Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Haiti-Revisit. By popular demand a repost

There and Back, Again


By: Robie Arnold



As one of my favorite authors wrote a story of Bilbo Baggins, the small hobbit from the Shire who was given a great task to accompany the dwarves on a great mission, I too was given a great task to accompany a group of strangers to a distant land. I was recently called to take a mission trip to the earthquake ravaged island country of Haiti. I was given a great opportunity to share my faith and beliefs through works and assistance to the people there. We left from Atlanta on February 27th by air with a small layover in Miami before we landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This was my first ever airplane flight and was an experience all to itself. We were on one of the first commercial flights allowed to land in Port-au-Prince and as we flew over the land the deafening sound of silence held me in awe as everyone looked out of their windows at the devastation below.

Once we had landed we were corralled to buses and driven no more than thirty yards to customs. While in customs the sights and sounds were astounding. There was a group of Haitian singers there singing and playing their banjos, accordions and drums while we waited. After we made it through customs we were once again corralled into a “holding area” to wait for our transport. Once our buses arrived, we met our translators and group guides for the week. We loaded the buses and made our way out of the airport and into the hustle and bustle of the open air markets and through the streets of the city. The city itself was amazing. Even through all of the carnage the people were going about their daily routines of survival. We witnessed many new and exciting things while there. The Tap taps (Creole for taxis) were vividly painted and darting in and out of traffic. Children played in and around the streets as the cars whizzed by barely missing other cars, farm animals, and pedestrians by the looks of some of the bumper guards on the vehicles, “barely” wasn’t always the case as there were few that didn’t have some sort of damage to them.

We arrived at the home of our host for the week, Estecoeur Olistin, a Baptist Minister and senior pastor of ten of the churches in and around the city. His home was surrounded by ten foot walls with barbed wire and broken glass bottles on the top of most of the walls leading to the home. He opened his home to the Score International group that I had volunteered with. We were the fifth group of missionaries to stay at his home since the earthquake. Since most of the roof tops are flat there, we decided that this would be a good place to set up our camp. Our small camp of tents on the Pastor’s home paled in comparison to the huge tent cities that stretched as far as the eye could see along the dried river banks. The UN is currently attempting to relocate these tent cities to more suitable locations due to the onset of the rainy season that is currently beginning.

On our second day we attended church service as the “special guest choir” of Pastor Olisin’s. This was a surprise to us but we adapted and overcame. We sang old stand bys like I’ll Fly Away and Amazing Grace. Of course we sang in English but the wonderful part is the church members soon joined us in French and Creole. We were asked to return for the evening service and to learn to sing in Creole. Our team leader was also asked to speak at the service. Once we returned to our camp we hurriedly found our translators and the kitchen girls and learned a couple of simple “children’s songs” in Creole. I do wish I knew what I was saying now or had some way to record ourselves. At the evening service we stood up and sang our songs to much laughter and applause. Our team leader, Justin Mcworter, gave a short sermon on Psalms 73 in which Pastor Olistin translated to the congregation. We met and had fellowship with many of the members of the church before returning to our tents for the night.

Our first day of work saw us travel to the small village of Penye (this is the phonetic spelling) to continue the work of the past groups. The church in this village was severely damaged by the earthquake and was being razed and a new one built in its place. We assisted the men of the church with the removal of usable concrete blocks and reclaimed re-bar. Once this was finished we dug footings for a new foundation for a larger church. The Haitians have no set building codes and things are done a lot differently than they are done here in the states. Instead of concrete footings we placed large boulders in the hand dug trenches and filled the gaps with smaller ones and then bucket by bucket of concrete that was mixed water thin to conserve costs. We used buckets to move the dirt and concrete due to the fact that the one wheel barrel in the village was commandeered by the children to ride up and down the mountain in.

The children of the village quickly stole our hearts and our water, but that’s another story all together. We played games with the kids and sang songs; they do a good rendition of “Who let the Dogs Out.” The kids made their own kites and flew them with us. There were hardly any toys as we are used to seeing there. One little girl had a naked Barbie and would not let it out of her clutches. It gave me a great appreciation of what my daughter takes for granted with her Santa’s Wish List every year. We had a storage closet that we were keeping our supplies, bottled water and food inside. We kept noticing certain kids would disappear for periods of time and then would return with empty water bottles. They were drinking and then pouring out our water to have the bottles to sword fight with!

We went to an orphanage and school that the church sponsored and helped feed the children there. The church sponsors over 100 children every day. Some are there because they lost parents during the quake and some are there because they have no place else to go. All are welcome as long as they follow the few rules posted. I set up a small clinic to tend some healing wounds ranging from earthquake damage all the way to everyday scrapes and bruises that children get. Soon after we toured the city and saw the damage first hand. There are still collapsed buildings that have not been searched and still thousands unaccounted for. We went to Pitionville the area where Hotel Montana was located. We also saw the Presidential Palace and the Commons where several thousand refugees are staying directly across the way.

Day after day we hiked up the mountain to the church and by the last day our results were applauded by the villagers. The foundation for the new church was complete and ready for the floor to go down. It was sad to leave the people that we had gotten to know personally and especially the children we came in contact with. Our last day with Pastor Olistin, he pleaded with us not to forget what we saw or what we learned. He tasked each of us with coming back to Haiti and coming back to stay with him any time that we could. He said he understood the financial obligations that it took each of us just to make the short journey there but also it would never compare to the lives we touched and the experiences we gained. Would I go back to the 105* heat and less than ideal living arrangements to work harder than I ever had before? I would leave tomorrow if I could.