Sweat trickled off my back from the bright sun as I peered
around looking at the devastation.
I was standing on 3 feet of rubble that consumed the entire property of
brother George’s land. His house
had collapsed during the earthquake and his neighbors house had also caved in
on his drive way. Thankfully no
one from his family was killed although two of his eight children were in the
house when it collapsed.
How were we to make a dent in just 5 days? Where to even start? Was it worth trying?
These thoughts went through my head as I began to feel
overwhelmed by the task beneath my feet.
I was told that we could use dump trucks to load up the rubble but the
road to brother George’s property was not passable by vehicle.
The team looked to me for direction. I pondered for a few minutes and
decided we would give it a try and see what ideas popped into our head as we
worked. We began by tossing hand
size pieces of concrete into an adjacent house that still had its first floor
dangerously standing.
Pretty soon some Haitian brothers crowded around and
watched. And then to my surprise
some of them started helping. Soon we had so many people that we were bumping into each other.
I paused and guzzled half of my water bottle as I talked to
Pastor Wilnord. He said that
brother George was going to fix the road by filling it in with rubble so a dump
truck could get to the property.
The road had been badly carved into ditch by the heavy rains.
A flicker of hope started to burn in me. Maybe this was possible. Maybe we could make a dent.
The next day as I approached the work site I saw brother
George drenched in sweat as he dumped a wheel barrel of rubble into the
road. I couldn’t believe it the
road was completely filled in and the dump truck had just arrived. Things were looking as bright as
the hot Haitian sun.
We went to work right away starting at the entrance. Immediately Haitians were helping load
up the truck. We filled it in
about 20 minutes.
I talked to brother George and found out that he and his
family were living in a tent city.
He said the conditions there were horrible. He desired to leave that area as soon as possible and move back
to his own land and set up a structure until there was more money to build a
house again.
The Haitians continued work even when we left. Each day I would return and be amazed
by how much rubble had been removed in our absence. Now it wasn’t a question of a dent being made but
rather removing the entire house.
Our budget for this project would pay for 25 dump truck loads getting us
close to removing all of the rubble.
On the last day we spent time praying over brother George,
his family and the workers.
Brother George got down on his knees and raised his hands to the sky as
we prayed over him. I got the
sense that he was just as thankful for the blessing we were imparting through
prayer as he was for the work we had done.
We weren’t able to completely remove all the rubble with our
budget but there was plenty of room for brother George to move his family back
to his land. The last image I
remember of brother George was him clapping his hands, shouting Halleluiah, and
dancing for joy with a big smile on his face. I will never forget that moment.
*Check out the video below captured by Katie Rowland, part
of the media team, of the removal.
