally ill, those dying of TB and Aids. We arrived at the hospital and upon arrival the patients faces as well as the staff literally just lit up when they saw Emily, within a few moments I was able to tell how much of a difference her ministry had made and was continuing to make…beautiful. First, we sat and visited with a prisoner who has a broken hip, but since he was a prisoner he was even more of an ‘outcast’ than the other patients, he would receive little to no attention by the staff at the hospital, basically, if I am honest he was left there to die. Emily brought him in a meal and I don’t know when he had eaten prior to that moment…At that moment I began to see this man through the eyes of Christ, I didn’t care that he was a prisoner or what he was in prison for, all that mattered was that he experienced the love of the Lord. He was a sweet man who hugged Cameron and I and was so grateful for his meal…After visiting with him for a while we walked over to Fawnya, a 15 year old girl who was literally in her last days, Aids was slowly taking her life…She was literally a skeleton with a layer of skin over her… but somehow she managed to smile when Emily and Stacie hugged her…She was pretty ‘drugged-up’ and Emily said she was typically more coherent than she was at that moment so we were unable to spend a lot of time with her. I had wondered how she acquired HIV, her mother was sitting there and she looked healthy, surely she didn’t get it from her mom. Well, I was wrong, she did get it from her mom but her mom was treated, Fawnya wasn’t, Why? I don’t have that answer. Fawnya also suffered from intestinal problems and they were going to do surgery later that week…As of today I don’t know if that beautiful girl is still alive… We saw many things in the hospital that day, a lot of which I have yet to process, but the Lord is good, and Emily is showing the love of our Lord every day in that place. After we left St. Michele’s we went to Sisters of Charity, the same place we went in April 2010 to visit baby Mackenson who was being treated for Aids – which turned out to be a false-positive, now he is living at HAF :o) Praise the Lord- What we didn’t know when we went last year was that Sisters of Charity also has a home for the terminally ill in the back…this is where we visited. We went into the girls home were there were about 10 girls all different ages who were dying of HIV or TB, we sat and chatted with them and one of the girls kept showing me her nails that Emily had helped her paint a few days before, it’s the little things that matter. We then proceeded to the guys home which also had between ten and fifteen men who were dying of the same diseases… It’s amazing the strength the Lord gives you when you need it most, here we were sitting with these men that had an extremely contagious disease (TB) and we didn’t care, all that mattered in that moment was that they experienced love… Luckson was the man we spent most of our time with…he is a Christian and he shared his testimony with us. He said whenever he has a problem Jezi (Jesus) is who he calls, and Jezi is who has given him the strength to fight this battle…He said the Lord has brought him Emily and the Lord has blessed him with the ability to meet us…I never saw his smile leave his face. Luckson was being treated at the hospital but because he could no longer pay for treatment they basically kicked him out, he knew he needed treatment if he had any chance of survival so he went to HAF, found Emily and told her the situation, she took him to Sisters of Charity where they took him in, saying they don’t turn anyone away… Pray for Luckson, he lost his mother in the earthquake and his sister is living in Port-Au-Prince and doesn’t know that he has terminal TB. What a blessing it was to meet that man… After leaving the TB and Aids ward we walked to the back, this is what I have yet to process, so bear with me… We walked to the back and said hello to the older patients. Yet, in the very back sitting in a chair was a man with Cerebral Palsy, I am not sure how old he is I think it’s safe to guess he’s in his late twenties, possibly early thirties. He sat there with his mouth open literally drooling all over himself, Emily wiped his face and kissed him, he smiled. But this man, whose name we don’t know because he is unable to speak, was covered, and I mean covered with swarming flies… I was nauseous; this man is a human being and was covered in flies as if he were a dead animal!!! Lord, give me the strength to endure this… The worst part of it all is there is a simple solution, he needed to be bathed! Because of his lack of control over his muscles it was difficult for him to close his mouth, causing the drool, causing the stench, causing the flies! Ugh, I am sick…Lord show him your love, show him his worth in you…I’m crying as I am typing this. Can I help him? All I need is soap and water… In Haiti if you have a disability you are basically considered an outcast, if we get biblical those with disabilities in Haiti were the lepers in bible times. If you can’t get give back to society why should they help you? Lord, change their hearts… Our Monday in Haiti reminded me of Matthew 25 “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” In a matter of a couple of hours we had experienced every one of these individuals and we would have been out right sinning if we didn’t love them as Christ called us to in this passage - thankful for opportunities.
Throughout the week Teresa, Jesse, Adam, Hannah & Annie were able to visit the hospital and Sisters of Charity as well, you will have to ask each of them to share with you as all of our experiences were different.
As the week went on we had a great balance of serving HAF by building beds, painting beds, painting rooms, cleaning houses, organizing the depot, power washing the porch, falling down the power washed porch and acquiring a huge bruise :o),sang worship songs with two Haitian men in their backyard in both Kreyol and English, participating in the feeding program for mothers, as well as continuing our relationships with the kids, and nurturing new relationships with the staff. We took the kids to the beach, built motes, buried one another in the sand, had a dance party in the yard, spent a day at the cove with our team and the staff, traveled down some bumpy roads in the back of a pickup truck, stayed up late every night worshipping through music, big thanks Travis, Josue, Ken & Zac for playing guitar, and had devotions every night… We will get to what that means towards the end :o)
Friday came to soon, our flight was to leave PAP at 9:30 on Saturday morning so we decided it would be best to stay the night at the new PAP house on Friday night since we had a three plus hour journey over the mountain. We packed up Thursday night, said our ‘see-ya laters’ to the kids, that’s always the hardest part. Friday morning after breakfast we prepared to head out, our team of ten, plus Bob and Matt (our driver and the intern for the PAP house) as we started to pack our luggage we determined it would be safer if half of us went with Bob and then Frantz would come later to pick up the rest of the group, rather than trying to cram all of us in the van with our luggage, we did it last year with 14 people, and looking back that probably wasn’t the best idea ha-ha. We then figured we would throw all of the luggage in the first car and get settled in PAP after finding mattresses so we would all have somewhere to sleep. I am not sure why we changed this plan but decided it would be best to have everyone keep their own luggage; so Hannah, Annie, Brittaney, Zac, Jesse, and I left with our luggage and Adam, Cameron, Jay, and Teresa stayed at HAF to wait for Frantz to arrive. We got to PAP around 12:30 and had no luck finding mattresses. I then sent Cameron a message asking if Frantz had arrived yet, and he said “ummm no” I immediately knew something was off…I asked him what was going on, apparently the people of Jacmel were rioting in protest to a cop shooting someone earlier in the week, this wasn’t the first of the riots we had seen, there had been two days that road blocks were put in place while we were there. I wasn’t sure what this meant at this point in time, but I was noticing little details that had already been worked out prior to this happening. He explained that Frantz was stuck on the other side of one of the ten plus road blocks. We figured he would still get there and the roads would be clear that evening since that’s what had happened earlier in the week. We knew they were safe at HAF and the Lord definitely protected our hearts from anxiety in this situation. Eight pm eventually rolled around and I figured it was time to make a decision, the driver still hadn’t arrived and we had to be at the airport early in the morning, do we stay in PAP waiting for everyone to get there? Do the six of us just head back to Florida since we can’t get to Jacmel anyway and that way we don’t have to pay to change 10 flights vs. just changing four? So many questions to answer and decisions to be made, but again there was never any anxiety involved and I know that is because we were able to see the details worked out beforehand… We all had our own luggage, there were more people in PAP so if we did have to pay for flight changes it would be less expensive, we couldn’t find mattresses so not everyone would have had a place to sleep, detail after detail was already made clear! I called Cameron and asked him what the status was in Jacmel, he gave me two options: Frantz was able to pay the guys to get through the road block, not without leaving his car though… and Diane and Emily were also able to pay to get through. So option number 1 is pay the rioters to get through the roadblock and drive through the night to PAP, or wait until the roads were clear (whenever that would be) and pay to have flights changed. We took option number two. I called Jim (reluctantly because I didn’t want him freaking out considering two of his family members were in the Jacmel group) to ask him about changing our airfare, it would cost about $300 per person, I balanced the Haiti acct and we would have just enough to cover it…again, detail pre-ordained. We all decided to stop and pray and it hit me…Here we were in PAP were it is typically ‘unsafe’ and the group in Jacmel where it is typically ‘safe’ were stuck behind roadblocks… I was quickly reminded that our safety does NOT come from a place, a city, a building, or any of that, but rather our safety comes from the Lord, and I am thankful that He allowed me to rest in Him in that moment of uncertainty. For those of you who know me, anxiety is something I have struggled with for the last twelve years, but in that moment the Lord took it from me and allowed me to rest in Him. If I am honest about it, as crazy as it may sound Haiti is the only place that I have found that I don’t fight anxiety; maybe it’s because I am exactly where I am supposed to be… The ironic thing, maybe not so ironic, but literally fifteen minutes prior to finding out that half of the group was not going to make it out Jacmel that night I was chatting with Annie claiming what the Lord had done for me as far as healing from anxiety, apparently Satan didn’t like that to much because that is when the attacks began – Thankful for the Lords strength. We all went to bed that evening, needless to say I didn’t sleep great, but got a little bit of sleep. We woke up at six am to prepare to head to the airport and I called Cameron to see if there was any update, he said “yes, Frantz woke us up about a half an hour ago saying the roads would be clear momentarily and we had to go now!” So they began their off-roading journey down back roads in Jacmel in a van to head to PAP, it took them a little longer and you’ll have to ask one of them about that adventure, but they eventually made it to PAP, missing our flight by just over an hour. Thankfully, once we arrived at the airport I let them know that half of our group wasn’t sure they would make it and they asked why, I explained it was due to rioting and they waived the flight change fees!! Praise the Lord. However, the adventure was not yet over, they made it to PAP, but not quite to the airport before Frantz car broke down (can you say spiritual attacks?) Frantz waved down another tap-tap and the four of them got in the back and headed to the airport. They were able to take a four o’ clock flight out of PAP and meet up with the rest of the CA group in Florida…God is good.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this short novel, the Holy Spirit began wreaking havoc on our hearts, I can only speak for myself, but I can also speak to what I saw the Lord do in the lives of everyone who was there. As the days went by slowly, but not slow enough, we all felt a stirring in our hearts that we were called to be a part of what HAF is doing, what this meant, we didn’t know. So one by one five of the ten people in our group met with Ken and Diane on separate occasions to ask how they could be a part of what HAF is doing. This means something completely different for each and every one of us, but I knew we needed to stand in prayer for one another. Thursday night we all sat on the porch, our team, as well as Cameron, Stacie, Matt, and Travis. We sang songs of praise and worshipped the Lord for all he had done that week then we prayed for each person individually and the calling that the Lord has asked us to be a part of. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced….of all of the memories I have on that porch I think that tops the list. We cried, we laughed, we stood together asking one another for accountability in our calling, as well as standing in the name of the Lord claiming Satan has no place for attacks, because we all know when we are doing something good Satan starts to creep in. Beauty-- that moment was the ESSENCE of beauty…
What now?
For Cameron this means possibly committing to a year internship to go to Haiti and teach the kids martial arts – HAF has a vision of giving these kids more structure and discipline, and the self-defense part won’t be bad considering they won’t always live inside the gates of HAF. Cameron would be perfect for this role, pray for him and what this means, he has applied and is really seeking the Lords will for this decision, I am kind of jealous because he is in an easy place to pick up and go, he is young, single, and has no debt! Go Cameron Go! Jay wants to come alongside Cameron and help with the martial arts ministry; he is also in an easy place to pick-up and move…Pray for him as well. Zac is feeling like he could help HAF with the maintenance side of things, someone to fix and build things, which is a HUGE need; he has a few more things to tie up here before being able to leave…pray for Zac. Brittaney is still unsure of what her involvement should be with HAF but she is having a huge stirring….her and Hannah I believe are in the same boat, pray for them. For me, my involvement looks a little different; obviously I am still in school, studying something that could be great for HAF as a whole, but is that what I want to do full-time? Still being unsure of that, and knowing that I am called to Haiti I have found a happy medium…for my program at school I have to do an internship, I figured this would be a good way to determine if being in Haiti is what I am supposed to do, or doing things stateside. There are a couple of different roles that the staff at HAF have in mind for me while interning, so providing that I am accepted as an intern --ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEWS? – I may be moving to Haiti in May and staying through the summer. There are still a lot of details that need to be worked out and a lot of support that needs to be raised, I am walking blindly through the doors that are opened, similar to the way I did three and a half years ago which is what brought me to Haiti in the first place. Will you commit to supporting those of us who feel called to go? Will you commit to praying for those of us who are being stirred to go where the Lord is moving? God is good and I have already seen his miracles in the five days that I have been back…but I know without your prayers and support this won’t happen for any of us. Begin praying for how you can get involved and send us encouragement often…. With all of that said, I am going to bring this ‘novel’ to a close, I missed a lot of big things, but trying to sum up a week in Haiti is nearly impossible… I hope I didn’t waste to much of your time, thank you in advance for reading this and committing to pray for us.. I love you all dearly. Mwen Renmen Ou….
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