Haiti seems a lot like the rest of the developing world in many ways and yet unique in so many more. It manages at the same time to appear to be more broken than other countries and yet to have more on-going development. Electricity and water are sporadic. Roads vary from amazing to barely passable. One corner has rubble while the next has stacks of construction material. A country caught somewhere in the middle of falling apart and being rebuilt.
Getting through the airport when we arrived involved the usual maze of chaos. First we needed to search for our baggage along with crowds of strangers while trying to avoid the baggage “handlers” who charge to locate suitcases from the stacks of luggage that were constantly being unloaded from the ten feet of carousel and piled in a massive heap on the floor. Thirty minutes of stress. Bags located. Step one complete. Then it was time to try to push our cart through the airport lobby between the new crowd of porters who constantly attempted to grab and carry our bags; for a price of course. Eventually my struggle was lost and allowing one porter to earn a dollar for fighting off his co-workers seemed easier than trying to remove each new attacker from my stack of bags. Round two passed. Finally into the public light, the first area that the general public is allowed, to search for that one familiar face in the crowd, our host Ricot, to take us away from all the craziness.
Ricot told us later that he loves watching the faces of everyone coming out of the airport. He says everyone has the same look, from the first-timer visitors to the Haitians themselves. It’s a mix of a reddish, flushed face from the sudden weather change combined with sheer shock from being thrown into such a whirlwind of chaos after four hours of peaceful plane ride. I’m sure Stace and I were no exception. Ricot located. Step three complete.
As we drove through the capital, Port au Prince, it seemed like we’d exchanged one chaos for another. In thirty degree heat with the van windows open, Ricot weaved his way through bumper to bumper traffic on unmarked “highways” with sinkholes large enough to swallow a small Buick. Pretty standard developing world kind of stuff. One thing that stood out as different was that I began to notice that nearly every second vehicle had “UN” plastered on the side or belonged to some other non-for-profit organization. Shiny new vehicles driving through poverty ravaged streets looking to help the people. Odd reality. I suspect that there are more foreign aid workers in Haiti than any other country in the region, and they are greatly needed. But I began to wonder what kind of help I could be in a country filled with so many do-gooders. The tasks seemed monumental.
As Ricot and I chatted he pointed out massive dips in the road, bridges that had been damaged and rockslides that had yet to be cleared from the highways after the earthquake. Worthy causes no doubt. I couldn’t believe someone hadn’t fixed these visible scars from the country’s greatest disaster. But without any clue how to operate paving equipment or the finances to pay for it, this seemed like a problem for someone else to fix.
We chatted politics. As is often the case, many of Haiti’s problems have deep roots in both political instability and an up-and-down relationship with foreign powers. Real issues that need real solutions to get a broken country back on track. But I’m not a politician, nor do I have any real influence to peddle with men who are.
I began to chat with a young Haitian man beside me. He’s a leader in his church and wise beyond his young age of 17. Eager to learn all he can and humble to boot. Teachable spirit. But my inability to speak Creole and my total lack of knowledge of the condition of the Haitian church means that for now, Ricot is much more suited to mentor this teenage Pastor than I am.
On our way out of the city we stopped at an orphanage. One lady. A few helpers. 106 children. Many with disabilities. Little foreign help. Hallways that smelled like urine and dirt floors. Worst living conditions at an orphanage I’ve ever seen but far better than being on the street. The orphanage was started when the lady found two children abandoned on the street in front of her house and refused to ignore them like so many others in the community were. Now the community knows that her house is a place for orphaned or unwanted children. In the days after the earthquake alone, six children were collected from the neighbourhood and abandoned on her doorstep. As we were being shown around the facility like sight-seeing tourists, a two year old boy lifted his arms towards me wanting to be picked up. He was only wearing a t-shirt and clung to my leg looking up at me. In a facility with this many children and so few hands, it’s not uncommon for young children to be scattered on the floor. They crawl around without pants until they’ve potty trained themselves and begin to walk. It seemed so natural to bend down and pick the kid up. The detached tour suddenly stopped and my active involvement began. Soon there were six toddlers all looking up at me with their arms out. I held two at a time. Twenty minute visit. Two arms. Not enough time or arms to let abandoned children know that there are people that love them and a God that loves them even more.
Day one: held a child that hadn’t been held in far too long.
A good day.
A purpose-fulfilled kind of day.
It was a hard place to visit and a harder place to leave. It seemed like there was so much more to do and just not enough hands. As I struggled to detach myself from children I’d just met, I looked up and saw Stacey doing the same with her own group of children. Four hands are so much better than two. I was more thankful in that moment than I’ve been in a long time that I have a loving, beautiful wife who shares at every point possible in the ministry we’ve been called to. As we drove away from the city I knew we’d be back… and hopefully next time, we can bring more arms!
