Dear Diary,
It’s me Jacquie. I am writing to you from my “bedroom” in Haiti, which also doubles as our common room, food cupboard, and water refill station (it’s a small house so every room is multipurpose). I actually consider myself one of the lucky ones because only one other person sleeps in the room with me (less body heat) and it’s right next to the front patio so it has the best ventilation in the house. Some people have decided to actually sleep outside, so naturally they have direct access to the wind; however, they also have to contend with layers upon layers of dust circulating around them at all times. So I’ve chosen to stay indoors. [Note: It’s important to understand that Haiti is not a windy city; so after a 90 degree day, the 75 degree night can get pretty sticky and people will do just about anything to find a little bit of wind.]
My team is shacking up with 2 other teams in a two bedroom, two-bathroom (although one of the bathrooms is pretty much always out of commission — while the other bathroom has recently been out of order as well because of a general lack of water in our house. We are beginning to think we will need to ration the number of showers we can have to once or twice a week, otherwise our toilets don’t get flushed and our dishes don’t get cleaned.) humble abode. Our dinning room is nice and open, while the rest of house seems to be slightly slanted with parallelogram shaped rooms instead of squares, and triangular hallways, instead of rectangles. I imagine a house like this would exist in the world of Alice in Wonderland if that helps you envision things a little. Oh and did I mention the house is bursting at the seams with women. We have three ALL WOMEN TEAMS living under one roof, so you can understand why I focused so much on the bathroom situation earlier. Not to mention, we also have 3-5 women cooks who come every day to cook us dinner (yum—rice and beans with the variety of with beef or with fish).
In regards to what we do for ministry, it changes by the week. But the nice thing is that it is always in our backyard. In other words, we live in the neighborhood where we do our ministry. Week one had us going door-to-door advertising for a free school our pastor runs (thank goodness for a different version of door-to-door).
A little background: Most of the schools here cost money and always require children to wear a uniform (similar to the United States private school system; however here, paying money doesn’t mean getting a good education, it just means having the opportunity to go to school…period). This presents a particularly lofty burden on families who already struggle to feed their children (the unemployment rate has been estimated by some to be as high as 70%* and if transportation is involved for schooling just consider the fact that a gallon of gas here costs about $5.50 USD and here we pay our cooks [who are working a legitimate job] $30 USD a week.). As a result of financial constraints, many families are unable to send their children to school. Thus, our pastor’s school offers these overlooked children hope for an education.
The only problem is SOMEONE has to pay for the school, and as of right now, there is not a sustainable system in place to make that happen. The pastor has obediently been following the call of God and that is why he created the school. But for now he prays each month that somehow the 9 teachers will get paid, and the books for all the children will get provided. A heavy burden to carry for one family (the pastor’s wife is one of the teachers, so this truly is a family affair), but a great example of bold faith. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you feel called to learn more about his ministry and how you can help keep this school running please check out his blog at pastorwilnord.blogspot.com.
It turns out that while our ministry is extremely important to this community, in actuality, it doesn’t require much from us, the missionaries. In fact, our translator pretty much handles all the legwork (seeing as asking him to translate our attempt to read the Creole forms, when he can read it himself, would be both unnecessary and time consuming). As a result, we have created our own ministry that I like to term community building.
The streets of Haiti are always filled with people. Unlike the United States, people are constantly sitting or standing outside their homes, just waiting for something to happen (whether it be meeting with neighbors who pass by, selling things from outside their home, or just looking for something to do). Thus, while our translator goes into homes and collects names for the school, we stay out in the streets and get to know the people congregating there.
In short: I am crazy, over the moon pleased with our ministry. Where last month we preached that we wanted to be relational (and tried our hardest to be exactly that but lived so far away from our ministry that we often just saw a family once) this month we are actually walking the walk. We see the same people almost every day and although we can’t communicate in words there is no mistaking the banner of Jesus we carry with us (shout out Jehovanissi).
I feel really honored that God has given us the space to create some of our own ministry this month. My heart has a special calling for the kids that hang out on the street. Last month we bought a soccer ball and volleyball and we have been making good use of them here. It literally feels like a dream. A couple days a week Andrea (one of my teammates) and I take the soccer ball to the church and just pass it around in the street. Within minutes kids emerge from all over the city ready to play a full-blown game with us. We walk about two blocks up the “road” and arrive at the “field,” which is really just a glorified piece of pavement, which unlike the other parts of town, is still solid and flat. Two five-inch wide, two-inch tall goals, handmade with thread, appear and its game time! We play three on three and I’m not kidding when I say it gets serious. These kids have more skills than me, and I played soccer all my life.
It’s funny how life can feel like a movie sometimes. When I am playing soccer with these kids (and mind you I gave up soccer a long time ago and didn’t feel like I missed it much since) wow I mean I can’t even explain it. Life is simply bliss and everything feels surreal. As I watch them sprint over rocks barefoot kicking up white dust as they go, overjoyed with just the opportunity to get some glory from scoring the big goal, life seems perfect. How did I get so lucky to be able to be a part of Jesus’s joy here in Haiti? Our God delights in His children and I feel his affection with every person I meet here.
So diary, I feel like that gives you a pretty good impression of what life looks like here in Haiti, or at least what it looked like for week one. Until next time…
*I received this statistic from a local so I haven’t been able to check my facts. But I will say that most “work” comes from selling things on the streets, and that is not considered an actual job when calculating for unemployment
