Our day in Leogane

On Monday morning, we said goodbye to Pastor Moise and Francois as we loaded up to head to Léogâne.  While having a personal, parent-to-parent conversation with one of the couples from our team, Pastor Moise shared a personal testimony to God’s sovereignty.  He recounted for us the day of his oldest son’s death in the 2010 earthquake and his inability to do anything to even get to his boy let alone help him.  Pastor Moise was heartbroken to have money in his pocket and still be able to do nothing to overcome the incredible obstacles and chaos caused by the earthquake.  In his heart, he was convicted deeply by James 4:13-15, because he had said something in his communication as simple as, “I will see you tomorrow”.  He said, “From now on, no matter how trivial it may seem I will say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that,’” and he encouraged us to do the same.

That thought, I arrogantly wanted to keep in the context of challenging life in Haiti.  However, God made it personal to us when we learned Wednesday that one of our friends from church died Monday evening, the very day Pastor Moise spoke that truth to us.  So hear God’s truth about the mist that is our lives, here today and gone tomorrow.  Hear it from Pastor Moise, those on our team who know it to be true and hear it from us.  Our lives are in God’s hands, and only He knows whether we will have a tomorrow, so treat each day as the gift that it is and acknowledge that we get tomorrow, only “if the Lord wills” it.

We departed for the southern peninsula toward Léogâne on roads we had not yet traveled and saw some interesting sights along the way.  Burning dump, beautiful gulf, UN soldier for first time, police checkpoint, lush green countryside.  Ironically, the most nervous I am the entire time I’m in Haiti is at the police checkpoint.  They decide to stop us long enough to talk to our driver, and I start wondering what sort of ‘special’ treatment a vanload of ‘blancs’ will get.  However we are on our way again soon enough, and we learn from our translator the police were just advising we cover our luggage rack on top with a tarp next time, because we are an obvious target for robbers.  We chuckle to ourselves a bit to think just how disappointed the robbers would be to open our bags full of hygiene products and lightly used shoes destined for the orphans in Léogâne.

Turning off the main road toward the Eben Ezer Léogâne village, I detect involuntary smiles starting to spread across several faces.  This area is so clean and green it is inviting, and as we start seeing the colorful hand painted designs on the exterior of the village wall, we are excited to be here, outside of Port au Prince (PAP).  We turn into the village and notice first a youth-sized soccer field, covered in grass spreading out before us.  As we come to a stop the kids start approaching the van eager to greet us.  We unload from the van, like clowns from a clown car and are each taken by the hands and elbows and led around the village.  The children are more numerous at 90+ than we expected, because recently 30-40 additional children came from another village that could no longer care for them.  We are greeted by Pastor Claude and Carline who directly take us on a tour.  It is a rather comical sight the lot of us trying to walk some narrow paths and entryways with multiple kids attached, but what we see and are told is so encouraging.

We see freshly painted buildings with bible verses and cheerful murals on them.  One of the school houses has the nurse’s station at the back, and we meet the nurse, Roseleine, who has teaching responsibility also.  The children eagerly point out the section of the school room that is their particular “classroom”, and some of the girls explain to Cori in French that they are studying reading, writing, math, French, science, bible, and civic (social studies).  Especially as we have prayed for this school, it warmed our hearts to see the kids so excited to show it off! The cafeteria has reminders to pray before eating and pray particularly for missionaries.  It is there I learn that Pastor Claude was himself an orphan whose life was forever change by a missionary from Texas.  It is a personal charge from Pastor Claude that the children pray for those who come to Haiti bringing Jesus’ love and hope, because he is forever grateful to the one who came to him.  As we continue around the grounds, we see children’s homes, mamas doing laundry, produce grown on site (coconut, bananas, mangos, peas, and avocado), chicken coops, a well, a new children’s home with TV room upstairs, the church where children gather an hour before school starts to worship the Savior by flashlight, colorful playground equipment and a new construction which is to be a guesthouse.  Wait…worshipping God by flashlight an hour before school starts?  Oh, Lord, grow in us the discipline to love and praise you with such dedication!

Following the tour we spread out a bit and begin playing with the children each in our own way, some sing, some sit and are smothered with children just wanting to be held, some play games, but Derek tries to get a soccer game going.  He succeeds, but the first time he takes the ball away from one of the boys, he is asked to leave…big bully. ;-)  Some of the team takes the bags of supplies and shoes to a storage room for the staff to sort through later, and Carline expresses much gratitude because we have brought “things of value” that they needed greatly including shoes and school supplies.
 Cori has a special moment singing with 3 of the girls: Withlie, Ketleine, and Chilove. Withlie begins singing a praise song in French, and Cori recognized it as “Here I am to worship” and began singing along in English. The two voices blending in two languages with words praising the same Lord will serve as a trip highlight reminding of God’s love for the nations and how we are bound together as a family in Christ. The girls also sing “Lord, I lift your name on high” in both French and English and “Every move I make” in just English. We daydream of taking a guitar on a future trip so that we might sing these songs and others along with the Léogâne kids.
 
After a little more recreation, we call all of the kids together to tell them about Jezi’s example of washing His disciples’ feet and then actually demonstrate it.  The foot washing begins orderly enough, but as dozens of kids waiting in long lines to get their feet washed start seeing how fun it is, the lines break down.  I’m fairly certain we washed over 150 pairs of feet, especially since some kids came back for seconds and thirds.

 Shortly after washing feet, Cori gets to talk with Pastor Claude about the school and explains why she is so passionate and interested in it.  Pastor Claude lights up, with even more excitement and runs/drags Cori over to where Derek is so he can talk to us both at once.  Our friends, family and partners here is what GOD is doing through YOU, which is exciting enough to make Pastor Claude run through the village:

1.     Pastor Claude no longer has to turn children away from the school.  He readily tells struggling families in the community that their children can come empty-handed and receive hope for the present and hope for the future.

2.     Eben Ezer Léogâne can afford to pay good wages, up to three times what some were making before, to the teachers and staff.  The school retains passionate educators, happily dedicated to inspiring the next generation, able to care for their own families and help others.

3.     He quoted Matthew 25:37-40 and reminded me to tell our partners that when we help with food, care, schooling, etc for these orphans that we are doing it for Jesus.

YOU and GOD are at work together with CAREGIVERS and EDUCATORS in Léogâne changing the daily lives of struggling families and orphans TODAY!  YOUR prayers and gifts are making a difference DAILY!  Thank you for your faithfulness, because seeing the result firsthand was the experience of a lifetime!

Later on, Derek and Steve, take enough rubber bands and chopsticks to teach a dozen kids how to make fishtail bracelets and go looking for a table big enough to work on.  Finding one, they distribute the chopsticks and start setting out the rubber bands, so the kids can pick their colors.  The rubber bands quickly disappear as these children who have almost nothing to their name grab handfuls for themselves and pocket them.  We manage to teach just a few kids how to do half a bracelet each with the bands we can grab before they are gone, several end up with ‘rings’.


The journal/notebook with our kids’ pictures on the front continued to be a hit with the kids.  Our little Haitian friends liked to hear our kids’ names and ages and then recite them back to us.  It helped with learning names and ages that the bigger kids liked to write their own name and age in the book.  Now we have treasured pages with many of their own names written in lovely cursive (and we added description of their outfits so we can match names with pictures for years to come).  Before leaving, Cori slipped away on the self-guided tour to capture the campus in pictures.  She saw kids helping with chores, met a Mama named Darlinj doing laundry, and was awed by the humble and simple kitchen where they manage to make meals for the 90 kids twice a day. In her encounters with the Mamas, Cori tried to convey in French how much we admire their hard work and heart in caring for the kids, how well-behaved and kind the kids are and that we are praying for them.  Though I’m not sure this all got through clearly, they did understand that we pray for them.

Each village we visited we connected with a few children and Léogâne was no exception.  Derek had Meddina by his side every moment he wasn’t kicking the soccer ball, Shilov when she had something clever to say and Kevins when Derek was doing something cool.  In addition to the girls she sang with, Cori often had Icile or Shalonda by her side and enjoyed getting to know some of the older girls who spoke French well. Leaving was hard each day, but eased by the prospect of keeping in touch and seeing the kids again.  Those smiles, smiles that belie a tragic past depriving them of parents and many aspects of childhood, capture your heart.  The children’s smiles are a tangible reminder that there is hope and joy found in our Savior, Jezi.  That hope and joy is as real to the children as the breakfast I ate this morning is to me, and it’s Jezi’s love and promise to care for them that sustains it.  These children know faith, because they exercise it daily.  They don’t have the luxury of putting it on the shelf when life gets ‘comfortable’, because that isn’t part of their reality.  We were challenged to believe afresh in the God who comforts the weak & weary while patiently calling the distant back to Himself.

The drive from Léogâne, southwest of PAP, to Jumecort Inn, in a region called Croix de Bouquets, on the Northeast side of the city during rush hour was long and tiring, lasting more than 2 hours.  We continued to be saddened and affected by the living conditions in the city and the masses of people that are just everywhere.  We were amazed at how many people could fit in the back of a “tap-tap” which is a pickup truck turned public transportation, painted brightly with benches along each side of the truck bed.  We were refreshed to be at Jumecort where we could take a shower to rinse off the day (all cold but with good water pressure), shoot baskets on the new hoop before dinner, and relax on the patio with cold drinks.  We had a delicious dinner of beans, rice, and red sauce (the staple of every meal), fried chicken, cheesy potatoes, and a spicy slaw called “pikliz”.  We felt like our brains were still going a mile-a-minute with things to remember from our special day, but our bodies were tired and ready to just enjoy the moments of relaxing and bonding with our teammates.  We had a team meeting where we shared “highs and lows” and did our first bead ceremony which was a meaningful way that we encouraged each other by recognizing moments of risk, compassion, service, or leadership that we’d seen others exhibit.  Our team leader, Brandi, closed out the night by sharing two poignant stories that reminded us to not hold too tightly to the things God has given us to be good stewards of but to share them freely because God often multiplies the effect way more than we realize.

Our trip to Haiti - Days 1 and 2

Our first trip to Haiti was special, because of the people, both Haitian and American. The American team we travelled with was from different places and different walks of life, but with a common love of children. A love we wanted to share with the orphaned children of Haiti. The Haitian people who made the trip special were pastors, children, linguists, teachers, mamas and support staff, all with a passion for nurturing and educating the orphaned children of Haiti.

The team we travelled with was led by a woman and her husband from Columbia, MO who had travelled to Haiti many times. She was also in country ahead of us as she helped lead a Vacation Bible School (VBS) in the northern part of the country, Gonaives, the week prior to the rest of us arriving. She was strongly supported by a woman and longtime friend who also arrived ahead of us to work the VBS and had been to Haiti many times. This woman and her husband were the ones from O’Fallon, MO who introduced us to Global Orphan Project, the organization which connects us to Haiti and facilitated some logistics for the trip. Next on the team was a young father who is friends and business partners with the O’Fallon couple and lives in St. Louis. One couple joined us from Denton, MO, was related to our trip leader and traveled way more than the rest of us, requiring 4 flights to get to Port au Prince, Haiti. Another pair, were a father and daughter from Aurora, NE, with the daughter having just graduated from the University of Nebraska in December and knew the couple of O’Fallon. Cori and I completed the American portion of the team, a couple of career vagabonds currently calling Niceville, FL, and our extended family at First Baptist Church, home. Despite our apparent diversity, we really became one team quickly, establishing a comfort and a genuine enjoyment of one another’s company within the first 24 hours. Our creative Creator is somehow more apparent when He brings people together in this way.

 Friday, January 3rd
We depart for Miami Airport (MIA) via Pensacola Airport (PNS). Moving nearly 250 pounds of luggage to and from airports is actually fairly strenuous exercise it turns out, especially when some bags don’t have wheels. Overnighting in a Courtyard Marriott near MIA worked well, but hopefully we won’t be competing with Orange Bowl ticket holders for a room next time we go to Haiti and can stay someplace a little better suited to us.

Saturday, January 4th
We are helped through the check-in process masterfully by a SkyCap named Travis Washington. Somehow we went from attempting to check bags curbside, while actually needing to be inside by policy, to being fully checked in, with no baggage fees and seats changed to the exit row. I’m not really sure how he did it, but I am thankful Travis was there to bring us through the truly chaotic international check-in area of American Airlines. We met our team at the gate for our flight to Port au Prince (PAP), and for each of us it was the first time we had met most of the others. The flight to PAP was uneventful, but on the ground in Haiti, the adventure began. While escaping PAP airport was not the free for all it had been in the past, we had many locals trying to ‘help’ us with claiming bags and getting to the van. Ultimately, everyone’s bags arrived and made it safely to the van, which had made it safely to the airport ahead of us with our leader, translator, security guard and driver of course. With an amount of tipping that would have made other Caribbean airports envious, we were on our way.

Our drive took us past evidence of continuing improvement in PAP and yet parts of the city containing the most deplorable living conditions I have ever seen in my travels. The absence of waste removal, a comprehensive sewage system and the means to maintain personal hygiene, combines badly with a lack individual interest in keeping the resultant mess away from dwelling spaces. Add to that livestock given freedom to roam in the city and cap it with burning waste in the midst of it all, and you have a smell and a haze that at best were disheartening and at worst was oppressive. We learned that Port au Prince has 2.5 million people living in it, and each alleyway or nook was filled with people or make-shift housing.

Our first two nights in PAP we were privileged to stay in guest quarters at Pastor Moise and Francois’ home. There we got hear Pastor Moise’s heart for the lost and hurting worldwide and be filled by Francois’ skillful cooking. Together they made us feel like family and enabled us to experience Haiti in a special way.

After dinner we finished combining and sorting the supplies we each brought for the orphans and caregivers at three different sites. While doing so, Pastor Moise sneaks off to buy us some delicious piña colada and rum raisin ice cream. Anything that is cold is a treat in Haiti, which we appreciate even more after a few hot days.

En route to Haiti, we had been offered the chance to teach and follow Jesus’ example from John 13 by washing the Léogâne children’s feet. This added a little anxiety to the adventure, but with a couple of days to prepare, we readily agreed. Just before going to bed that first night in Haiti, we find out we get the opportunity to do the same at the first orphan home we’ll visit in west PAP overseen by a church called Source de la Grace. Tomorrow afternoon is even sooner than we’d planned, but washing orphans’ feet is a privilege, so we read and pray to be ready by then.


Sunday, January 5th
Sunday morning starts slowly after the first of what would be many tough nights’ sleep. Roosters, dogs and cats are all nocturnal in Haiti apparently (sarcasm)! That was the good news. The bad news was one of our team had been up all night with a stomach bug he’d brought with him (we learned later his son in the States had it too). But, a hearty breakfast and a few cups of coffee later we were off to church, Source de la Grace, which Pastor Moise had planted, and he was going to be preaching this morning. That may sound strange, but Pastor Moise by God’s grace has planted some 6 churches now and spends most of his time training and discipling young pastors.

To describe for you how brightly the church shines in the midst of the poverty and hardship, is hard without spending more time characterizing the surrounding community. However, in spite of poverty, filth, voodoo, corruption, drugs, gangs, prostitution, and many other forms of heartbreak surrounding the church, it shone brightly as Christ’s city on a hill. It was immediately clear how much pride and care the members took of the church campus which included a school and orphan home also. In addition, the Haitians love to really dress up for church, and it is a beautiful sight to adults and children decked out in Sunday finest. We were welcomed with headsets (to hear the translator) and
reserved seats. We worshipped in Creole and French with passion, crying out to God as though our very lives depended on it as though it was essential to bring us close enough to God to not be separated from him in days until we could gather again. One of the choruses we sang, “Dieu, Nous voulons voir ta glorie. Descend, enseigneur, parmi nous » translates to «God,we would like to see your glory. Descend, Lord, among us”. One of the readings was Psalm 108:3, “I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples” which summed up exactly what we were doing as we worshipped in a language we don’t even speak. It was clear that God’s favor falls on those who cry out to him wherever there are and from whatever darkness they may be in. Later during the message we are reminded of how important it is to live in the presence of God, to recognize that He truly dwells within us and that wherever two or more are gathered in His name he is present. Jezi Kris, Jesus Christ, is alive and at work in Source de la Grace. Glory to God!

Following the service, we learn that we will get to personally deliver some of our supplies to the orphans at Source de la Grace. We are stunned. Never did we imagine that we would get such a privilege. Cori and I work together to arrange the shoes we had brought on behalf of Boy Scout Troop 553 in Niceville, while others set out dresses for the girls and hats for the boys.










In a room of the church, we get to fit each child for the shoes and clothes that best suit them. There is no feeling like seeing Jergen’s or Jasmine's eyes light up as we put a pair of sandals on their feet.

These children were not shoeless, but for many, they are growing so fast that they were clearly ready for a next size or two up and they had gotten most of the ‘goodie’ out of the only pair they had.









 Later as we toured the children’s home, we saw the new pairs of shoes laid on each child’s bed marking them as a possession now unique to that individual child. After each child has come through, we grab a quick snack of mashed hotdog salad, called “pass” and head out to the orphan’s home to spend the afternoon playing.
 
With our trip team altogether in the orphans’ home, we play a little and then quickly move to washing the kids’ feet. Our translator Zimbil Hans reads John 13 in Creole and then Derek briefly explains Jesus’example in washing his disciples’ feet and that we will be washing their feet. The team enthusiastically brings the kids to the water basins two at a time and carefully washes each dirty little foot. The kids, giggle and squirm and beam and enjoy the attention.

The orphans are not big on personal space, but prefer to soak up as much physical contact as they can, readily taking hands of our team members and holding to arms and clothes when the hands are full! All of the kids really enjoy the camera, often taking pictures for us and always wanting to see the “preview” of what the photo looks like afterwards. After the washing Derek makes friends with Modlin Pié and eventually they join an UNO game that Cori has started with a large group of children. Cori bridges the communication gap with French which some understand, and despite some squabbling, some obvious cheating and eventually dispatching of the rules altogether, UNO entertains for nearly an hour. Part way through UNO, Derek makes two new friends in Wilna who has some disability in one or both of her legs and Sarah the youngest and daughter of one of the “mamas” or on site caregivers. Eventually they break away from the UNO game and the two little girls make quite a game out of tackling a seated Derek into a dried spot of chicken poop he was unaware of. After much cackling and chanting Derek learns from the translator why they are laughing so hard and promptly relocates them to another part of the grounds for dancing, twirling, piggy back rides and some hide and go seek. One of the older girls, Samantha who is 13, has been pretty stoic and unwilling to smile for most of the afternoon of playtime but then she stumbles upon the front of Cori’s notebook that is covered in pictures of our 3 kids. She loved pointing at each girl and hearing about their ages and then chanting back their names to us. After that smiles and hugs were regular from Miss Samantha.

We returned home to a delicious dinner of beans and rice with red sauce, fried chicken, potatoes and carrots, beets, and a dessert treat of cake. During and after dinner, we got the privilege of hearing Pastor Moise share his heart. He shared his testimony of how God has called him into church planting, his vision for the orphan care and loving these 25 children as his own, and his hopes for future church planting. God has done amazing things through this man and he has endured much hardship, but he displays humility and passion, giving God credit and glory in all he does. We will be praying for Pastor Moise, his many ministries and his wonderful wife Francois whose servant heart ministers to the family, orphans, and church constantly.