Collarbones and Hollowed Cheeks: 2 months of lock-down and what to do about it

These days Haiti is on lock-down. Haitians call it peyi lòk. There is no school. Political opposition to President Moise fund gangs to enforce closure of businesses and deserted streets outside of organized protest marches. Men, probably paid off, build and guard barricades with burning tires, rocks, guns, and machetes. They demand national solidarity: everyone must cooperate with the protests. You don’t have to march with the masses, but you cannot go about your business. Either participate or keep inside. No work. No school. No dissent to the dissenters.

So there is no school. We are bold but not foolish.

The gate is shut. The classrooms with their electric lights, painted walls hung with colored posters, and bookshelves stocked with manipulatives and notebooks, are devoid of students. The kitchen is closed. The medicines in the office and books in the library gather dust. The water buckets are untapped, the sink long-dry, toilet paper and soap in abundance.

Oh, such waste!

Most of all, arms that ought to be strong with hugs and lifts and cuddles are slack. Hearts are heavy. And eyes dim for want of food grow dimmer still for want of love.

Hearts are heavy. Mine is heavy. Heavy for myself, my own disappointment and sorrow, for my prolonged separation from our beloved Christian Academy of Petit Gôave (CAP) Family.  For months I’ve worked hard, just ask my therapist, to heal, to get well enough to return to teaching: to lifting and cuddling students, to running up and down stairs with crackers, books, Bible verses and props; to singing and praying and making an utter fool of myself for the sake of a smile, to sweating through my lovely uniform, dirtying my skirt with chalk, peanut butter, and kicking toddler feet; to scuffing up my knees kneeling beside desks, to wearing myself thin in pouring myself out and overflowing my cup of Joy. My heart hurts for myself, for despite medical clearance, the peyi lòk paralyzing Haiti for almost two months prevents my return as it prevents everything else.

My heart hurts for our kids. For our families, staff, and people all across Haiti unable to live their lives. Just last week I received a letter from a ministry I’d worked with short term, announcing their sad closure due to lack of funds—and lack of liberty to practice. Ministries and aid organizations all over Haiti have been forced to stop their services, close their doors and gates, for road blockades and threats to their lives, or the inability to pay their employees for lack of income. Lives already so difficult, desperately trying to survive on two dollars a day, now stretch thinner each day of the lockdown, disallowed to work or attend school.

Food is scarce, far scarcer than before, as goods are blocked from distribution outside of the capital. Water is scarce, as pumps lack gasoline. Medical treatment is near impossible as roadblocks bar the way to the hospital and lack of fuel prevents use of electronic machines like nebulizers.

“So what do your students do?” I was asked recently, after explaining the lockdown and school closure. “Do they have water in their houses? Soap?”

I shook my head and smiled that close-lipped, near-bitter smile we make to avoid crying.

“What do they do?” she asked.

“They do without,” I answered.

“How are your kids?” someone else asked, remembering our conversation two weeks previous about the generally egregious conditions in the poorest country in the West, and the peyi lok paralyzing so many ministries striving to save lives forsaken by their government.

“How are your kids doing?” he asked, knowing their forced absence of school creates greater hardship.

“They’re hungry,” I told him. “They’re sad. They’re frustrated and bored. They’re probably miserable.”

 Recently Beverly asked us to pray specifically for encouragement for our dear Haitian brothers and sisters, whose hearts have been made heavy over weeks of lockdown. I prayed hard for our CAP staff in particular, who, at the time, were improvising an abbreviated school hosted at Pastor Levy’s house. First through fifth grade elementary students gathered in the courtyard to sing and pray, then were spaced inside and out of the house to have a few hours of lessons. They arrived incognito, out of uniform, studied, then ate and went home as inconspicuously as bunches of children can. Our staff were the standard to which the children and their parents looked: they required brave faces and bold optimism to bolster waning spirits.

But after four weeks of oppression…optimism fades.

So we prayed that day for angels of encouragement to join those security angels guarding our beloved CAP family in their shrewd efforts to benefit the children while keeping the school building obediently closed. And I wished I were there with them to pray and sing aloud and proud, undignified to praise God and express our own solidarity as CAP, and children of God without fear of the world.

Since Wednesday, October 16, even those abbreviated school days have halted. The “secret school” was noticed; parents and students en route to the house were accosted and warned by gang members.

“We know what you’re doing and you’d better stop it, or else,” is, I believe, the gist of the warning. The threat.

Threat.

They threatened children. Children.

I am not biologically a mother. But if anyone asks if I have children I respond, “Oh, yes! 189.” Our CAP kids are my kids. Don’t you threaten my kids. I was outraged. Outraged anyone would threaten our children just trying to live. Outraged that anyone would threaten children.

 

Happy to Receive! bags of rice and beans, bottle of oil, packet of spaghetti

“How dare you?! Who do you think you are?” I envisioned myself demanding of someone taller, tougher, and with less to lose than myself. I’d have to shout this in English of course, because I don’t know these words in Creole, and when overly emotional only the native tongue will do.

Pointless, I know. It would have been an absolutely ridiculous reaction. At the moment I learned the news of the threat to our kids--my darling students I know by name, know their voices, their penmanship, their likes and dislikes, their skills and weaknesses, their risk of malnutrition, their level of neglect at home--I was glad I was not there with our children. I think my temper would have blown like Hurricane Dorian.

Instead, reading Beverly’s updates from my NH bedroom, I fell to my knees before the copy of Psalm 140 taped to my closet door, as I do most mornings, and cried out the words as I pounded my fist into the floor.

“How dare they?! Enough of this, God, enough!”

Apparently it’s not enough.

After a while of fuming, pacing the house wondering whether to call my mom and rage conveyance of the news, call Beverly and rant, or crank up rock music and shadow box into exhaustion, I stalked back upstairs and started typing a response to Beverly’s update to the messenger group on my phone. I dislike typing on the phone but often type prayers that way as the labor of each word forces deeper intention and focus. And in this case, calm.

In the ensuing calm I considered gang members. My heart went out to them. What kind of life had they known? How many accounts had I read of gangs being the only provision some destitute ever know? No welfare, shelters, social workers, no government aid, no food stamps, medical insurance—maybe no parents and no income. Gangsters could offer money for school and food, security, even status. They provided friends, community, and occupation in a land of idleness, with no place to go nor work to be found. No wonder gangs were always gaining new members, even as they lost old ones to violence.

And after all, few Haitians ever prospered financially from integrity. You cannot in corrupt place.

Thus, that unhappy Wednesday morning, I typed out a slow response and prayer, and asked grace for these gangsters who had threatened our children, who were doing their job of keeping our kids out of school. (Perverse truant officers?)

My heart ached all over again for Haiti as a whole, and our broken world, where a gang fueled by violence, illegal arms, drugs, and quick death, is the most sensible outlet to lonely, hungry children.

Yes, our hearts are heavy. So is yours, considering these starving children. Most of our kids receive their best nutrition, most consistent meal, at school. Monday through Friday they eat those heaping lunch portions of rice and beans, devour peanut butter crackers, and drink clean water. Some get antifungal shampoo, have wounds cleaned and bandaged. Adeline receives an electronic nebulizer treatment for asthma. These kids play, sing, and study in a safe place, are praised and encouraged by a loving staff who know their names and teach them Jesus loves them. We hug and cuddle them, laugh and cry with them. We give them a chance at childhood nurtured, sheltered, valued.

Our hearts ache to continue this beautiful task of running CAP school, with all its hardships and benefits to the students, staff, their families, and surrounding community, including local businesses, and to the international community of yourselves, partners and friends. We ache for our fellow missionaries and aid workers to continue their labors as medics, teachers, trainers, pastors, entrepreneurs, providers, hosts, mentors, as the hands and feet of Jesus.

We long for our Haitian friends to continue their work as venders, drivers, laborers, and providers for their families. We long to use your gifts of funds, supplies, and invested work hours for the benefit of Ti Gôave kids and families.

I long to get back to my happiest place on earth. My heart is heavy that just now I can’t, and that we as a ministry can’t do what we long to.

Truthfully, yes, our kids are hungry. Does your child look thin in photographs? She is. Is he getting enough to eat? Probably not. Are they safe? Yes.

Not because there is no danger. Gangs really do threaten. Police retaliate. Increasing desperation of hunger, illness, and fear provoke thievery. Unclean water carries parasites and disease. Latrines do, too. Insufficient food results in malnutrition, weakness, and pain. Mosquitos spread malaria and dengue; bites quickly become infected into impetigo. There are no medicine cabinets with which to treat these ailments, nor the more common cold, fever, or cough, nor the usual bumps and bruises of childhood. Rain dampens sheets and clothes, maybe floods the house. Shared sleeping quarters shares illness and rashes, scabies, conjunctivitis, and head fungus. Lack of clean water, soap, and towels exacerbates said maladies. Charcoal cook fires burn welts and blisters.

Oh, there is ample risk. There is danger.

But we know our students and staff are safe. They are safe in Christ.

“Do not fear the enemy…”

Do not fear for your children, for your missionary friends.

Absolutely do pray for them. Send messages to encourage them (not mail, as there is currently no delivery). Pray peace for Haiti and an end to this lockdown.

Send money so we can continue to purchase food for distribution. Beverly is still on the ground in Ti Gôave and is still working for these kids. Although she herself is housebound, for the past few weeks Beverly has been able to organize food deliveries to the majority of our students. Rice, beans, oil, and spaghetti are packed at the house then delivered by motorcycle to the students’ homes. God is making the way at the necessary moments for Beverly to drive to the bank to withdraw the cash to purchase large sacks of rice and beans, jugs of oil, and packets of spaghetti. (These goods cannot be bought locally with a credit card.)  She keeps us updated with messages and photos that make me cry; Beverly herself remains her steady, upbeat self.

When I compliment her, thank her, for her optimism, Beverly responds with humility.

“I thank God for that. He’s been preparing me.”

Still smiling--Directors Madame Rose and Madame Beverly with a grateful mother

Our friends in Haiti are probably frustrated, discouraged, uncomfortable after these almost two months of lock-down. Many are surely hungry and in need of clean water. They don’t understand why they should suffer for political squabbles. Neither do I. While the politicians compete for power and the wealthy bureaucrats fund gangs to enforce blockades, children approach starvation. Already some of our students have lost weight. This makes me furious. Angry. Heartsick. It makes me collapse into tears and struggle to eat for guilt. I hate that I can’t do anything. Hate that I can’t drop in with bags of food, can’t bring all the students home with me and cook for them, watch them eat to their hearts’ content; I hate that I am not there to visit them. I hate this feeling of helplessness and photos that show collarbones and hollowing cheeks. As I cry out to God on my knees I want to do something.

“You are doing something,” He says. “You are praying.”

“It’s not enough, God!” I answer. “My heart hurts!”

“My heart breaks for them, too. They are my children, as you are my child.”

God reminds me that He weeps for the suffering of His children. He reminds me it is because of love that I am in pain. And He reminds me that there is one other thing I can do.

“Write about it,” God says. “Like you do when you are angry, or sad, or too overcome with emotion to be sensible. Write.”

So I do.

I write. I pray. I tell you all that the agony of lock-down continues, well beyond reason. There is no end in sight. Schools are expected to remain closed until January. The president refuses to step down. The opposition refuses to accept him. The United States continues to support the president which cements his position and builds resentment for Americans. Gangs threaten citizens and fight one another. Anarchy is perhaps just a gunshot away. We can’t fix all that.

What we can do now is to love our friends, our children, from afar. We can pray to the God of Angel Armies so will set His angels continuously about them to secure them from the risks of life, from hazards of the third world, from the discouragement of oppression. We pray that God would grant them all, from the smallest school child to the seasoned missionary, joy and peace, and that peace would move outward to infect the entire explosive country.

 

heading off to deliver

filling soda bottles with cooking oil for delivery

I look forward with great anticipation to the day I can report the good news (the remarkable news) that the lock-down is ended. That school has resumed and the most beautiful in the world are filling the courtyard at Christian Academy of Petit Gôave. I can’t wait to tell you that the streets are filled again with motos squeezed with four passengers, vans with venders hanging off the bumper, trucks towering with charcoal, women with baskets two-feet wide, men with wheelbarrows, and school children in every color uniform.  That faces are filled with smiles for the freedom of living.

Until that happy day, let us remember the Good News that Christ is there in Haiti now, as He is here with us; and as He has never once abandoned us despite outrage or despair, He has never once nor ever will abandon our beloved children.

bags of rice