After the Hurricane (the continuation)

Wednesday 5 October

Visited children in Chabanne area before noon…

Then commenced cleaning Beverly’s room—had to mop up water from the bedroom floor, scrub the entire bathroom from dried dirty rainwater

Took down the curtains and washed them.

Sweeping, wringing out, bleaching that nasty mop.

Also sweeping out upstairs front room where lots of mango leaves and quite a bit of water as well.

Thankfully my own room was minimally affected—just had to sweep out some mango leaves blown in from that front room.

Then eat with the family—scandalize Pastor by coming down in my shower cleaning attire: gym shorts and top and bare feet (usually those shorts are reserved for evening only, after the house is empty of visitors and bedtime is near). He was displeased (although he didn’t say so directly) because we happened to get visitors as soon as I came down.

Then we all gather into the Patrol to go view the River again: we park at the site and trek up the muddy slope. I chuckle at Felix who is first out of the car but chooses a difficult route up the hill: instead of opting for the track where motos have driven, he starts clambering up through the bushes and clumps of mud. He may not be foolhardy but he is also apparently not an outdoorsman. Being used to scrambling about in mud and over rocks myself, I’d purposely worn my camp shoes and tied my skirt in a knot to lift it free of the mud. I was glad of this and my rain poncho as the rain began driving down as we stood to spectate with the masses.

Gathered along the bank was the predictable crowd, observing the highly interesting activity in the river below. The waters have greatly diminished, thank God, and now the roiling brown waters are not nearly so frightening. There were a few large excavation tractors down in the bed, pushing up piles of gravel and diverting the water into new tracks. Whether this is serving a legitimate purpose or is for the mere sake of activity I’m still not sure, but certainly the drivers were busy (and amused.)

There were also a lot of people crossing.

Typically folks took off their shoes and picked their way through the water, carrying bags and bundles, and sometimes one another. We witnessed a few couples consisting of a man carrying a woman piggybank, shoes still on her feet. I was awaiting the inevitable tumble, but while we were there we didn’t see any falls.

We didn’t stay long as the rain picked up again, but I was encouraged.

No large vehicles are crossing yet—we only saw motos. Pastor seems to get a kick out of frightening his wife sometimes; when we climbed back into the Patrol he drove forward, right down to the water’s edge, into a crowd of people staring and several calling out warnings.

He just laughed and insisted he wasn’t going, he was turning around. I was sure we’d be stuck in the mud. But that Patrol is not to be underestimated. He did succeed in turning us around and squelching us back through the mud, unharmed and unstuck.

Men.

Thursday October 6

Today was a work day.

I worked hard, cleaning and preparing for school.

I wrung out the soggy sheets from Beverly’s room and spread them to dry, first along the railing between second and first storey inside the house, then out on the roof later in the afternoon when the blessed sunshine came out.

I did more sweeping and wiping down in Beverly’s room and the usual laundry (I wash clothes every day so as not to get behind.)

Then for about three hours I set myself at the table we’d asked [badgered] Pastor for, and planned and created school stuff: addition tables, maps of Haiti, worksheets for La Nourriture and Nutrition, Fast Facts addition sheets, and the Bible pages.

After the afternoon meal there were dishes to wash and laundry to bring in…

Productive day.

Friday 7 October

Apparently everyone noticed my efforts yesterday.

Several people commented they thought I worked particularly hard. “Wow—it’s good!” they said. I didn’t think the work inordinate—usually during the week we work all day, except half of that work is at school, not inside the house.

Every day we do dishes, laundry, school preparation, maintain communications, and usually during the week I aid at least one student with his homework or study.

Anyway…

Today was another visiting day.

Pastor, Kiki, and I drove out to Caimann to visit some students who live up on a “mountain.” We parked the Suzuki and then scrambled up an alley trail, precipitous at the best of times and now filled with fallen branches and palm fronds. Ooo, it was slippery.

Fortunately, we made it up and then met Saloubens, one of my second graders, near the top. His family’s house was in good shape. He was excited but seemingly bashful to see us; he slipped on his mother’s sandals and formed part of the usual queue to escort us about.

Saloubens, John Theodore, and Eneldine, all students in my class, live in that area. John Theodore and Saloubens are immediate neighbors. Saloubens and some others escorted us up to Eneldine’s house, which involved going down and then scrambling up a couple more hills to where the house perches atop a hill. The views were spectacular and the air was good.

The kids are excellent runners there, accustomed to sprinting up and down the hills with nothing better than sandals on their feet. They run for the joy of it, but I’d guess running down those hills, gaining momentum and then lunging up the next is preferable to fighting gravity constantly on the decline.

Eneldine’s house didn’t appear too bad, but her parents told us it had been damaged in the earthquake and the hurricane worsened the issues.

I was so happy to see them!

And we got to see John Theodore on the way out.

His manman told us that they’d lost some clothes in the siklon, including John Theodore’s uniform shirt. She didn’t think he could come to school. We assured her, as we always will, that he should absolutely come. Uniforms are not important. Not to us.

We all trekked back to the car together, gathering a larger following the closer we got to the main road. We’d put two boxes of the Manna Packs in the Suzuki, and as soon as Pastor took one out, slitting the tape with his key, even more people came forward, holding out their hands and setting supplication in their voices.
Our intention had been to give food to our students’ families, but Pastor didn’t turn anyone away. He got out the second box after the first was depleted and continued to relinquish packs to the supplicants. That is my word: relinquish, give up, surrender. But if I were him I would have done the same—how can we deny food to the hungry?

As we drove back, Pastor finally closing the box and declaring the impromptu distribution finished, we discussed what had happened. I mentioned to him my caution: I know sometimes people ask for food so they can then sell the food and gain profit. But in saying those words I recognized my fault: so what? Any one we saw is likely to be in an at least semi-desperate situation, and whether they want the food to take home and immediately cook, or whether they want to be prepared for the coming days, or whether they want to whip up the batch of rice and then sell it from the street side, we have no right to deny them. Perhaps the money is more useful now than the food itself; perhaps money can be used to buy water, soap, pay a hospital bill or purchase a new roof.

So I finished by saying aloud, “I hope that the people who needed food most got some. I hope that it will be helpful.”

Pastor agreed. “Everybody need manje,” he said in his typical way. (Manje is the word for both food and eat in Creole, and Pastor always says manje, regardless of the language of the rest of the sentence.)

We returned to the house, me hopeful that our students’ families would get their allotment, and half-discouraged anew at the sheer magnitude of need all around us.

Pastor then became occupied with other things and I looked around for what the pressing priorities were. There’s always something to do.

Short while later and Madame Rose suggested we drive over to the school and assess the damage.

By “we” she meant Kiki, Jonas, and I. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of driving through the hurricane-affected streets, but couldn’t deny her question “it’s a good idea?” Yes, it was.

So, we three took the Suzuki and slowly made our way to school.

I squeezed uncertainly past that downed tree with its hacked off trunk reaching out to pierce cars, then under the drooping electrical wire at the end of the road, and, with Kiki and Jonas helping as lookouts, we pulled out onto the main road and were away.

We were blessed with easy travels.

The gate was stubborn to open (as usual), and the courtyard was full of mango casualties (unusual), but otherwise the school was in praiseworthy good shape. The biggest issue was the second grade classroom upstairs. Through those lovely real windows with glass-panel openings, rain had lashed in and made a sizable pond on the floor. And (probably from clanging against the wall in the wind) the windows between classroom and hallways had broken, scattering glass over the floor. Both were difficult to remedy.

We started by sweeping and mopping downstairs, spreading out damp notebooks on the desks and benches. Nothing was really wet. A few posters had blown down and the ink had leeched away, but in the office and classrooms the great majority of papers and supplies had been sheltered. Praise God!

While I was sweeping the first grade classroom, littered with leaves, dried mud and small plaster debris, Madame Rose’s little brother JeanJean came inside.

He said he needed to take the Suzuki to go to Port and was leaving us his car.

I stared at him.

“Is your car a Standard? Because I can’t drive a Standard.” This is not exactly accurate but definitely safer than the alternative.

“Yes,” he said, then smiled and shook his head. “No it isn’t.”

Now I wasn’t sure what to believe.

So I fetched the key, him telling me to hurry, hurry, and he backed out the Suzuki, the 2014 Suzuki, and I pulled in his Suzuki—his 1990 something Suzuki. I got in the car, adjusted the seat, and then stared at the gear shift. There were no letters. I contemplated for a moment, then gestured to JeanJean. He complied, “I knew you would need me,” and went through the allotted spaces.

So then I started it up and pulled it into the vacant space, rueful.

This wasn’t the ideal vehicle by any means.

But it was Automatic and it was the same size as the other car, so managing it should be the same.

We continued cleaning.

Upstairs I stared at the glass, wondering what to do. Obviously picking up shards barehanded was a good way to wind up in the (less than sanitary) ER needing stitches (at least my Tetanus was up to date.)

I took a cloth from the office and wrapped it around my hand, picking up the pieces I could and putting them in the cardboard box trash can. It was serviceable for all but the littlest bits which needed sweeping, and the window with its jagged remnant.

Jonas found me trying to mop up the water, deemed it admirable but futile, and declared he’d sweep it out into the hall instead. He was right. The water was too deep for mopping with that skimpy yarn mop.

Kiki and I swept mango debris into a soggy pile in the courtyard and then we were ready to leave. Notebooks are drying, most of the glass is gone and all should be contained, every room has been swept and now we know—we again have been sheltered and blessed.

Driving home was adventurous. JeanJean’s car lacks the smoothness of Pastor’s Suzuki, and also the reliability. I noticed immediately the brakes are delayed, and on the second road when I had to brake quickly against an oncoming vehicle, the car died.

“Oh my goodness,” we all said, and I restarted the car. Yikes.

We laughed although I told them not to laugh because it was distracting.

And praise Jesus we got home safely.

Upon arriving at the house, Michama tells us that Marc Donald’s mama has called and said their house is really bad.

“You have to go there and take pictures,” she said.

Marc Donald apparently lives in the same area as Saloubens and Eneldine, where we went this morning, so I don’t know why we missed him.

I needed a break.

I washed up, we ate, and I considered that yes, Pastor had said he’d like to go out again tomorrow, but also those plans could (probably would) change, and we should not neglect this student. Especially as Madame Beverly had specifically said she wanted to know about Marc Donald’s house.

Blessedly, Madame Rose agreed that I should not drive there in JeanJean’s car.

“We need good machin,” she said.  

Pastor and JeanJean were in Port au Prince, so we couldn’t expect them before evening, and Felix was visiting his house across the river, so for the moment we lacked transportation.

In the end, Felix drove us over to visit Marc Donald.

I laughed because when we called him he said he’d be coming home soon, which I knew could be anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours.

It was almost an hour and a half.

We took six Manna Packs in my backpack—no crowds this time—and set off, me extremely dubious because I didn’t know the house and neither did Felix.

Madame Rose was confident we would find it.

Okay.

We did, of course. Because once we entered the neighborhood, this time opting for the road rather than the narrow branch-infested trail, we were adopted by neighbors who led the way. One was Michama, a student at school; her father led us up the winding route, through yards, under clotheslines and over felled tin roofs and fences. Then we ducked through a gate and stood before the house.

Manman was there and she took us around to the back to show us the damage. Actually, the house doesn’t look bad. I was expecting wreckage—the splintered remains of a house tumbled flat. But the house was never good. Kay Marc Donald pa bon.

Manman showed us tarp over tarp over bits of a stone wall. Then Papa appeared and told us the needs. Beverly said we have people ready to help with construction, funds for building. I was to find out what is needed—a new roof, new walls, et cetera.

We need a new house, completely.

They need to build from scratch, a proper house with solid walls and roof. Fortunately, Papa says the land is theirs.

We need a house for eight people. Our cousins in Maine come from a family of eight children, two parents, various dogs, cats and horses.

Their beautiful house provides bedrooms, hallways, living rooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and a wide yard to comfortably accommodate that number. Here, a house for the same number of people is expected to be perhaps four rooms. Marc Donald’s family’s house is currently two rooms, filled with laundry lines and a bed on one side and cooking pots on the other.

Felix and Rose shake their heads.

I’m not sure what their expectations are, that family, but surely they’re not too high. Anyway, I gave the Manna Packs to Manman, reminding her not to wash the rice before cooking, and we took pictures of the family in front of the house.

Then we waved goodbye and two or three children alternatively clutched me as we made our way down the steep hairpin trail.

My entourage clung on onto the “main street,” and I called back to Felix, “I think you’re taking some children home!”

But Felix halted at the felled tree before the main road and said it was time to go on alone.

So we waved goodbye again and returned to the car.

Felix wanted to show me the clinic where he works once a week, just a short drive down the road. We passed more wreckage—fields of banana trees splintered and sagging, and lots of mud.

At one point we reached road reparation: they’ve apparently been using tractors to redistribute and arrange the dirt. Right now there are banks of earth and two clear lanes for two directions of traffic. Ours was flat and straight, the oncoming lane atop a bank. We drove into our lane to meet a taptap coming, packed with people and an aggressive driver.

We were at a stalemate. One of us would have to back up; there was no driving around.

But then another taptap pulled up behind Felix, sandwiching us between two overloaded vehicles with dirt banks on both sides, and untinted windows to reveal a very conspicuous blan in the front seat.

Felix’s face set in that serious, displeased way and I got worried. He wasn’t shouting but he wasn’t yielding either. I didn’t want a fight to start.

Fortunately, reason was on Felix’s side, and the driver in front of us eventually backed up, most reluctantly. The passengers sitting along the flatbed’s rim waved arms or fists at us, Felix calling through the window, “Wout sa pour mwen, mon frère. La pou ou. This road is for me, my brother. There is for you,” in a most rational tone.

The driver was not pleased.

I breathed out after we’d left the dirt lanes behind.

The clinic isn’t damaged, but the yard around it is full of downed branches and broken trees, like everywhere. It’s sad to see every time.

On the way back the sky was full of glorious, brilliant colors. I kept turning around in my seat to gaze through the back windows.

There is no shortage of remarkable sunrises and sunsets here. Every day God renders a miracle in the skies.

So it’s been another productive day. Full. Always things to do and people to see. I’m tired and dirty a lot, but it’s good. I’m glad I can be here and see and aid in any small way. After all, this is home now. 

In front of Marc Donald's house

Some of the Family

Hurricane wreckage along National Road

Another glorious sunset

Sitting Through a Hurricane Was Never on my Bucket List: Hurricane Matthew visits Ti Goave, October 4 and 5 2016

12 A.M. 4 October 2016

Sitting through a hurricane was never on my bucket list.

Waking up through fits of dozing to a splash of rain or ferocious gust of wind slapping banana fronds against the window bars. If this wind was preying upon our New Hampshire home we’d pull the shutters over the double-paned windows, built to weather freezing, sleety winters. Here, in this capacious, breezy house, the full windows that bless us with light and air are four by four foot squares of screen behind iron grates. Previously I’d considered the grates as intruder-prevention. Now I see the prevention of debris: limbs, torn roofs and tumbled stone. In 150 mile per hour winds, I can’t fathom what may be wrenched free and whipped through the air. Praise God broken glass is not on the list of concerns. Not from my own windows at least.

Not sure what is a concern. The sea level’s what we’ve been watching all day. The first look this morning was of a gray ocean, rougher than usual but definitely docile for a hurricane’s path. Next look from a different vantage and time showed churning waves, swelling and crashing moody turquoise and steely blue on the charcoal sanded shore beneath white skies through which smoke colored clouds played tag. The sea was still quite calm, unthreatening, for the predicted tempest.

But we have little to fear from the sea, even if it does rise. Between us and the churning salt waters is not much land, true, but between us is a twenty-foot sea-wall, a border before that quarter-mile stretch. And around us is a two-storey concrete house stocked with food and water.

In the courtyard are several vehicles ready to take us inland, up the mountain to a friendly ministry, if that water level rises. Pastor has assured us we can go if we must. Of course, no one wants to leave.

Earlier today I packed a bag to grab lest we depart. As I collected toothbrush, soap, and prescriptions, I said to myself I didn’t want to go.

But my reluctance is mostly due to convenience. “Don’t you dare stay because it’s inconvenient to leave,” I then upbraided myself, praying God would keep my pride in check.

We’ve been praying for the storm to divert, of course. Please God, as you’ve done before, stem the tide and silence the winds. Bring calm to this place.

However, we’ve also prayed for protection. And right now, as the wind and rain continues, I pray for that continued shelter. For our loved ones, students and families. O Lord, shelter your children. Give them a dry place to lay their heads. Give them sturdy walls and a roof to hold against the wind. O, Father, get them free of the mud and coursing waters. Set the course of those waters around them—set your children on firm, dry, sturdy ROCK from which they will not be shaken. Lord, literally and physically be the foundation we need.

…

Father, let this be the worst and give us safe harbor. Shelter this country, buoyed by the prayers of your people. Let your name be glorified in this storm’s cessation. By your name, Lord, stop it.

Shield Haiti, shield Jamaica, take care of the Morses and family, of the Lopez’s family. O Father, keep us from harm.

…

Thank you for protecting your children through the earthquake—all these beautiful souls. Please protect them again. Keep Males and Anita safe, and safe-guard all the mountain dwellers from mudslides and wind damage.

Thank you most of all for the PROMISE that you are here, and should we live or die, we are with you—it is GAIN.

7:20 A.M. 4 October

Pastor and I were up before 4 looking. I was listening all night, dozing in fits, wearing earplugs against the increasingly tumultuous wind. Then Pastor knocked at my door around 3:30 and asked if I wanted to look. I nodded, dropping the earplugs into my pocket and followed him. It wasn’t bad at 4—windy and rainy but not bad. Pastor shined his powerful flashlight along the tree line, and at that point branches were swaying but nothing was broken. We looked out from the front balcony, then from the west window, then out the back windows, and then I returned to bed.

But perhaps around 5 it got fierce. Bad wind and rain. Roused from bed by the rage around 6:15. I got up and was dressing when Saintilus (our six-year old resident) came in. He said something about Beverly’s room and I remembered my responsibility to her belongings (she’d left for Port au Prince the day before as precaution, not wanting to be stranded in Ti Goave and miss her flight on Wednesday.) I finished dressing in an increased fervor then opened the door to Beverly’s room. Phano was already inside moving things. Those blessed windows were letting in blowing sheets of rain, soaking the floor and the things I’d neglected to move earlier. Fortunately, I had come in at midnight and turned up the mattress. Together, Phano and I shifted the bed further sideways and piled stuff against the shelves—the space farthest from the windows. We covered some things and the bed with the deflated air mattresses as we had no tarps.

We did the best we could and I prayed nothing was damaged irreparably. Then we shut the door and went downstairs. It was loud.

The house is always loud. But this time the greatest noise was the wind.

Just from the porch we could see broken branches. Actually, I’d noticed while dressing that the banana trees shielding my bedroom were gone—decimated by that wind.

After a short while Pastor and I went down to the ocean. The water is still low, thank God. But will it stay low? Despite the generator we can’t get on the internet, so I can’t see or give updates. The gorgeous giant mango tree at The Beach, the little resto-pub next to Pastor’s house, at the top of the sea wall, that gorgeous tree under which so many took shady repose, is kraze, broken. Half of it is spread through the yard, half of it still stands in mighty, broken glory.

Mangoes are down everywhere. Guess I didn’t notice the number of mango trees until I saw the amount of (sadly unripe) fruit on the ground. And those mango leaves are the ones that will blow into the house and pile up in puddles on the floor. Water is gushing down the gully (drainage ditch) at the roadside, but not overflowing.

I don’t know when an abatement is expected. No idea how long hurricanes usually last. I’m thinking of the neighbors, those on the ground, those in Chabanne, a neighborhood low down to the ocean, of Felix, who stayed the night at the hospital. Pastor is now sitting in the car listening to the radio for news. It’s pouring and blowing, I can see from where I’m standing in the doorway scribbling away with my red pen, still wearing the wet clothes in which we trekked down to the beach, scraping through the branches of a felled tree in the gateway of The Beach. I should probably change, but it seems futile. Surely I’ll just get wet again.

O please God, let this pass quickly. May this be the worst. Can’t get through on the phone to anyone. No communication possible.

Wednesday 5 October

Soon after writing yesterday I joined Pastor in the car to listen to the radio, and he tried calling with his phone. He was able to get through to Touttoute, who passed the phone to Beverly. They were staying at CLS in Port au Prince along with three other students and one teacher. She said they stayed up til 4 AM talking. That’s not unusual. The last time the boys visited they were up until 3 AM and then had to arise at 5:30 for church.

It was good to talk to Beverly, who said the weather in Port was nothing more than light wind and rain. After we talked, Pastor encouragingly rubbing my back, worried I was worried, we went inside for breakfast. Spaghetti and bread and peanut butter—typical breakfast fare.

Then I washed dishes. Later in the morning we drove out in the Patrol, the family and I. I got the front seat where I could take proper video and photos through the unshaded line in the tinted windshield, and Madame Rose, Michama and Lhens sat in the second row. We had to wait in the road for trees to be cleared. Jonas, Kiki and Viriel from the house were working with other men and machetes to hack away at the trees. They lopped off branches then, if necessary, commenced chopping up trunks into moveable pieces. We tailed them up the road to the last block, where one of the men persisted in assaulting the trunk with only one arm wielding a machete. I imagined how much easier this would be with a chainsaw. But the work was surprisingly quick. And they did it all in the driving wind and rain, Viriel without even a jacket, his white tshirt plastering to his torso, shorts and flipflops making me worry for his health. Goodness, they were all prone to get sick if they kept in those drenched clothes.

But after the last tree was shifted out of the way just enough to let a car pass by, threateningly close between wall and severed trunk, Jonas, Kiki, and Viriel opened the hatchback clambered dripping into the third row of seats.

We turned cautiously, as always, onto the main road, driving beneath a drooping electrical wire, and saw to the right a large tree blocking the whole street. Well, Felix wouldn’t be coming home from the hospital that way.

We turned left and I held my phone up to the windshield recording Ti Goave under siege. A surprising number of people were out, most of them on foot.

I wondered where they were going, but then considered that being out in the rain might be the better alternative. Slogging barefoot through puddles, embracing the wetness, was probably preferable to sitting at home, hunched up and lamenting every drip. There was nowhere they could go to be dry, so they might as well be wet and look around at other people being wet.

Soon we reached the Spectacle: the river. Our school is located on National Road, the road which connects East and West, the road we take to and from Port au Prince and on which many are uncomfortable driving. The bridge connecting the edge of Ti Goave with Tapion was gone.

You would never have known a bridge was there.

As we approached the river in the Patrol (Pastor’s impressive, deeply-tinted windowed, don’t mess with me vehicle), the number of people increased, and were more stationary. Clumps of folks in everything from appropriate brilliant yellow rain slickers to bare feet and tank tops were formed with their backs to us. I was recording video on my phone pressed close to the windshield, wondering what the hold-up was. Then I gasped.

“Oh, my,” I said, and stopped recording. For there was the river, or what was usually a river. Then it was a swirling, churning, frothing, rushing chocolate mass, unforgiving and so, so fast. It shouted death to anyone who might try to cross. That was my thought, anyway.

Once this summer while still living in Korea I was en route to a meeting and noticed pedestrians gazing down the street and gesturing. After a few steps I looked up and saw to what they pointed: a billowing column of black smoke against the sky. I immediately thought of 9/11, of bombs, of plane crashes, of disasters, and of my loved ones, somewhere in the city.

As it turned out, there was a fire in the empty building across from my destination. I stood in my appointed place with a mass of spectators, our heads tilted back to watch the orange flames and erupting smoke. No one was hurt (to my knowledge) as the building had been vacant for construction. Fire fighters were already hosing down the incendiary floors when I arrived.

But that ominous black cloud was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.

I immediately recalled it upon seeing the raging river.

It didn’t look like a river anymore. It was angry, fierce, monochromatic and destructive. As we stood at a (seemingly) safe distance on the embankment to take photos, the group near us suddenly jumped back shrieking. They felt (or thought they felt) the earth shift beneath their feet and feared collapsing into the waters below.

It was a legitimate fear.

We left soon afterwards, piling dripping back into the Patrol to splash homeward.

When we pulled up to the gate, however, I hopped out to quickly check on the ocean again. It was still contained, waters sullied but not pounding the wall.

Later after I’d wrung out my dripping clothes in the shower I laid down wrapped in my sheet, still mercifully dry. The wind was still raging outside, loud and disruptive, but considering how well we had withstood so far, I wasn’t really afraid.

However, seeing that river reaffirmed my concern for our neighbors, our students, and any not blessed with such a solid house as ours.

After I’d risen with Saintilus, who had taken to shadowing me after Beverly’s departure and frequently came into my room for no other purpose than to be held, the storm had lessened.

We went downstairs where the family was more or less gathered, outside door opened to lighter skies and wind. From there on, perhaps 2 PM, the storm came in spurts, but the wind and rain were no longer consistently tempestuous.

We stood on the roofed porch and watched light rains falling, smiled at Matthew’s departure, then retreated hastily when a downpour ensued and blew water into our faces.

At about 4 PM Felix and I drove out in the Suzuki, the automatic vehicle which Beverly and I drive, stopping for Kiki who closed the gate behind us. The sky was darkening as evening approached but the rain was light. However, I purposely put my soggy sneakers back on as I expected us to trod through puddles or at least be caught in another sudden downpour.

We went first to the hospital as Felix had to return a key—he said returning the key alleviated him of another night shift duty. We tailed him into the hospital (the same one to which we’d brought Jameson) and saw a couple of patients on those ER cots, in front of windows partially covered but surely not sufficient shelter against the rain.

I was glad the visit was brief. I don’t know if I could work there—I’d surely be overcome with frustration at the sheer lack.

We left the hospital and Felix took us on a cruise around town. It was encouraging; surely Ti Goave has been blessed by God’s sheltering hand.

Surely God listened to all those prayers sent up on our, and many on my own, behalf. Thank you, you faithful!

The market was completely deserted—of course. Folks were walking, dodging puddles and streams. We got closer to Chabanne and suddenly the road was gone—it was just water.

Cocoa colored and flowing swiftly, it obscured a three-way intersection and was coursing toward the ocean. A group of people stood in the middle directing traffic. I’m not sure if that was their sole purpose, or they also just needed some entertainment.

Felix sat for a moment contemplating, then drove forward.

I was for the first time afraid, at least highly nervous, afraid we would be stuck in the water or be swept off course by the flow. I remembered Luke saying to be aware.

“Lots of people come to a river or water in the road and say, ‘We can make it.’ For lots of people that’s the last thing they say,” he’d cautioned me on the phone—one of our conversations in which he advised me to leave Ti Goave but respected my choice to stay.

I didn’t want our last words, or at least the last words we said in that car, to be that we could make it through this flood.

I closed my eyes.

Fortunately, Felix isn’t foolhardy. (A good quality in a doctor.)

 “Okay, Jesus,” I said, as Beverly has taught me. Kiki and Felix laughed.

We got out. Felix got advice on turning from those traffic directors in the middle of the deluge and we were neatly free of the water within two minutes.

“You don’t trust me. You don’t trust my driving,” Felix said.
“I trust you. I don’t trust the situation,” I answered as we drove up a flood-free street.

Felix stopped frequently to call through the window at friends, students, co-workers. Everyone responded favorably. The most common response was “byen, grace a Dieu,” and “n’ap swiv,” which, according to Felix, is an informal sort of “we’re just watching.”

We saw a large, tinted-window Patrol across the way. It was Pastor. We rolled down the window to greet him.

“Ah, I see you and say, ‘Somebody took my machin!’” He was out cruising the town on his own. He said the church was okay—no serious damage. We drove our separate ways again.

At one point we parked beside a giant tree. Felix spoke with some young ladies, one in a thick, furry hoodie, then we stepped out and ducked into an alley. At the end was another large tree, broken and atop rubble. There had been a house there; the tree had crushed it and killed a young boy.

Felix said they brought him to the hospital. I wondered how they would clean up the debris, packed in among other houses as it was.

We took pictures then ducked through doorways, dodging gutter water into a house. There was no electricity, no light, so my feet stumbled. We went upstairs into a bedroom where a young woman was sitting on a bed with her foot bandaged.

“My patient,” Felix said.

One of the household brought a flashlight so he could check her injury. By that time I’d gotten up my own flashlight app and could light the way for our feet on the way out.

We got back to the car and headed home, dusk falling. Already clean-up was underway, but it was still depressing to see so many broken trees.

I can’t help thinking about all the wasted bananas and mangoes. The light is changed all over with so many limbs and trees fallen.

We got back to the house and the generator was on. The girls were making popcorn and everyone was home and safe, if not wholly dry.

I was able to call Luke and my mom, staying on the line just long enough to say we were well, please pass on the message. No internet was available (still isn’t.)

We got our popcorn and laughed together. Pastor started a game of dominoes with Madame Rose and Lhens. Felix and I borrowed Beverly’s DVD case and watched Invictus.

After the movie we both went to bed. It was cool and quiet save for the occasional thunder.

This morning is similar. I don’t know if Beverly will be flying out today. It’s still raining and cool. There’s little wind and no thunder. Last night Pastor said the thunder and lightning portended the end of the hurricane. I wouldn’t know.

I feel wiped out—like the onset of a cold (grippe), and Saintilus, too. He’s sniffling and coughing.

After breakfast we’re supposed to head out and visit some students, bring them food. Hopefully there will be school tomorrow…some of our kids depend on school for a meal, not to mention they just need something to DO.

So maybe this week’s curriculum will just continue last week’s….

Beverly’s room is a mess. Mine is okay. There are many wet places in the house, and leaves are blown everywhere. The banana trees behind my room are gone.

But WOW, praise God we are OK. We are WELL. We are still residing in a secure, dry, comfortable house with plumbing and furniture and spare, dry clothes. We have food, water, and light. We have high-powered vehicles to take us about. We are blessed.

I pray today we can help share that blessing with others.

Later—

After breakfast we drove out near Chabanne to visit some students. We have a few students who live down there, dangerously close to the ocean which came in dangerously high.

Visiting that place wasn’t shocking to me –  not after being down in the Ravine in Port au Prince, seeing those “camp” houses – but it’s still difficult to accept their reality.

This is the way people live.

They live in these shacks with tin roofs, tin and tarp walls, with dirt floors, with constant seepage and damp from sea and rain. They live with mosquito larvae in their water and sleep with an impossible number of people, crowding bed and floor alike.

Madame Rose is Haitian and she can’t accept it.

She shakes her head, says, “Wow.”

It’s a harsh reality.

But a blessed one.

We stood and peered into one house right at the water’s edge. It wasn’t that way before the siklon. Before it was a risky but (apparently) acceptable distance from the shoreline. Now, it’s half consumed.

Manman told the story that she woke up in the night to hear the sea, grabbed the children and rushed from the house.

Later, perhaps just minutes later, the sea moved in, swallowing earth from underneath and collapsing the rusted tin wall.

It’s a shame about the house, but it’s more of a blessing to hear this story from the inhabitants—they are still here to talk about it.

We passed out some Manna Pack rice (thank you, Feed My Starving Children!) and dutifully took photos of the downed trees, semi-collapsed house, and the ever-smiling children, with reddish (malnutritioned) hair and questionable sandals. When we arrived two of the little girls were trying to bathe, ducking partially out of sight to splash their partially clothed bodies.

We saw three of the four students, ones I unfortunately don’t know well being mostly confined to the second grade class. In the next few days we should go out more. It was good to see the kids eating when we arrived, but it’s better to know they have those Manna Packs, too. School won’t start again until Monday (and then if there’s no rain!)

(to be continued...)

The river

Crossing the flooded street

The fallen tree

At the seaside

Risen sea

The house the Sea ate

Children at the Seaside

Not Home Yet

My hand imposed by my student Loudianna's hand, waiting parent pick-up (or taxi pick-up) after school

Jezu se tout bagay pou mwen.
Jesus is all things to me.

This is a song we sang in church last Tuesday night. The words got me thinking. See, in this church in Ti Goave, we don’t sing a song through once and then move on. The words are sung repeatedly, and, as Beverly notes, are able to be appreciated, chewed over, reflected upon, agreed with and related to.


Those words of Jesus being all things got me thinking.

As Beverly and I are yet incompetent in Creole so that we can’t follow much of a sermon, church provides ample time for reflection. Usually we study our Bibles, exchange notes, observe the congregation, do some journaling.

I didn’t pay attention to what Beverly was doing (it’s possible she was dozing) because I set myself to writing, thinking about those words and their relevancy to Haiti.

Jesus is the only hope these people have.

Truly, Jesus is the Only Hope for everyone, our only Salvation and the only Satisfaction to be found anywhere in or out of this broken world.

However, most of us don’t consider Jesus as the Only Hope. We don’t consider Him at all, more often than not. We of the First World, the Age of Technology and Convenience and Microwave Society, we consider a hundred, a thousand solutions before we turn to Jesus.

Except these “solutions” are misnomers. They are temporary fixes, distractions and readily dissolved, like putting a band aid over a laceration that needs cleaning and stitching. Cleaning the cut will be painful, stitches laborious and strenuous, but they are the only true way to heal the wound.

Jesus is the only Healer. The only Remedy. He’s the only Answer.

Many Haitians know and accept that.

You ask someone how they are doing and they answer, “Je suis bien, grâce a Dieu,” or “Mwen byen, mesi Jezi.” “I am well, thanks be to God,” and “I am well, thank you, Jesus.”


These words may sometimes be a rote response, but in my experience, they are heartfelt.

The person saying these words is truly thankful to God for doing well, for being alive, for being able to walk around, interact, give an answer at all. She is thankful for life, although life probably involves questioning where the next meal is coming from, toting water from a cistern, washing with a bucket and sponge, and trekking dusty, sewage-drained streets to reach school or work.


It’s a hard life wherever you go, but those raised in the Third World know no other kind.

They know trial and struggle and hard work that leads to firmly closed doors. They know generations of poverty and illiteracy. They know the mountains are always followed by more mountains.

They are grateful to God for another day of breath, life, and the chance to praise Him.

In the First World, we have access to medical care. We have emergency services. In the United States my mother dialed 911 when I had continuous chest pain. She was on the phone with a medical advisor within a minute and an ambulance was preceded by a police officer and an EMT who carried medical equipment right into our home, at 12:30 AM.

In Korea my friend drove me to the hospital and within ten minutes I was on a gurney bed being hooked into an IV. In both countries the staff were knowledgeable and considerate. They checked in frequently to ensure there were sufficient blankets, tubes weren’t crossed and all was generally well.

The sheets were clean, the floors sterile, and I had no doubts all equipment was strictly sanitary.

That’s not the case in the third world.

Here in Ti Goave, the hospital is not a place you want to be healthy or sick. It’s simply not clean.

When we took Jameson, Beverly warned us not to touch our faces, not to touch anything. I was tempted to sit on a waiting bench but Jonas shook his head.

“It’s not clean.”

Well, what is life like if even the hospital is found unhygienic? When even the hospital is not a refuge for the sick and weary?



The church we attend is largely open-air. There is a concrete structure with pillars and a roof, there is a poured floor. But there are no walls. Benches are set in three sections and up front is a stage and a pulpit. The air flows through. A generator is powered up on Sunday mornings for audio and on Tuesday evenings for light as the sun sets well before service ends.

We know that a church is not a building. Thank God, because we might be insufficient.

A church is a body, a group of faithful followers of Christ.

Certainly there is no lack of those faithful here.



God is the one on whom these people depend. He is the reliable source of income. He is the bread-winner, the caretaker. He is the Provider and Protector.

I’ve said before there is nothing consistent in Haiti except the heat. I stand by that now, except to add that God is constant. God is dependable. But His sovereignty is not confined to Haiti.



Madame Eunide, mother of the beautiful twins, put her faith in God before her faith in surgery. She declined the doctor’s suggestion, saying that God would take care of her and her unborn babies. He did. That doctor witnessed an “unnatural” occurrence. We say “miracle.”

Our dear friend Touttoute, a twelth-grade student at the main campus of Christian Light School in Port au Prince, made me chuckle last weekend as he scrunched up his face before swallowing a pill.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked.

“Oh, your facial expression was funny.” He stared at me. “Oh, were you praying?”

“Of course,” he answered.

I nodded. Yes, of course. Faith before medicine. Turn to God, the Great Physician, before turning to man-made remedy.

It never occurred to me to pray before taking medicine.
Wow.
How shameful is that?

As believers in Christ, we profess to walk by faith, not by sight. We profess to trust God before anything else.

How truly are we living that, fellow believers? How much are we truly trusting in God first? Aren’t we so often living and acting with God as the back-up plan? We make our own plans, attempt to determine our own steps, and then pray to God as a sort of after-thought, rather than starting with God and relying wholly on Him through all things.

He did tell us to pray, mandated that we should pray without ceasing, giving thanksgiving for all things and giving up all worry.


We can always pray more.
I can certainly pray more, and should pray more.

And I need to recognize anew, with conviction, that Jesus is the Only Answer. He is not only the Only Hope, the Only Savior, but He is the Only Joy.


Jesus is the only source of true Joy.


Joy does not come from the world.

The world cannot satisfy us.

No matter how beautiful the sights around us, no matter how generous the people, how lavish the settings or loving the people, how delicious the food, how exhilarating the experience, how high the goals—none of these worldly pleasures last.

Even the person whom we love most, perhaps that soul mate who we adore as beautiful inside and out, even the best friend who seems to know us better than we know ourselves, even those reliable, supportive, ever-loving members of our network—they cannot satisfy. People will always disappoint us. Always.

I will always disappoint the ones I love and those who love me.

Because we are humans in a broken world and inevitably we will stumble in selfishness.

We are consistently inconsistent and unable to uphold our word at all times.

We change and shift like shadows through moods and circumstance.


God does not.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Praise God. He is faithful when we are not. And He is the source of Joy. He is the source of fulfillment.


Recently Beverly and I listened to the song “Where I Belong” by the Christian band Building 429, a song which previously I would sing with gusto. One of the last times I had sung along was driving back to my parents’ house, beating the steering wheel in time, feeling the familiar ache of longing, knowing that that small town southern New Hampshire was not where I belonged.


Now I live in Haiti. I’m living my dream. For ten years I have longed to come to Haiti to stay, to dwell among the coconut palms and the people, the mountains and the mayhem, greeting strangers with a smile and a “Bonjou” and sweating in the constant heat.

Well, here I am, a resident with a room in a lovely house and a teaching position at a blossoming school. Although it’s not quite a month since my arrival I have been adopted and loved on, and have adopted and loved, with a humbling abundance.

I am happier here and now than I have been in a long time. Consistently happy—with eagerness for each day, for each upcoming event and that whimsical sadness when another day closes. It’s a deep rooted contentment, a certainty of belonging.

Suddenly I don’t want to agree with those words. “All I know is I’m not home yet, this is not where I belong. Take this world and give me Jesus…”


Wow.

I don’t want to trade my world for Jesus. Not anymore.

Uh, oh.

Pwoblem, as we say so frequently.


When Jesus said we must forfeit the world or risk losing our souls, He did mean the world. That includes all of the rottenness—the disease, the war, the violence, the sorrow, the despair, the injustice, the aches and pains, the debts, the worries, the unpleasant people, the fears. But it also includes the wonders—the mountains, the sea and its palm trees, the sunsets and sunrises, the stars, the perfect hands of our lover, the laughter and merriment of the children.

Everything of this world is inferior to Christ.

We, as humans, are of the world, until we are made new by Christ.


Nothing is as important as Jesus.

He is all things to me.

Jezi se tout bagay pou mwen.


He comes before the rotten unpleasantries.

But He must also come before the dear wonders.

He must come before His Creation—before His marvelous Nature and before His beautiful children.

Even our dear children who are so easy to love, dear Jameson and his gap-toothed smile and adoring squeezes, dear Shemaly who grabs my hand and kisses it and runs back to press a caramel into my hand before her mother leads her through the gate after school, dear Adeline with her impossibly big eyes and shy smile that lights up her face when I smile at her.

Even these marvelous Creations are not the Source of Joy.

That’s hard for me to recognize.

I told Beverly that it’s hard to consider Heaven as home. Hard to consider a place so beyond comprehension. I cannot imagine Heaven, can’t relate to it—that place we speak of with streets of gold, no more tears, and no end.

I cannot imagine this absence of worry, lack of doubt, relief from all responsibility and pain.


But our feeble-minded human comprehension is not important in Heaven.

Everything we worry about in this life will be obsolete in Heaven.

There, only one thing matters. The thing that should matter most on earth is the basis of Heaven.

“It’s all about the presence of God,” Beverly said. “It’s about being in God’s presence.”

We sat at our favored quiet place, the retreat where we gaze over the mountains and the sea and sing of God’s amazing grace and faithfulness, read scripture and reflect.

“I think that when I get to Heaven, every question I’ve ever had, everything I wanted to know, will be answered in an instant," she continued.

Our eyes met, and I nodded. “Yes, and they won’t matter anymore.”

In Heaven, all that matters will be Jesus. There we will meet Him face to face.


I cannot imagine this intimacy with God. Who can imagine God’s face?

But also I cannot imagine a time without worry, a time without pain, without doubt or fear, a time without time.

And right now I’m struggling with the thought of giving up this world, this place and these people who feel like home.



I don’t have a solution. As I write this I know I’m not fixed. I haven’t overcome this worldly mindset. I’m not certain that Jesus is my utter All in All and comes first in all things.

I’ve got a lot of growing left to do.

A lot of burdens, habits, and notions to give up. A lot of faith to build. However, we all know that recognizing you have a problem is the first step.


Jesus is all things to me.

Those are powerful words.

Words I see lived every day here in Haiti where electricity is unreliable (and generators run out of gas.) Driving is an adventure where traffic laws are actually suggestions. Food, medicine, clean water, and government aid are (perhaps sporadic) blessings. It’s dangerous. It’s hot. It’s hard.

Life for most is much harder than for me, residing in this well-constructed, large house that has yet to run out of food and water, yet to leave me feeling insecure.

Jesus is all things to many of these people, who wake up not knowing if they will eat today, not knowing if there will be money enough to buy food or medicine or soap.

Not knowing if today there will be another political rally that gets out of hand, or the moto they take to school collides with an over laden taptap, or the outlet will burst and electrocute those nearby.


Jesus is the only Comfort, the only Solace, the only Hope, and the One to whom they look for all answers. He is the Source of Joy.

Tonight when the thunder crashed particularly forcefully, rocking the house with its might, little Saintilus jumped under the table with a shout of “Allelujah!”

We all laughed.

But how appropriate that he should call on God in his fear, react with an expression of glory rather than of crudity.

Last week when Hosanna and I washed the dishes we spoke about church.

“Beverly and I can’t understand, and we really want to because church is so important!” I said, speaking in that somewhat coherent Creole and French slur (Hosanna cannot speak English.)
“But we love to sing! Do you like to sing?”

She nodded and smiled. “Oui.”

I smiled, too. “I think all Haitian people like to sing!”

Frequently the house is filled with voices raised in song.

Pastor sings constantly, the girls sing while they’re working, music plays and voices join. The cavernous space makes wonderful echoing acoustics.

A little over two years ago I visited a Haitian friend’s family in New Jersey. His mother had been living there for seven years but still couldn’t understand or speak English, and hadn’t been educated to speak French.

You can imagine her job situation, the struggle to get by with Haitian Creole as your primary tongue and a lifetime of letdowns. Her husband had abandoned their family in favor of a new one years before, leaving her primary caregiver and breadwinner for four children.

When we visited her daughter’s New Jersey home I watched her dance and sing in the kitchen, waving a spatula and shuffling in front of the back door. She was oblivious to all but the song in her heart pouring over her lips.

She was praising God.

“She’s thanking God for everything he’s done,” her daughter told me.

“By the blood of Jesus we’ve been saved,” they agreed.

I realize that she, that abandoned manman, was never the caregiver or breadwinner on her own. God was.

Jesus is all things to me.


Jezi se tout bagay pou mwen.

I’m doing well, thanks be to God.

I had a good day, by the grace of God.

J’ai passé une bonne journée, grâce a Dieu.

Mesi, Jezi.

Thank you, Jesus.


Jesus is the only source of Hope, the only source of Love, the only source of Joy.

I hope your day is filled with all of those, and you can recognize the ceaseless source from which they come.

As Beverly says to everyone she meets, “Pase yon bon journen avek Jezi. I wish you a good day with Jesus.”

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, give your requests to God.” ~Philippians 4:6 NIV


For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ~2 Corinthians 5:1-8 NIV

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” ~Hebrews 13:8 ESV

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ~Luke 14:24-27 NIV

“Where I Belong” Building 429
Sometimes it feels like I'm watching from the outside
Sometimes it feels like I'm breathing but am I alive
I won't keep searching for answers that aren't here to find

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

So when the walls come falling down on me
And when I'm lost in the current of a raging sea
I have this blessed assurance holding me.

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

When the earth shakes I wanna be found in You
When the lights fade I wanna be found in You

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong
[x2]

Where I belong, where I belong
Where I belong, where I belong



The view from our ocean-side quiet place





Second grade

Loving is Easy: Starting School

On Monday we started school at Christian Light School, Petit Goave.

Students begin gathering in the small courtyard at 7:30. They are supposed to line up by grade: 3 year olds against the wall, then 4 year olds, 5 year olds, 6 year olds/first graders and finally 7 year olds/second graders beside the stairs.

Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 we arrive, Madame Beverly and Madame Rose, the directors, Jonas, the handy man/custodian, Saintilus, a student now living with us, and myself. We deposit our belongings in the office, all the way greeting and being greeted by children and a few parents.

There’s lots of grabbing, hand-holding, hugging and kissing. There’s lots of smiling and of course some tears from the tiny ones.

That first day there was lots of crying. It seemed the whole 3 year old class was weeping. A few of the tiny ones had tears wetting their faces silently, which seemed worse than the ones audibly wailing.  

Some of them came with handy green aprons stitched boldly with their names in red thread. Many of them don’t like to talk at first, especially to a white person. Blans are yet an unfounded phenomenon to them.

But apart from those frightened, bewildered little ones, Monday was rife with smiles. Everyone was happy to be there. Beverly was amazed at the number of parents milling in the courtyard.

“Wow!” she repeated.

Clearly parents have come to recognize what a good thing is happening here, what a blessing for their children to attend CLS, and they are as eager for school as their offspring.

Every morning after lines are formed the students pledge and sing. They sing the Haitian National Anthem, right hand held horizontal with thumb touching the heart. Then they recite the Pledge to the Christian flag in English and French. And they sing one of the bouncy Sunday school songs. This week it was “God is So Good.” The words are simple and beautifully true, ringing forcefully as the students jump up and down to the beat.

“Bondye m’ nan bon. Bondye m’ nan bon. Bondye m’ nan bon. E li bon pou mwen. God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He’s so good to me,” we all clap and sing, bouncing up on our toes like fools (“I will become even more undignified than this…” ~2 Samuel 6:22) before landing hard and freezing on the final word.

Beverly always performs with the same enthusiasm as the students, although many of them like to spin in circles and she’ll face forward. This seems wise, as most of those spinning students will then collapse into one another, or any nearby obstacle.

Each song is offered in English, French and Creole.

The teachers sing, also. Before we go out to join the masses of orange (the school “uniform” is the orange t-shirt printed with the name and logo paired with navy bottoms of free design), the teachers gather in the nearest classroom and sing a devotional song. We use song sheets of paired choruses in English and French or Creole. We always sing in two languages, pray together, and then greet one another with hugs, kisses, and “Jesus loves you, Jezi renmen ou.”

After this cheerful exchange, we troop outside, shooing students along, and the morning routine commences.

What I remember best about Monday, my first day teaching as a full-time missionary in Haiti, is the happiness. The students were so happy to be there.

They didn’t care that our classroom was dirty, gritty with dust and hung with spider webs. They didn’t mind that they had only narrow benches from which to sit and work. There was no chalk board, no desks, not even a water bucket.

Instead, they said “Wow!” as they turned into the classroom from the dismal concrete hall, faces lighting up at the light in the room with its finely painted white walls cleverly designed with bold borders and real windows, not just cement blocks with artful holes.

They were delighted to sit in such a room, and delighted to have not one but two teachers, two grown persons who spoke to them with interest, asked and used their names and sang with a smile. Of course I had the added advantage of novelty: a blan to stay with them all day, as eager to give hugs and head pats as they were eager to receive them.

But my dear Haitian co-teacher (hired the previous evening) Madame Alice proved herself more than competent in her immediate seizure of control and engagement. While I stood awkwardly at a loss, uncertain of schedule and placement, Madame Alice roamed the room, pulling students off one bench to fill another, tipping up chins and asking names, singing about the day with loud, instigative clapping.

 Yes, it was good to be in that room with its painted walls and windows letting in the sunshine of the day. Downstairs was perpetually gloomy as the rooms were basic gray and the “windows” chiseled out cement blocks disallowing much entrance of sun. Upstairs a step into the hallway and the breeze welcomed you; the cheery yellow of the large open space at the front of the building set you at ease. I was certainly grateful to be up there.

It wasn’t smooth by any means, that first day. There were the expected hiccups and the unavoidable awkwardness. Readily obvious was my own lack of Creole and French paired with Madame Alice’s lack of English. Lately I find myself unable to complete a sentence in any of the three languages, splicing together words to make semi-coherent babble. That’s how we communicate here, Beverly and I. We say what we can in whatever language we can. Then we wait for a decent translator to clarify.

On Monday there were things to pass out and rules to set. There was a room to arrange and tallies to take: who has their books, who has a shirt, who brought a water bottle, who remembers how to properly use a toilet. The numbers are always disappointing.

As of this week, the second week of school, no child in our class of 19 has the complete set of books, and most are missing half. Anyone who teaches knows the frustration of an unprepared class, of students lacking books or materials. You can scold a child who left his book at home, encourage or shame her into remembering it tomorrow, but you can’t in any decent conscience scold a child whose parents can’t afford the books. You certainly can’t scold a child who doesn’t have books because the bookstore didn’t have them. Or they haven’t been printed yet. (We learned that the government sought to delay the first day of school until October, although most schools had set to open the 12^th of September. Many high schools thus began with the books not printed due to the confusion.)

Madame Alice helped arrange the students to be evenly spaced, tucking their backpacks out of the way and reiterating in French her name, where we were, and students’ names.

Students filed in and out to use the bathroom. This was the cause of our first cas d’urgence. One little girl unwittingly locked herself in the bathroom, pushing in the lock and then holding onto the knob so the door could not open to let her out. I noticed the crisis when a blockade of students formed in the hall, and drawing near, heard the wails of Eneldine inside.

Not being able to speak Creole enough to say, “Let go of the door!” or “Back away!” I tried to comfort.

“It’s okay. Eneldine, calm down,” I cooed, and told Jonas we needed a key. I didn’t know if such a key existed. But we needed to open that door.

Meantime, I returned to the room and rifled through my bag in search of a lock-pick, a bobby pin perhaps. I came up with nothing save a nail file, and fruitlessly tried to slide this between lock and frame. I thought I might have to throw my shoulder against the door (it seemed flimsy enough to give by my feeble force,) but was saved from this dangerous endeavor (the risk of bowling over Eneldine and causing far more chaos than necessary stayed me) when the door clicked and I wrenched it open.

There was Eneldine, tear stained and rubbing a knuckle across her eyes, sobs subsiding.

I squatted down to her, saying soothing nothings and then demonstrated the door lock mechanism.

“Pa puisse, Don’t push it,” I said, demonstrating that by pushing the button the door would stick, but by merely turning the knob the lock released and the door was free.

Then we splashed water on her face and dried with my skirt and we returned to class.  

Eneldine has Down’s Syndrome.  It’s a miracle she attends school at all—Haitian society tends to hush up mental illness and handicaps, tucking away the needy in dim back rooms rather than permitting them in public. In an environment where there is virtually no special needs care available, this is not excusable but is perhaps understandable.

I shared with Beverly my surprise that Eneldine attends school.

She looked at me with those raised eyebrows and still face that accompanies the “I know—it’s a terrible reality” situations.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And she would be hidden away, if her father weren’t a church member.”

Well, Praise God! Church members are setting themselves apart.

So Eneldine is part of her class, and Beverly has been training the others to watch out for her.

“They’re the ones who are going to have to take care of her in the future,” she says. It’s true.

I have no idea what the future holds for Eneldine. I wish there was more I could offer her.

But her presence in class is a blessing in surprising ways.

Special needs, handicaps, disabilities, people with these conditions have always been rather a mystery to me. I’ve never had a special acclimation or understanding of proper behavior. Most of my life I’ve over-thought, walked on eggshells or behaved abnormally because I thought I should around people with disabilities.

Now, there is no way to treat Eneldine differently. I can’t.

There are eighteen other children in that room: the smallest in the school (there are 30 six year olds!) All of these children need attention and aid—some of them are behind, learning at a slower pace than their peers. But mostly they are just seven years old, an age of imagination and activity and affection. They all want to be sat with, worked with, touched and loved on. And I want to do so for each one of them.

I cannot make the extra time or cloning myself to sit always with Eneldine, to hold her pencil or chalk, to keep pressure on her shoulder or hold her hand, have her repeat every word after me. I must treat her like I treat the others, with equal love and affection and occasional spurning: Wait. Tann. Chita. Sit. Not right now. Pa kounyeya. Demain. Tomorrow.

Eneldine, walk, mache. Eneldine, kanpe, stand up. Eneldine, let go. Pa kenbe.

Beverly says right now she’s being “mean.”

“I’m being really…firm with the first graders right now. Because I want them to learn!”

She tells us this while driving home from school, having started English classes with the five and six year olds.

“I’ll be nice later. Now, it’s, ‘Oh, pa respekte! Ale! Oh, disrespectful, go! If you are talking, I don’t want you here.’”

This morning she sent one of my class out from Recreation because he was talking during prayer. She had him write lines in the kitchen, bending over the bench to copy “I will not talk during prayer” ten times.

This Monday started the second week of school, when the first and second graders remain until 2 PM and a routine should begin to set. And with that routine must come discipline, maintenance of rules.

In the morning we gathered for assembly, taking advantage of that large open yellow breezy space upstairs, the students standing in their horizontal lines, seven year olds back against the wall, three year olds at the front.

Beverly called three students at a time to lead the group in song (The B-I-B-L-E) and the Bible verse (John 3:16), then all were sent back to listen to Madame Patricia read the story. We use the Jesus Storybook Bible in Creole to read from, and the larger printed English edition to show pictures. While Madame Patricia read, frequently stopping to ask the children questions, Madame Agenose walked among the students with the picture-book.

Today we heard the story of the Way Made in the Sky, when John baptizes Jesus and God’s Spirit descends as a dove.

The kids made appreciatively disgusted faces when Madame Patricia told that John ate locusts with honey kriket ak myel.

After the story was finished, Madame Beverly and Madame Rose took the floor again to give announcements. Students were reminded to keep their pencil cases and Bible verse notebooks in the classroom, to bring a water bottle every day (and tell Mom today if they needed one), and to properly use the toilet.

Three year olds possibly need aid using a toilet. They may be so tiny they can barely scramble onto it, they probably cannot finagle the buttons and zippers of their shorts, and don’t understand the imperative chore of washing their hands.

The returning students know all of these things, and are accustomed to dealing with the complications of tucking undershirts into waistbands and pulling belts snug. They know to wet their hands, rub the soap into a lather and rinse. They know that only one at a time holding the hall pass (a former medicine jar) can they exit the classroom and trek to the bathroom at the back of the school.

The first floor restroom students use consists of a tile floor with central drain, two stalls and two toilets. Perhaps when designed the surfaces were white. I certainly hope they were cleaner than they are now.

The restroom is unisex and no, the stall doors do not close.

Before you freak out and start to call Protective Services, remember where we are.

We are in Haiti.

This is a sentence Beverly and I recite often, perhaps more than we ought, being insensitive to our Haitian family. However, Reality knocks.

This is Haiti. This is the Third World.

Our reality is training children how to use the toilet because their reality doesn’t have toilets.

The returning students know how to use a toilet. They did so at school before: sitting on the toilet then exiting the restroom, washing their hands with soap and reconfiguring their clothes before returning to class.

However, these returning students left school in June and many of them spent two months without access to a toilet. They used a latrine, a hole beneath a cement seat shielded by a tattered curtain that moves in the breeze. The lucky ones did, anyway.

The rest squatted over a drain or a ditch when the need presented itself. Wherever, whenever.

The little boys know to face a wall and let loose. The little girls know to drop their drawers and squat.

While driving last week we passed a grown woman baring her backside to the street as she squatted down beside the road while her friend waited.

This is the example many of our children have at home.

It’s agonizing.

Modern plumbing such as we fortunate first-worlders enjoy today is not a new invention. Neither is soap.

On Friday I watched a disturbing number of children squat down on the restroom floor in the inevitable muddy water. Jonas and I crossed paths in front of the restroom to see someone had pooped in one of the water scoopers we use to pour water over hands for washing.

Jonas picked it up and dumped it, and I went to eat lunch.

You are probably disgusted. I was still hungry and, as schedules and food are not often predictable, but exertion is, knew I must eat to keep up.

And I enjoyed my rice and beans, like always.

I also enjoyed watching the kids eat, afterwards.

The last time Beverly and I were in Port au Prince we went to Epi D’Or with some of the elder students from the CLS PAP campus, as Beverly does every time she visits. As we sat around a few tables shoved together, I leaned in close to Beverly so she could hear me over the din and over amplified music.

“It’s good to see them eat,” I said as we looked at the five students, young men between seventeen and nineteen years old, consumed with consuming their dinner. At the other end of the table were two old friends of mine, young men in their twenties, also eating dinner. It was good to see all of them eat, to witness this consumption and not just take their word that that day they’d gotten a meal. Schedules and food are not always predictable. Just like some of our students in Petit Goave, some of these dear young men are guaranteed food only at school.

That is agonizing.

No one should have to be hungry. No one should have to worry about where that next meal is coming from, or be dependent upon their school attendance for a meal.

Of course, hunger is a problem all around the world, from the United States to Haiti to Korea to the Philippines. There are homeless and hungry people everywhere. That doesn’t mean the fact is less agonizing.

And if you are a rather self-absorbed person such as am I, you don’t really consider most of those hungry people. If, like me, you enjoy food, you are always happy to eat. Maybe you are even grateful for your food and express appreciation. Maybe you are conscious of waste.

Even so, you probably take food for granted, sometimes. You probably don’t list hunger on the lengthy tally of daily concerns.  I hope you don’t.

Just like I hope you don’t also have to worry about whether your drinking water is contaminated, whether there are mosquito larvae growing in your wash water, whether your neighbor’s latrine is overflowing or if you can afford the book list for your child’s school year, the list that costs perhaps $35 USD.

Here in Haiti, all of these concerns are pressing and habitual. So is common safety. Just last week in Ti Goave a man was jumped and beaten by a gang after dark. Later that night the same group assaulted a woman in the cemetery. Our host pastor told us this while scrolling through his news feed, further affirming his rule that no one, particularly “no girls,” be out after dark.

Beverly and I readily agreed.

But many of our students live in homes without proper walls. Recently I wrote about Jameson, who lives with six other people in the house with the magenta walls. The house with the flimsy plywood door that sticks at the top, down at the end of an alley of houses similar to his. Perhaps there’s not anything worth stealing, nothing to interest thieves, but when you’ve got nothing, anything can be tempting.

Last week Jonas was walking after dark and some thieves stole his phone. He was walking by the school where we work every day.

Danger is very real, very close.

Disease and contamination and hunger are real, too.

They are just part of the norm for these children, our dear darling students who love and yearn to be loved on.

Who deserve classrooms finely decorated with wall borders, alphabet and number charts, birthday announcements, projects, bookshelves sagging with books and surrounded by cushions, a carpet upon which to sit and read, building blocks, desks labeled with their names and stuffed full of papers and pencils and crayons. They deserve more attention, aid for their struggles. They deserve class parties and celebrations with cake and punch. They deserve the best that we can give them, iPads, a projector, a clean whiteboard easily visible to the back of the class. Clean floors, clean bathrooms, ample soap and a nurse available to treat all the little ailments that can’t be addressed at home.

What we have to offer is much less than all of the aforementioned, most of which is standard in the States or any other first-world country that takes pride in education.

Haiti takes pride in education, too. You won’t find a prouder group than students in their freshly pressed uniform, freshly shined shoes, freshly oiled and braided hair. They are impeccable and spotless while we blan teachers sweat through our shirts and gather dust on our feet.

But as our school lacks electricity and running water, never mind all of those extravagant comforts, the first offering we have is love. Then, we choose what we can buy and supply at the school. There’s always something lacking, but bit by bit we can give them more.

It might not sound like much, our classroom on the second floor of a rented building. Inside there are seven student desks at which two or three sit, most often leaning forward on the bench as there is no back-support. There is a book shelf in the back corner currently holding pencil cases with already battered crayons, a couple of pencils, and some cayes, notebooks; there are slates and clipboards, the Jesus Storybook Bible in Creole, and a set of French-English dictionaries the children delight in perusing—the only books yet in our hopeful “library.”

There’s a bench at the front where Madame Alice sets her purse and I my folder, and upon which the water bucket rests. There’s a chalk board of difficult legibility on the front wall and a small wastebasket beside the door. On the wall is a steadily growing supply of posters, some of them purchased at the dollar store Stateside, some dusted off from Beverly’s office, and some drawn by me. They’re held up precariously with tacky blue painter’s tape ever at odds with the dusty walls. On the back wall, under the lovely bold border, there is a dubious line of name cards, where each child wrote her or his name with new crayons. Madame Alice and Madame Rachelle (I’ve accepted this new spelling of my name) have name cards, too.

These are my favorite decoration after the children. For the children are what make the classroom.

They are the light more cheerful and brilliant than even the Caribbean sun.

They are the joy and the hope. They are the reason we carry on through the frustrations and the agonies of reality, of such squalor and tragedy in such a broken, beautiful world.

They are who Jesus loves most, and so we love them, too.

But it’s not hard to love these children.

My hands never get tired of rubbing little boy heads, hair shorn short for school. My arms never get tired of hugging little girls close, of picking them up and spinning them around. My voice never gets so tired it won’t lift to speak to them, continuously calling out the English phrases and the odd Creole and French words, making that semi-coherent babble we use to communicate.

There will be more frustration. There will be more agony. There may be a time, or more than one occasion, on which I feel burned out, exhausted physically and emotionally, and yearn only to flee back to the first world.

I was cautioned this weekend that perhaps I’m still in the “honeymoon phase” with Haiti. I’ve been here less than one month, after all. I’m in such golden joy over being here I haven’t truly noticed the difficulties. Perhaps. But does time matter?

I feel I’ve lived here for months. Every return to the house is a welcome home-coming, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed the excursion or how weary of noise and commotion (this house is ever flooded with people and action.) Every sunset is a gorgeous miracle. Every morning greeting the banana trees at my window is a delight.

All the lunacy of life here makes us laugh. We shake our heads a lot, Beverly and I. And though I may frequently throw up my hands, and though we often feel the need to retreat to our sanctuary beside the ocean for some peace and quiet, life here is good.

I don’t go a day without laughing and cuddling.

Last Tuesday night I had a panic attack.

I’d been suffering from a cold, had to over-exert my voice at school, was having trouble breathing well in congestion and humidity while there was no electricity at the house, and the stress of this ill-health collided with the stress of the past couple of weeks. Pastor and Madame Rose sat with me on the floor of my bedroom as Beverly searched for my anxiety prescription and tried to contact my parents while I panted with head between my knees.

They all prayed over me, stroked my head, loved me through my weakness.

The next day we went to a clinic in Gressier, and an American doctor who’s worked long in Haiti examined me. He listened to my chest and heard nothing amiss. He asked the usual questions.

“You seem really upset to me,” he said.

Beverly told him about the panic attack.

He nodded and affirmed that the problem was mostly emotional, a cold exacerbated by stress.

Before we left he prayed over us, telling us to return if ever we needed, and to take care because “we don’t want missionaries who are burned out.”

After we left the clinic, I felt worse.

We’d wasted time doing this, I thought. I was being dramatic and had caused a fuss. When we stopped for lunch I didn’t eat, just set my head on the table in an attempt to be insivible and tried to stem the irrepressible tears and mucus.

On the car ride back to the house, I scrunched up in the backseat. For a while I slept, dozed undisturbed.

When I properly woke up we were almost back to Ti Goave. Pastor drove (irrationally) fast through Gran Goave then proceeded up the mountain. Soon we were cresting that glorious point where the Ti Goave bay opens before us, the mountains pressing into the sea and the verdant valley spread to the left.

I decided there was no time for this, for this stress, for this depression, for this sickness.

“Okay, God,” I prayed. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. I have students who need me, people who depend on me, and people who have sacrificed for me to be here.”

Looking out at the lush semi-jungle of our province, I repeated Beverly’s words.

“I’m not going to let the Enemy steal my joy.”

So I didn’t.

When we reached Pastor’s house I smiled. I didn’t feel great—my throat was still scratchy, I coughed and I was quite tired out, but I was cheerful. I was happy to be there, happy to see everyone in that chaotic, buzzing household ever filled with family, workers, guests expected and unidentified, scooters, basketballs, laundry and dishes.

I was eager to take off again because we were scheduled to visit Madame Eunide, mother of the beautiful twin girls. It was Wednesday and we had milk to deliver to her home. I wanted to see those babies. I wanted to hold them.

They were far more important than me, than any stresses or self-pity I was harboring.

I did hold one of the twins not long thereafter. She awoke before I picked her up, eyes wide and still blue in her brown face. Her fingers were impossibly small and her hair impossibly soft. She was utterly delightful and I easily could have cuddled her all day.

It’s easy to love.

One of my friends has said that the “more Jesus you give the more Jesus you get.” As we believe that God is Love, we also believe that the more love you give the more love you get.

Certainly I experience that here.

It’s not easy to live in Haiti. All of you dear folk supporting me in prayer and finances and donations, bless you, you are blessing me and helping me be a blessing in turn.

No, it’s not easy to live here. The smallest things become difficult: visiting the ATM, buying minutes for a phone, walking on the beach, washing dishes. It’s not for everyone either. It is hot, it is humid, it is inconvenient and often dirty and risky and uncomfortable. There is always another demand for money, always another delay, another blòk, another heartache.

But there is always another friend, another delight, another situation about which to laugh, recall and retell, another beautiful sunset and beautiful child.

Katie Davis in her book Kisses from Katie says she never wants to go a day without laughing. She wants to end each day dirty and exhausted so she just falls into bed.

I go to bed gratefully with sore feet, semi-sweaty body, aching eyes and regret that another day is closed, because it’s been delightful.

God knows what tomorrow will bring. Chaos and confusion will most likely abound once I open the door of my room, leaving behind the solace of my banana-tree windows and strip of carpet where I can sit to read, sing and pray.

But I know with blessed assurance that tomorrow will be full of joy, full of love, full of singing and laughter and opportunities to shine.

“You’re here for a reason, just like I am,” Beverly reminded me after we talked of a difficult situation that needs addressing. “Pray about it, and God will give you an opportunity. Probably sooner than you think.”

I know that I am where I am supposed to be. Thank you all so much for helping me to get here.

It’s not easy, but it’s well with my soul.

As to those agonies—we cannot end them, we cannot remedy them all. But step by step we can improve, help to improve the lives of our children and their families. They in turn can improve the lives of others.

As we talked about proper toilet usage at assembly, Beverly told the children that the President doesn’t ask to go “pee-pee” and squat over a drain.

“We may be training the next president of Haiti,” she said. “We’re keeping high expectations.”

Tomorrow we will see which little girls remember to pull up their skirts and sit on the toilet, and which little boys remember to wash their hands with soap after pulling up their belts.

Surely some will forget. But they will learn, day by day.

And through all the frustration of watching them adapt to restroom etiquette, all the satisfaction of watching them eat nutrient-packed food, thank you Manna Pack rice from Feed My Starving Children!, we will love them.

That part is easy.

“We love because He first loved us.” ~John 4:19

“As the ark of the LORD came into the City of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart…

And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD—and I will make merry before the LORD. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” ~II Samuel 6:16, 21-22 ESV

“I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” II Samuel 6:22 NIV

“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth…We love because He first loved us.” ~I John 3:17-18