This month we are serving at Mission of Hope in Titanyen, Haiti. It’s a 30-minute bus ride from Port A Prince, and has mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. There are four teams from my squad here and if you asked any of us, we’d all say we’re living in Haitian luxury. Bunk beds, real sheets (gasp), running water, a rooftop pavilion, and meals prepared for us 3 times a day (hallelujah).
Mission of Hope is seriously awesome. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and over 80% of Haitians are unemployed. Mission of Hope is different than many organizations because instead of bringing in a bunch of “white saviors” to do some feel-good projects and then leave, they work to mobilize Haitians and help them to help themselves. 90% of the people that work at Mission of Hope are Haitian. We’re talking cooks, drivers, security guards, clinic workers, schoolteachers, maintenance crews, office employees, translators, and the list goes on. Mission of Hope raises up village champions (Haitian men and women who live in the surrounding villages and are recommended to MOH by village pastors) to meet specific needs. Need a job? Go see your village champion. No access to water? Go see your village champion. Need an actual toilet to use? Go see your village champion. It’s a little difficult to pin down what Mission of Hope does exactly because they do so many things. They run an orphanage and a school, a clinic and a prosthetic lab, and they help feed 90,000 children a day through an onsite warehouse. They help train and raise up pastors, they’re work on building latrines for a nearby village, they help put on VBS for kids…the list goes on. Their bottom line is to bring life change and transformation to every man, woman and child in Haiti. That takes on many different forms.
We’re just here to support and help MOH in ongoing projects. They’re currently working on a satellite campus, so for two days we worked at a construction site and were caked in concrete dust. Yesterday we did a village visit in the morning and came back in the afternoon to play with the kids. It’s been awesome to work for an organization that has a purpose behind every single thing they do. God is definitely at work here.
I’m really bad at ending these things so I thought I’d leave you with a list of things I’ve learned so far.
- A Haitian security guard with a gun on his back can school anyone on how to do laundry by hand.
- When a 2 year old girl pees on you, splash some water on your shirt and just go with it.
- Don’t play basketball barefoot on a concrete court. You will get blisters.
- Assembly lines are great for moving concrete blocks, clay pavers, and even toilet paper.
- Drinking Pepsi out of a glass bottle on a rooftop > Pepsi any other way
- Goats are like dogs here and I want one.
- It’s actually possible to eat soup in 90 degree weather and enjoy it.
- When you ask God to give you at least one villager to connect with, he sends you the cutest girl in all of Haiti
