I'm back from Haiti. What an absolutely indescribable experience. I don't even know where to begin. The children, the poverty, the brokenness - the sheer brokenness of the place - and yet the joy. Especially in those children. I want to learn Creole so badly - I've never wanted a language this badly in my life...
That's how my journal entry on May 19th opens. To a large degree, those are still my thoughts. I don't know what I think, or how to process it. I cannot even begin to put words to the pull this place has on my heart. I looked through some pictures today on facebook, and miss it. I didn't know I could feel homesick for a place I only spent a week in, but apparently I can.
I tried to journal as much as I could, but more often than not it simply turned into humbling, begging prayer. I'm going to try to post this in order, so things aren't too discombobulated, but bear with me.
Background: We were at an orphanage in Ouanaminthe, Haiti. Although we interacted with the community, we also spent a lot of time at the orphanage just loving on the kids - as a woman without much skill to offer in that setting (other than the Gospel and the love of Christ), that was my primary role. I'll probably talk a lot about being called "blan" - it simply means "white person" in Creole. It's not derrogatory or mean (in fact, because white person often = American, which in turn = money, its often a positive thing). Pastor Willio is the man who we are connected with in Haiti. He runs the Orphanage, the school, the church, and has a wife and 5 children of his own. He also served as our translator for much of the trip, since he speaks 4 languages. N. is the man who started the Haiti Love organization. He is connected with J. & N. through our sending church (Restoration is a church plant from North Carolina). To check out the HaitiLove website, keep up with their work and/or with W. (and pray for her!) check out http://haitilove.net, or "like" Haiti Love on Facebook.
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| For those of you geographical folk, here's an approximation of where we were (little red dot). Also for your reference, Port-au-Prince is much farther south and slightly West. Google it if you don't know where it is. :) |
Day 1: We spent the day just getting from DC to the Dominican. (We flew to the Dominican simply for practicalities sake - it's much easier to get where we were going from the Dominican side.) In retrospect, I'm frustrated that of the week we were gone, 3.5 of those days were strictly travel, but it did allow us some wonderful time as a team to simply bond, love and serve one another, and grow in Christ. We did get to share the Gospel with a few people along the way, too!
Day 2: We bussed from Santiago to Dajabon, where we were able to cross the border into Haiti. Ouanaminthe was only about 2 miles from the border, so it was pretty easy. Crossing the border was the first thing that struck me to my core:
In Dajabon, there are poor and hungry people. They don't have a lot. The streets are paved, but not cared for - many places have long disintegrated into large, messy potholes. People walk around with rifles, for protection. [Because people in the Dominican speak Spanish] things were a bit easier for me to understand. I felt comfortable there.
The dusty white archway that separates the DR from Haiti looms in a impressive, yet subtle display of wealth and pride. While we waited for our passports to be processed, young boys wandered around, wanting to polish our shoes. That's how they made money - that's how they ate - dependent on travelers requiring clean shoes in a dusty land. And I thought that was bad.
From where we were standing, the bridge gates closed and trees along the riverside, I couldn't really see into Haiti. Trying to get across the Massacre bridge was such chaos - especially as a blan we had to be extra careful. It was completely surreal. And the we got to the other side of the river. There was no grand architecture announcing to the travelers that they had just entered a new country. No flags flying, no processing center. No buildings at all. There weren't even trees. Compared to the lush foliage lining the streets of the Dominican, it looked like the Sahara desert. Amidst feces, empty water bottles, dust, trash piles - some being burned, but most just accumulating - broken people just sat. It looked like one of the refugee camps you see on TV. There was one tent set up - from what I gathered, it was there for the UN - and everything else was just there. Because there were 15 Americans, 12 of whom are white as snow and one who was Asian, our group stuck out like a sore thumb. Which of course, meant everyone was vying for our attention (read: vying for our money). Offering unsolicited advice, unsolicited services, trying to get into our group. But all we could do was stand there speechless. The heat and the sun made it really hot, but I almost couldn't notice...
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| This is a picture of the border between Haiti and the Dominican, just to give you an idea.... |
When we got to the orphanage, the children ran out to greet us, and immediately wanted to be held. They didn't want money or food or clothes or jewelry, they simply wanted to be touched. Within a minute of walking in the door, I had one child attached to each leg, one child in each arm, and one on my back [those kids are like monkeys! They will climb up you without any assistance and then cling to you like a flood was coming]. Having brought over 700lbs. of supplies, we had our fair share of bags to shuttle up to the third floor of the orphanage, or so we thought. When Pastor Willio [the man who runs the orphanage] told us to meet him upstairs, we reached for the bags, but before any of us could lay a hand on a single one, the kids had jumped up and shuttled them upstairs for us. Even the smallest ones worked together to get those 50 lbs. bags up the steep and uneven stairs for us, so we wouldn't have to do a thing.
That's only about half my journal entry for the day. The rest would be far too long and tedious for me to share with you (for you and me). Sorry for the long post, but I'll leave you with this from my journal entries:
These kids are the most beautiful children. They're not perfect, and Lord, do they need discipline sometimes, but my goodness...
They are beautiful.
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