Haiti: A Reflection on Friendship

“Bonye kohn bay, men li pa kohn separe”

(God gives, but doesn’t share)

-Haitian Proverb

It is the home of a people clothed in our half-hearted charity; boys wearing the uniforms of boy scout troops they we’re never in or women wearing the left-over youth group t-shirts for churches they will never visit.   Broken down trucks line the streets, along with starving dogs, goats and skinny cows.  Scores of vendors selling water for a few Haitian Gourde, only to hand the money over to another vendor who is selling something that many wouldn’t recognize as food, only to use that money to buy water from another vendor.  We were all moved by the earthquake in 2010, but driving through the streets it’s hard to decide the difference between the damage done by the earthquake and the crumbling infrastructure from centuries of poverty, governmental power struggle and corruption and the decades of meddling by the U.S. government.  This is the Haiti I experienced and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better anytime soon.

Relief Tents

When I was asked to join my fellow St. Paul’s parishioner, Ted Cassidy, and a group from Huntsville, Alabama (Church of the Nativity) on a farming mission to the city of Thomazeau, I have to admit I was pretty cynical about the whole thing.  The question that was swirling around in my head was, “does Haiti need anymore white people trying to ‘save’ it?”  At one point on the trip I caught myself in a bit of a rant and uttered those words in the presence of Father Valmar (a Haitian priest, our host, known affectionately as Père Val), who gave a short chuckle.  

Ted, little Ricardo and the team from Alabama

Père Val and his wife Carmel

On the plane ride down there, I was struck by the amount of white people headed to a country that is almost entirely filled with former French slaves brought over from Africa during the time of European colonialism.  The only people going to and leaving Haiti are young evangelicals (like me), eager to have their Facebook profiles updated with pictures of grinning ethnic children (did I mention being cynical).  This was the narrative I was hoping to avoid.  But, as I sat in the back of our transport vehicle, an altered Land Cruiser set-up to cram ten people inside, and watched the devastating scenery of UN relief tents, piles of garbage, and the hoards of people going nowhere in a hurry, I got frustrated.  I felt like I either had to actually save Haiti or be like the thousands of well-intentioned American Christians who filled the American Airlines jets headed for Port au Prince everyday.  

in the back of the van

I believe experiencing crippling levels of poverty is a lot like the stages of grief, there is no right or wrong way to experience it, but inevitably you find yourself on the journey.  For me, I skipped the stages of shock, denial, and wailing and went straight for the anger stage.  I think it’s because God was showing me so much and I had nothing in my power to fix any of it.  However, by the end of the week my anger turned to passion and in that profound feeling of love and shared suffering, I believe God had the space to begin setting things to right.

There is a Haitian proverb that says, ‘there are mountains beyond mountains.’  That is to say, when you climb one mountain there is another mountain waiting beyond it.  I believe that our Christian charity divorced from relationships is meaningless.  God doesn’t call us to save the world: none of us have the super powers to refreeze the polar ice caps, or the energy to feed every mouth in Africa, or the money to fund all the TB vaccinations in Haiti.  The hope of the Kingdom of God is found in relationships, in the way we serve one another, love one another, and remain faithful to each other.  If you have ever experienced the power of forgiveness, or the peace of a loved one’s sobriety, or the healing being in community can bring, you know that our love for one another and connection to each other matters on profound levels.  

 

Thomazeau: We built spent the week building an irrigation system for this community
(center: schoohouse; right: church)

digging trenches for the water pipes

On Saturday, when I returned home from my travels, I got a call from a bizarre phone number, you know the one that is either a telemarketer or a political survey.  I’m glad I answered it, because I heard the familiar sounds of horns honking, dogs barking, and people shouting.  It was Juste, our group’s translator and my new friend, “You should never have left, we miss you already.”  I can’t save Haiti, and I couldn’t imagine the burden on my ego if I did.  There is no individual, charity, or government (the $4 billion they’ve already received seems to have just made Haiti more dependent on foreign aid) that has the power to save.  However, what we are called to do is to love our neighbor.  Last week my definition of neighbor was expanded and my experience of love has deepened.  My heart now lies (among other things) in a ministry, led by Père Val, that brings education, nutrition, medicine, food, and the Gospel to scores of Haitians (his friends). 

   

I write this to you, my friends, family, and church community, because you know me and I am asking from you a favor for a friend.  I am writing to personally testify to the goodness and beauty that the work my church (St. Paul’s), The Diocese of Birmingham, The Diocese of South Carolina, The Diocese of Haiti and countless others, who are all relationally connected in the name of Jesus, have done for the people of Haiti.  We are currently working to raise $120,000 to finish a nutrition clinic, to be named Lepswa Timoun (Hope for Children, Haitian Creole), we have been working on for the greater part of a decade.  It will be run by Père Val, his wife Carmel, and their people that I came to know and love last week.  It will be a place that wholly belongs to them (the place they are currently has a lease that will run out in October), that they will use to serve the people of Croix de Bouquets (a suburb of Port au Prince).

sunset at Thomazeau

Much of the money has been raised or promised already, but we are urgently in need of the remaining funds (Approximately $35,000) .  Time is of the essence in a place like Haiti.  Driving through the streets of Croix de Bouquets, you see dozens of half finished houses collapsed, some by the earth quake, but the majority simply from the half finished concrete structure being exposed to the months of alternating desert sun and flooding.  This spring we are making a major effort to get this nutrition clinic up and running.

If you would like to contribute to our efforts please send a tax-deductible donation to: 

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

116 N. Academy Street

Murfreesboro, TN  37130

check memo: Hearts for Haiti

I am also planning on taking many more trips in the future (for the purpose of continuing relationships, financial accountability, lending a hand with the labor, leading trips, etc) and will need financial assistance for those trips.  You can send tax-deductible donations to the above address with the memo line: Steve Lefebvre Missions. 

Below are pictures of the Lepswa Timoun site in it's current state: 

From the entrance

the back farm

back view of the unfinished clinic

inside the clinic

a future paradise awaits

Shalom.

fun with machettes