Four Scenes From Haiti

A boy is screaming. The lady across from me in the office takes notice. Is it her child? Is he hurt? Scared? Badly injured? It turns out he is scared. A man is carrying him down the street and he doesn’t want to go. I thought She was going to help the man, but she grabs him to make him stop. He pushes past her and keeps going down the hill, the child yelling all the while. After a few more steps, one of our guys strides out into the street and grabs the man by the backpack he is wearing. He mildly but clearly restrains him as the man tries to pull away. He talks briefly to the man, not yelling but clearly firmly telling him to put the kid down. The man complied and stalks slowly back up the hill. Hertz says that he saw some guys drinking moonshine this morning. It seemed to me that this man certainly may have been drunk. He had asked me for $5 for a new phone earlier today. I had the sense that he might jump on me when I said no, but we were surrounded by our crew working on the hill. What was that all about?

I had about half a loaf left over from communion yesterday with the Pastors. I wanted to share it without causing a food riot. I found some kids that had been watching my seminar all week. They were in the school; I assume they live in the houses behind the school. I broke the remainder of the Body of Christ and gave it to them, because I’m sure they are hungry. They gratefully and playfully ate the bread and then invited us to play soccer with them. Hertz and I kicked a little inflatable ball around and had a blast. It’s the first time I’ve given communion as a feeding program. 

I hiked to the top of a hill to see Sainty and Nelson’s church. Sainty remembers going there as a child. He and the other children would take off at top speed after the service, burning off the pent up energy from sitting still for three hours by careening down the mountain to see who was the fastest today. It reminded me of the “Rambo” trail from the mountain chapel at Asbury Hills. The current church is tin; easily destroyed in a hurricane. The Foundation Patrick Charles, renamed after our friend, partner, and founder who died last year, was building a concrete church for them, but they laid it out too large so it was not complete. The church is also where Nelson passed out Bibles that we bought for him. It is stunningly beautiful at the top of the mountain; I would like to go to church there. 

At night, we stay out at the beach in Cormier. Thanks to a new road, it hardly takes any longer to get there than the beach in town, and it’s the same price. Last night after we got back from another long, hard, hot day, I took a dip in the ocean, had fresh Caribbean lobster for dinner, and played guitar on the beach until it was time for bed. The time away refreshes us to get back at it the next day.