Home for the Holidays

I was given the opportunity to come home for a couple weeks - and I would like to invite you to a short get-together to let you know what I've been up to these past couple months!

I will be in the Chapel at Crosswinds between services (10:00 - 10:45) on December 28th.  Hope to see you there!  

Cannibal Blancs

To some Haitians, blancs (whites) are the friendly rich people that you can get stuff from.  To others, we are the terrifying cannibals who are out to eat them and their children.  Many families (especially in the mountains) who rarely see blancs have told stories about us eating little nwa (black) kids for lunch.  One of the original missionaries to LaGonave was actually arrested for building a water cistern because the locals thought that was where he was going to hide the kids before he ate them.  

As funny and/or crazy as this all sounds, there is a poor little girl in the North who went home one day a couple weeks ago completely convinced that she was almost put on a platter. 

While visiting the North, we visited the school that is on the missionary compound in the mountains.  We went from classroom to classroom, saying hi to the kids and taking pictures.  As soon as we entered the preschool room, a little girl in the back corner started bawling.  So of course, what is the natural thing to do? Go over and see what's wrong, try to help her, comfort her, etc.  So I headed on over.  She started crying harder.  The closer I got, the louder she got.  She even started pushing her chair away from me with her feet.  The teacher came over and pointed to her arm, then took my arm and pointed to it, indicating that the girl was afraid of me because I'm white.  Then it occurred to me.  This girl thought I was going to scoop her up and boil her in a pot with my rice and beans.  The girl clung to the legs of the teacher.  I backed away and left the classroom.  

I can hear the stories that the little girl went home and told her friends and family what happened to her in school that day.  "The stories! The stories are true!  That blanc came right over to me and was going to take me home for lunch but the teacher saved me!  I almost DIED today by that crazy girl blanc! Stay away from them, the stories are true!" 

Ahh, boy oh boy. 

life is not easy

Either is death. 

Being next to a hospital, it is not uncommon for there to be death close by.  At least every couple weeks the mourning cries reach us over on our side of the wall, and we know that someone else has passed.  In Haiti death is not a quiet thing - there are mourners; people wailing and screaming and crying for hours.  This alone has been a bit difficult to get used to; at home death is very quiet.  Funerals are characterized by small sniffles, silent tears, and gentle comforting voices.  Not here.  Funerals here are loud processionals, and the more significant the deceased, the more people mourn.  It's painful to hear the cries of those who are experiencing the loss of a loved one - and to hear it so often. 

The past few days have struck a new chord in this area.  One of our cooks, a wonderful, beautiful lady, had a miscarriage at eight months along.  She said things were fine on Monday; but Tuesday morning the baby wasn't moving.  She is such a wonderful, faithful woman, and is putting her full trust in God.  Please pray for her and for her family.  She will be unable to work for the next month or so, which may put a serious financial burden on her and her family.  Please pray that God will continue to provide for them.

Another note in the chord involves a little six year old boy that arrived at the hospital on Tuesday night.  He was brought in after being sick for several days, he was suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and what was thought to be an obstruction  in his abdomen.  He didn't make it.  Six years old.

While going over to the hospital yesterday to visit our cook, the chord was made complete as I saw a truck drive by with a body lying on a make-shift stretcher on the bed of the truck.  The face was covered by a cloth, and the body was surrounded by people sitting on the sides of the truck.  Not long after, I heard the funeral wails coming from the graveyard adjacent to the compound.  

I know that death is everywhere - but it hits you so hard in the face because most of the things people die from here could be easily prevented.  It's stupid.  

top 10 things to bring with you when moving to a tropical third world country

10. Ear Plugs.  Because at 3am when the neighbor's donkey is he-hawing, or when the rooster crows all night, or when the dogs bark incessantly, or when the rain hammers down on your roof, or when the party down the street is so loud you wonder if the whole island is there, the motorcycle horns just don't stop beeping... you can reduce the noise level by 30 decibels.  PTL. 

9. An easily put on face that screams "I don't have a clue as to what you're talking about."  Because sometimes, it's just a lot easier to play dumb. 

8. Really heavy boots or a good sturdy sledgehammer.  Because 3" long cockroaches don't die easily. 

7. Deet. When you think about it, your options are (1) having malaria now, or (2) increased chances of maybe having cancer later. (And here's a ridiculous medical question... if malaria is spread by mosquitoes biting someone with malaria, then biting someone else and giving them the malaria from the first person, what about AIDS? Does it work the same way???)

6. After-Bite.  For when the deet fails.  Because sometimes, it will (or rather, your memory will fail and you'll walk out of the house without putting on your trusty deet).  

5. Lemon juice and a syringe.  If mosquitoes like sweet blood...

4. Sun screen.  If you're going to risk getting cancer with deet, put on some sunscreen and block those pesky UV rays.  Your extra protective measure here may in fact cancel out your over use of deet, making cancer a possibility of the past.  Doesn't that make your future brighter? Yes, I believe it does.  Brighter, and yet not sun burned. 

3.  A good, trusty, portable, UV light water filtration system.  Because sometimes, UV light can be your friend.  Without sunscreen it can kill you - so think about what it'll do to the cholera that's swimming in your drinking water.  

2.  Purell. Because really, you don't know where things have been.  (I have a bottle of this next to my bathroom sink, since that water isn't filtered.  And sometimes I think, "hmm... kills 99.9 percent of germs.  What about typhoid? Does it kill typhoid?)

1.  Eyes that see things the way Jesus does. (Cue Amy Grant's "My Father's Eyes" song here.)  You have to see people and things the way that Jesus does.  There's too much dirt and grime and poverty and pain when you see things with your own eyes.  Look at who the people are, not what they are, what they have, or what they don't have.  Prepare to be open, prepare to be challenged, prepare to be changed. 

The Saline

Saline is creole for "Salt Flat" and it is where the poorest of the poor live.  I went down there this morning with Beth and a couple of the guys from the NY team.  We brought with us many things for one lady that Beth knows down there, including toothbrushes, shoes, the leftover food from breakfast, a fleece blanket (yes, and she was most excited about that!), a ball for her kids, some clothes, and most importantly: antibiotic cream.  Beth had gone down to visit this lady before, and had met a man that lives with her who had terrible infections.  The woman's son and daughter also had terrible infections.  The cream, though not much, would help a little with that.  Beth said that this woman was among the poorest in the saline, and even other people in the saline will bring her food and things to help her.  

She invited us into her home; which was on a tiny plot of dirt surrounded by sticks stuck up in the ground.  Everyone here has fences; and those few sticks served as her fence.  Her house was built of stones and mud, and was maybe 7 feet by 9 feet.  The walls had many holes, and her roof was scraps of tin patched together, obviously needing lots of repair.  This house was on the very edge of the saline, closest to the ocean.  

There was an old double mattress in the corner, and the old man I mentioned before was lying on a wooden plank propped up by rocks.  The corners were piled with old clothes, mismatched shoes, and miscellaneous odds and ends.  Everything had flies.  There was a little girl in the home who was wearing filthy clothes, dirt streaked across her face, smiling ear to ear.  

I was so encouraged, yet heartbroken at the same time as we walked the dirt paths weaving in and around the saline.  Everyone I saw was full of smiles.  The woman we gave the food and items too was so happy to see us and to receive new things she hugged us many, many times, gave us each a kiss on the cheek, wanted a photo with us, etc.  She was very kind, and very thankful.  We would like to go down and visit her again.   

The saline was everything you see in the National Geographic pictures, where the quality of life is so poor you wonder how people live there.  It was overwhelming.