Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - Day 5

I awoke to the sound of hymns rising from the street -- it could have been a gathering for a death or birth but due to the cheerful nature of the hymns I assume that it was in celebration of a birth. Soon after I heard the 5am bell for the boy's morning prayer. The boys gather every morning at 5 for a 10 minute morning prayer to pray together before school. It was in Kreyol but I could join in the Lord's Prayer and they sang "In the Garden" for us in english.

After breakfast, the group was divided into three with part going to Mother Theresa's baby hosptial, part going to Mother Theresa's home for the dying, and the other going to the Brothers of Charity clinic. I went to the home for the dying. I was intimidated at first. We were there to give massages to the dying and I had never considered myself a touchy feely person, I am often grossed out by medical things, and the level of modesty in Haiti is not the same as in America. I was out of my element. However as I offered massages, I kept thinking of the woman washing Jesus' feet and Michael's reminder that morning to bee Jesus to another person. There was a room full of women with TB and another wid AIDS. I then found a small group of girls in the hallway. The nuns were Spanish and Indian with impecible English. The first girl I held in my arms and painted her nails and played a game with her. The nuns explained that she had been brought in deathly ill with her older sister a couple of weeks before. They had typhoid and menigitis. This girl pulled through but her sister did not. The nun explained that despite having a family she was so distraught that she told the nuns she wanted to die when her sister died. The nun asked me to put vitamin a & d on the limbs of another small child who body had been ravaged by malnutrition. She cried because her legs were so raw from skin peeling. They were waiting for the results of her TB test and she had worms. I rubbed her back and sang to her trying to comfort her. The nuns explained to me that her parents come to see her everyday but are too poor to feed her. The huns said that when she was healed they would give her faimly food for a year but often people would not take their medicine and sold the food on the street. The nuns explained that children were not normally at the hospice home but it was because they had come out of the attached clinic so sick they needed somewhere to stay. I also met Noel was was 100 -- she is the oldest person I've ever met. Her body was ravaged by scabies. Many were scared to touch her but I used gloves and relized that the chance contracting the disease was small and it was treatable in the US. I thought of the lepers from the Bible and how horrible it must be not to be touched. This was the hardest, most emotionally draining day yet.

After this we went to the Caribbean market, which is like a large supermarket. The well off shop here -- it has the same things as an American supermarket. It was mostly filled with foreigners. I never saw another place like while I was in Haiti.

When we got back to St. Joseph's we painted the floor with our prayer partners while listening to American hip-hop. I painted alone as my prayer partner was at school. It was so much fun to paint the floors of the new art center they are building for the community next to St. Joseph's. Amazing artwork is created here -- see the work of one of the guys in the community. Check out my painting above, Scott's awesome soccer painting, and Fieyole's sun.

That evening we heard the story of Leon and Jackie Dorleans whose schools we had visited the previous day. Leon was US educated and wanted to start a Bible college in Hait. He was asked to be the pastor at Cite Soleil, the poorest slum in Haiti and began this work. Leon offered a school to train church leaders and it was at this school that he met his wife Jackie when she was offered a scholarship from a Bible school professor who was impressed by her. They were married and she told Leon that she wanted her contribution to ministry to be schools. So they started schools at Blanchard and Cite Soleil. They now have medical clinics and churches there as well. There are over 1,000 who attend church at Blanchard and Cite Soleil. There were over 347 at the service we attended at Blanchard. They have also started a very popular vocation school at Blanchard. They have several successful graduates from the schools including a girl from the poorest slum who is in her 5th year of medical school and top of her class. The schools are currently through the 6th grade but they hope to start a high school by 2010. The school's greatest need is sponsorship of students who could not afford to go to school otherwise. Education is not a given in Haiti. It costs $300 a year to educated a student -- uniform, materials, and a hot meal (most other schools do not provide this).

After Jackie and Leon's story we took Communion and for the first time I felt the emotional weight of my trip. I was seeing poverty in a way that I had never seen it before. To me the thought of wanting to die seems ludicrious and yet I met a 4-year-old that had already been so wrecked and ravaged by life that she wanted to die. How often do I pray "thank you God for my life" and yet that was the exact prayer that Gary, the assitant director for Wings of Hope prayed that night during our prayer time. It is a very real prayer in Haiti. How do I live in the space of returning to the privledged life that I live knowing that this kind of poverty exists in the world? Knowing as well that my words can never express to you the depth of my experience. This is about giving voice to Haiti.

Monday, March 9, 2009 - Day 4

I laid on the roof for an hour and slowly watched the sun rise over Port-au-Prince. It was beautiful. In the morning we head to the school at Blanchard (see picture of Blanchard community).

Driving through the streets of Haiti even globalization has reached the country in the form of Texaco, Samsung, Nestle, Coke, Pepis and even tiny shacks labeled "cyber cafe." But satelite tv is sporadic and there is no McDonald's here. Not a good market for Happy Meal purchases. Vendors line the street selling 2nd hand clothes, food, and nick nacs. The roads are poor at best -- full of potholes and random curves (see picture of roads). Clearly money designated for roads didn't go there. Children hold onto the car as we pass. This is not a good sign -- children not in school uniforms during the day -- possibly street children or restaveks. Garbage lines the streets everywhere and you see police with huge guns. I had never seen the United Nations at work before but there was a major UN presence in Cite Soleil (see picture of Cite Soleil). It was intimidating.

At the Blanchard school I made notebooks with the fifth and sixth grade girls. Then we went to the Cite Soleil which is located in the poorest slum in Haiti. I made crosses with the kindergarten class. I was shocked by the gunshoots in the roof of the chuch at the school compound -- signs of violence from the last coup a few years earlier. As we left the school through Cite Soleil, I sat in awe. This was how the poorest of the poor lived -- the poorest slum in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It consisted of people in tattered clothes living in shacks on trash piles with open sewers. There are no trash collectors here -- large amounts of trash sit out in the open. I was struck when at Cite Soleil a littler girl offered me her snack -- why because I was her friend. It a country where food is a scare commodity -- they were willing to share with me. WOW. How difficult when I have ready access to food and food that the U.S. sends sits on the docks?

We had afternoon prayer with the boys and beforehand we went around in a circle and everyone including the vistors each were given 3 affirmations by the group. I felt self-conscious as it was so uncustomary to life in the U.S. but I realized that this was about building self-esteem among the family. I think of Jesus' reference to the "least of these" in Matthew, the low social status of children in the Bible and how it is similiar here and yet these children are given at least 3 affirmations a day.

My prayer partner Bill shared his story with us after dinner. His father died when he was young and his mother died when he was 6. His sister went to live with one family and he went to live with a friend of his mother's. The woman treated him as an equal to her children for a year before making him her slave. She beat Bill. A nun helped him escape and took him to live at St. Joseph's at age 8 where he grew up. Now he goes to college and manages the home as well as being an advocate to end child slavery. Bill is only 24 -- the same age I am. Bill late helped the family who enslaved him because he explained that you do not repay evil with evil. How many times are we unwilling to forgive smaller things? Bills tells the boys that in life you need discipline or you won't make it anywhere. He thanks God that he's alive and says that in order to be an advocate you need to have Christ in you and you need passion. If you change 1 boy, he will change others. He informs his life by Psalm 91. He also tells us that no matter what people say, that beating children is NOT a part of Haiti's culture and that this mindset needs to be changed.

Sunday, March 8, 2009 - Day 3

Up at 5 am to make it to church at Blanchard (see photos). Blanchard is at least an hour away and is one of the poorer areas outside of Port-au-Prince. I was struck by the large, open sewyers that we passed and shacks built upon heaps of trash. The church at blanchard is attached to a health clinic and a school. This is one of 3 churches in the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince ran by Pastor Leon and his wife Jackie. We were given a tour of the school and graciously welcomed at the church service which went from 8-11. The service was in Kreyol but I could clearly make out the song "He Lives" and was able to sing along. We also took Communion at the church with a small fried pastry and grape soda. Despite the differences we were warmly welcomed as members of the common Body of Christ.

After church we went to lunch at one of the nicest hotels in town (see photo). We also experienced indoor plumbing. I wondered around in front of the hotel checking out the lime, lemon, and cocanut trees.

After lunch we went to St. Joseph's were we met our prayer partners and participated in a feet washing ceremony. My prayer partner was Bill, a college student who had been raised in the home since age 8 and now manages the home. We toured the home and during the tour I saw boxes sent from Raleigh through the Stop Hunger Now program to be distributed to hurricane victims.

Michael Geilenfeld (see photo), the director of the homes shared his story with us. He was a member of Mother Theresa's Brothers of Charity and left the monks to starts this home with five boys. At the time the home had no money but has sense grown into three homes housing 60 kids. Michael's goal for all the boys is that they grow up to become good fathers. After such tough lives that would make anyone cold I think that it is a worthy cause to teach these boys to love and be good fathers and therefore break the vicious cycle of abandoment that these boys were born into.
Lord of the Dance... after dinner, we watched a performance from the school's Resurrection dance team. Michael asks all the children to participate in the arts. Some are great musicians, others dancers, others singers, and others artists. The boys tell their story through dance. During the dancing we heard the story of Soni. Soni has cerebal palsy and was confined to a bed. The other boys at the home helped him out of the bed and encouraged him to walk and then to dance. He danced for us. He had a children's book author write a book about him and he travels around with the book author to promote aid for the children of Haiti. After the dance concert we were pulled out on stage by the children to dance and we all sang.

Under the stars... I dragged my matress onto the roof of the home (7 stories up, overlooking Port-au-Prince) and camped out there with 4 other people on the trip with me. The view (see photo) was beautiful and with the limited light the stars were amazing.

Saturday, March 7, 2009 - Day 2

Yay for all the fresh citrus fruit for breakfast!! After breakfast we met with Michael to talk about the spirituality of Mother Teresa. During this meeting 2 children came and sat on either side of me. My notes from this class must have looked crazy as the kids scribbled in my book as I jotted notes here and there. The most amazing thing was how the boys shared pens with one another and they didn't hestitate as if sharing was a given. I later found out that these two boys one was my prayer partner at wings - Frank Ely (see photo) and the other was Steve would had been praying for since the fall. That morning we offically met our prayer partners and tooks them to lunch at the Baptist Missionary next door. I had lunch with Frank Ely, who they are unsure if he has a mental disability like many of the other children at Wings because he was raised by a mother who was left mute after a tramautic experience before his birth. Taking the children to lunch was interesting as us "blanches" (how Haitians refer for foreigners) were going down the street with disabled children who are frowned upon in Haitian society. It was the first time I was stared at because I was in the minority.

That day I sat next to Sam (see photo) who shocked me by saying to me "You Good?" Though Sam struggled with cerebal palsy, he had the most beautiful smile. I also held Belinda (see photo), who despite her tiny frame from a lack of nourishment early in life is actually 6.

That afternoon we played with the children. A little girl in a wheel chair wheeled herself beside me and said to me "pick me up." While many children did not speak english, she certainly did. Josephine sat in my lap and we chatted and played and I was shocked. I mean I was virtually a stranger and I had never consider myself a kid person and yet 5 minutes into our conversation Josephine promptly told me that she loved me and gave me a hug and kiss. After being raised in a country where children with disabilities like Josephine (see photo, which she too) are told they they are the product of evil, I was astonished by this child's capacity for love. Josephine sang me "Jesus Loves Me" in perfect English and despite her cerebal palsy I held her and we danced across the courtyard at Wings of Hope and played soccer. I took her down to dinner and sat with her while she ate the pouridge that the children eat at meals. She introduced me to each of the children confined to their beds. There was Esther who looked downcast. I figured out how to say "Smile, Esther you're beautiful" and she lit up with the most beautiful smile. The whole time we went along Josephine corrected by Kreyol -- acting as my translator. She was so smart -- Josephine connait anpil -- "Josephine knows a lot." I also had the pleasure of meeting Vivenne (see photo with Delhomme) who is deaf and until recently a mute. She acts as a mother to the younger children and she helped me put Josephine to bed. I chatted with Josephine and Esther and I realized that while I came to minister to others, I was clearly be ministered to by children.

After dinner, we heard the testimony of Mya, a leader in the St. Joseph's family. He explained to us how his aunt made him a restavek-- a child slave. He ran away at age 12 and after living on the streets came to live at St. Joseph's. He rebelled and left the family for a while but he came back and asked for forgiveness. He is now the father of a 7-year-old son that he is very proud of and works at Wings of Hope.

Friday, March 6, 2009

I stepped off the plan today and I thought God is good. The sun was shining brightly and the first thing that I noticed was that the landscape was mountainous and yet barren -- none of the western NC pine trees.

We made it through the airport and were transported to St. Joseph's in Petitionville. The girls piled into a van and the guys and our luggage went into the tap-tap, a truck with a make-shift wooden cover over it that was brightly colored. This I guess is the Haitian version of a cab but it resembles the kind of thing that is used in some place to transport migrant workers. We watched as the city unfolded before us. Some of the people were concerned by the traffic as we drove through the city. There is no speed limit or stop signs, few traffic lights, and people pass at will. After some scary cab rides in NYC and Rome, I wasn't too worried.

We were ushered into St. Joseph's when we arrived and stayed their briefly in order to meet Michael Geilenfeld the director of the homes. Then it was up the mountain to Wings of Hope (photo is of Wings of Hope), the second of the three homes which is located in Fermonthe. Wings is a home for mentally and physically disabled children. We unpacked and I walked down the stairs from my room where I was greeted by a child, Steve, (see photo of me with Steve) running up to meet me at full sppeed to embrace me in a big hug. This was my introduction to Wings. From there I had a conversation with Raul, who is in his late twenties, he is one of the oldest members of the home (the children at Wings unlike the other homes doe not age out because of their disabilites) who was incredibly patient with my poor Kreyol. We also had a visit from Zell the dog who wound in and out of the place. One of the first things I learned how to say was move (bad) Zell because she stole anything left unattended. After meeting a few of the kids, we headed down to dinner. After a day full of travel with no lunhc I was happy to take whatever was being offered. It turned out to be rice and beans, pork, and tomato sauce and it was good. After dinner, Renee a leader with the St. Joseph's homes told us her story of how she came to leave a photojournalism career to work for the homes. While Renee talked we had our first wildlife sighting of a Haitian chipmunk (i.e. rat), a common visitor to the Haitian households. We served each other Communion and it was beautiful -- us each serving one another each using the method from our own faith traditions and yet we were all one Body of Christ. Then lots of good rest after 40 hours with no sleep.