The poorest of the poor

Two weeks ago I learned we would be going to a place called, "La Grange" (Pronounced La Grunge).
'La Grange?' I thought. 'Does it live up to it's name?' I immediately wondered.  Jon explained that we were going there to conduct a survey because there is a group in the states intrested in aiding this community. He said we would have to do it very subtly,or relationally. "Because," He said,"If they see white people walking around with clip boards they are going to assume help is coming soon and exagerate their problems." We were asked instead to go door to door and ask people to tell us their story. We had two days in the village to acquire an understanding of infant mortality rate, daily food intake, natural resources in the area, ect. It seemed to me that this would take a lot longer than two days. "It's the poorest nation in Haiti" He finished.

Immediately my imagination was launched. Not only was Haiti already the poorest nation in the Northern Hemisphere, but La Grange was the poorest place in Haiti. Heidi Baker's words echoed in my ears, "Go to the poorest of the poor...no one else does." Was I about to meet the poorest of the poor? I imagined what I would see and wondered what in the world could prepare me for such an experience. I began to dread the day of our departure. We had nothing to give them, and I felt like we were going to measure how severe their suffering was.
When Terry and Ingvild Snow had come to the Kona base after the earth quake I remembered Ingvild talking about the severe malnutrition we would see "up in the hills" around St. Marc. She told us about the children's pot bellies and red hair. I had seen alot of hungry children so far, even alot of big bellies, but no red hair. I wasn't sure I could handle this task. Imagining a life so desperate that childrens' hair looses pigment was not a life I felt qualified to come face to face with.
Anxiety followed me up untill the ride out to La Grange the next morning. It was a long two hour ride in the back of a pick up out to the hotter-than-Haiti, middle-of-nowhere village. On the way practically every group of children we passed jumped up and chanted "Ter-ry!Ter-ry" upon spotting us. There were hardly any exceptions. No matter what they were doing they would run out to the road and wave and sing. YWAM had given every houshold in this section a bible and food for 10 days last year, and the appreciation was still flowing. The poverty to the left and right increased slowly as we went down the road until all village life faded. Mile after mile of open, dry scrub land followed. Finally some goats appeared on the edge of the canal, a sign that we were getting close. On the horizon I made out the shapes of the first mud huts in La Grunge. I took a deep breath. My frantic thoughts sychronized with my heart rate. 'What would I say to these people? How would they be better off after having met me? How much can we really accomplish with just two visits?' I wondered how poor the welcome would be when they learned we hadn't brought them anything.

As the Truck came to a stop spectators gathered but kept their distance. I noticed that the only one who came close to us was a severely handicapped girl about age 15. She greeted us with a big smile. I smiled back at her, heart broken at her head of solid red hair. Everyone else kept their arms crossed, looking us up and down. Our driver and long term staff Rodney briefed us quickly. "Remember, your the outsiders and it's your job to make the first interaction, especailly in an old fashioned farming community like this." We split up into two groups and headed off in seperate directions, each with a translator. Luckily the night before we had prepared a program for the kids for today, so at least we has something to say after "Hello". We went hut to hut, greeting the people and announcing that the kids can come to see us after school is out for face painting and baloons. I noticed that each time we asked,"How are you?" That they would respond with a phrase that roughly translated means, "We are here" or "We're surviving". It wasn't until we met up with the others who were unnofficially conducting a 'survey' (as subtly as possible) that we learned just how hard these farmers had it. Brian's team met a woman who has been pregnant for four years, meaning she had a baby attach in the wrong place and calcify inside her after dieing. Also Andrea held a baby that would for sure die of starvation if no intervention followed. Tammy met a family with an infant infected with scabbies so severe she could barely talk about it. And my dear Phoebe wept over a 10 inch pre-mie for 30 minutes. I am grateful I was excluded from these encounters because my heart was already broken for them.

At noon we had lunch in the privacy of a brand new school facility. 'At least this place is on the map' I thought. At one we let about 100 kids inside and told them the story of salvation and split them into groups for face paint,coloring and balloon animals. The program went by so fast and I was so proud of our team for having that much control over a croud that could've easily mobbed us.

The next day went about the same except we split into a survey group,and a prayer group.The prayer group would follow the survey team and we would pray for the needs of the family. I switched from one group to the other and got to witness Andria lead a 20 year old woman to Jesus. It was so special. In the afternoon we put on an improv skit for EVEN MORE kids. We made the cast 20 mintues before and had a rough screen play of the life of Jesus. The play went great. Brian narrated and so did the translator. We acted out the scenes with as much enthusiasm and cornyness as possible. Julio made a great Jesus,and the play as a whole was hilarious, to us and to the children.

On the way home that second day we all felt like we weren't done in La Grange. The data we collected was tragic. The reality was these families were starving. Everyone we interviewed said the same things. They had no food, yesterday, today, or for tomorrow and niether crops were in season. Something had to be done.We all felt it.

It wasn't until later that weekend we got the news, " We are going back to La Grange and doing food distribution!" The excitment was epic. The next week Terry bought $6,000 worth of rice, beans, and corn flour. As we packed it into rations we prayed for it to be multiplied. Distribution day was one of the funnest days thus far. Not only did every family get 45 lbs of food but we were able to provide formula and scabbies medicine to those two families! It was by far my favorite week. God ministered to me so much and I got to share in His desire to meet the needs of the poor.

Transformation week

The last week was pure transformation. It all started on Monday morning. Pastor Eves had arrived to tell everyone in the tent city about the second meeting that was to take place tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. We weren’t sure what to expect but we hoped that this meeting would accomplish more than the last one did. The very first meeting was supposed to uncover the needs in the community and to be a time for ideas to be shared of ways to improve the living conditions. Unfortunately everyone just took their turn introducing themselves as “a victim” and told their stories of how they got to be here in St. Marc. Which was good, but not what we had hoped. We had been praying into this tent city for a few weeks now and we were eager to begin to see some development.


The next morning all the adults were assembled in the breeze way of the clinic along with a few kids who snuck their way in to be with the “blancs”. Pastor Eves started the meeting out with a prayer and then got down to business. Emmanuel stood up to give an example of how he wanted them to communicate in this meeting (staying on subject can be difficult for them). Starting first with their names, then their immediate needs and any ideas they have to meet them. Once he was done the room went straight to business. I could not believe how well the meeting was going. People were communicating effectively, not just the needs, but also being willing to be the solution to those needs. We learned that the toilets that they use belong to the entire neighborhood and that’s why nobody cleans them. Andrea suggested that the tent city can take responsibility for cleaning to be a blessing to the rest of the area. A Haitian man suggested that they lock some of the toilets to designate them for the tent city and clean THOSE. We also learned that they have no designated shower area, (which we had discovered by accident, blushingly so) that the tents are excruciatingly hot in the day time, that a canal needs to be dug to avoid flooding when it rains, and that most of them sleep right on the tarp floors with no mattresses. Some people mentioned that the holes in the wall surrounding the camp need to be fixed. Other concerns were that a lot of the school-aged children were not attending school because their parents could not afford to get them the uniforms as well as the need for jobs.

After the earthquake YWAM paid to house these refugees and continues to feed them on the condition that they contribute to the community with the small jobs they are assigned like picking up trash. So they work for their food, but ideally the refugees need to get real jobs and save enough money to move out of the tents. YWAM would like to pay them to do jobs, but cannot afford to long-term. Also the buisnesses in St. Marc generally don't hire outside the family.

Another really promising thing happened in the meeting. One young man stood up and said that he sees that many kids are not doing well in school because they don't do their homework and pledged to start a homework group with the kids personally. This was followed by thunderous applaus. The pastor was so excited he promised to provide the chalk and chalk board for him. Pastor Eves also proposed to plant flowers around the clinic (a seamingly insignificant contribution) which also recieved thunderous applaus. Everyone was so unified that we proposed a community work day to start the next morning at 7. Everyone was in agreement. My favorite part was when a man said,"We don't need the white people to do this; WE can do this!" The desire that seemed to come up the most was that everyone wanted to learn how to live with eachother in community.

Andrea and I left the meeting with our notes and speed-walked to the base. We were so excited about the work day and could not wait to gather materials for it. I went to get tarps and rope from the relief depot for the shower and an easy-up for shade. Andrea went to the market to buy bathroom cleaners and coolaid to reward their hopefully hard work the next day. I hoped that we could find people to sponser the families in the tent city as I looked fo tools to bring. One old woman's statement kept ringing in my mind, "We arn't hungry, we just don't have money for anything." Her words were certainly true. The tent city is supposed to be a temparary situation for all of them. In the mean time how can they get clothes and shoes for their children? Who will hire them? What will it take for them to get on their feet again? I proposed different solutions in my head, but all of them seemed impossible. It was going to take an act of God to get these people jobs.

Wednesday morning came and Pastor Eves brought us some homemade bread! As soon as 7 o'clock came the entire community was mobalized. I could not believe their modivation. They were so excited to have the resources they needed that they didn't even wait for us to begin working. In fact, the entire day there was nothing for our team to do. They met almost every need discused in the meeting. By the end of the day the toilets were cleaned and a schedule was made to keep them clean, a shower area was made as well as extra shade and flowers were planted. The transformation went deeper than physical as well. The people learned how to accomplish something with eachother. I could see the relationships building, it was very encouraging. Pastor Eves also earned his credibility by working side by side with them all the way.

(How the finished shower looks inside)(This is the new shade area!)(My sandals became mud flaps)

(The shower to be)(Two adorable sisters)(Me with my favorite orphan Mckila)(The Koolade stand)(Brian and Julio)(and here we have man cleaning toilet, very fascinating)

Later that afternoon Terry Snow dropped by to deliver some news. The tent city had been sponsored by an outside organization for 100,000! He said 40,000 was going toward hiring the inhabiants to build a new wall around the camp and 60,000 was going toward running and staffing the currently closed clinic for a year!
We all screamed. Then cryed. The medical staff coming to operate the clinc was also nothing short of a miracle. A few weeks ago we had learned that someone was trying to kick Gilious and his family out of the clinic because he thought Gilious was going to die and didn't want it to reflect negatively on the clinic's reputaion. This person was NOT with YWAM (who is in charge of the clinic) but is still a person who kind of had control of it. I was outraged when I heard this and I had prayed that God would send medical personel to manage the clinic to replace this person. It was a prayer I had forgotten about since a turn of events made Gilious was no longer in danger of being kicked out. But apparently God hadn't forgotten!