Did you know...

Haiti is the poorest place in the Western Hemisphere.  Their exports are limited, the GDP is staggeringly low and many economical and political hardships can be directly linked with corruption.  The media can always bring us the harsh truths in Canada but I will try and shed some positive light on our home for now...

1) Only 5% of people graduate from high school and 40% might have the chance to make it to junior high. The new president wants to make education free to all children but the scarcity of resources and buildings will make this promise almost impossible to keep.

The children that do come to school at our base (as well as Cite Soliel and Ebo Beach) are sponsored by people like you.  There is one little boy named George who lives at the Repatriote base and is eagerly awaiting the new school that will be ready to open before Christmas.  Until then, this little grade 1 boy will ride his bike (or sometimes walk I'm sure) the half-hour distance to school every day.  If students do have the chance to receive an education here, it is a source of pride for the family and certainly gives the children a new lease on life.

2) The cholera outbreak was bad, so was the one before that.  It was not the Haitians that brought this infection upon themselves though.  The infiltration of cholera to Haiti was linked to improper cleanliness of a UN base in Nepal, which was then transferred here when the UN came in after the earthquake.

Terrible things just seem to happen here and disastrous mishaps such as this plague these people for whom the desperation to survive is fierce already.  Dirty water in a gutter might seem like a desert oasis for those who thirst day and night but it is often a deadly decision.  Stacey especially, along with other school staff will work hard at educating children and their families about safeguarding themselves against cholera, scabies, malaria, etc.

3) The earthquake rocked Haiti and people will always talk about that fateful January day.  Disheveled buildings and roads remain jaggedly interlocked in a crudely creative discord that only gravity could neatly tuck into place.

It is easy to measure the destruction through the eyes of a Westerner who is used to seeing a mess cleaned up so that life can return to "normal".   For all the lighthearted sorrows that we feel when we watch the devastation unfold on television and the soapbox that it provides celebrities to pour out their hearts through remorseful song, it is a disgraceful shame how little has been done to "clean-up" Haiti.  I digress if the only reason I touch on this event is to somehow exercise my own shame and behold it reverently so that I may do something more noble about it next time.  And excuse my antagonist view of what has not been done for the clean-up when there are Westerners who have sought to help with the clean-up in some way.  But to help people within a community like Port-au-Prince, you need not the help of white men far away, though this does provide tangible help and encouragement for the people in many ways.  No, the hope comes from the way that Jesus Christ works selflessly and flawlessly in the hearts of his servants like the heroes which I will briefly acquaint you with.

Pastor Leon and his wife Jackie are native Haitians who began Haiti Outreach Ministries less than a year after they were married roughly 22 years ago.  There was need in Haiti then, much like there is now and they answered the call of God willingly and sacrificially.  As Jackie remarked, "sometimes your plans are not always God's plans," and remembering back to less than a year into my marriage I can say that I was not ready to plant a seed in the poorest slum (Cite Soliel) in the Western Hemisphere.  As we toured the compound I can only think that this is the most ambitious, and most finished, projects I have seen in all my travels.  Unscathed by the earthquake, the church building for 1000, the primary school for 300 students, 2 clinics (because they share a base with Samaritan's Purse) and courtyards for communities of people form the most faithful blueprint you could hope for in an otherwise debilitated community.

Ignorantly, I commented to Leon about the history of the Outreach and he pointed out that it was him and his wife that started this ministry, not the board of HOM in Maine.  I was ashamedly dumbfounded to doubt that a young Haitian couple could start all this.  What about the acres and acres of land, the creative use of space and the vision to build more still?  Aren't things supposed to never ever get completed in 3rd world countries??  Leon and Jackie are the most driven nationals I have ever met in any of the countries that I have visited.  You will no doubt here more of the amazing ministry taking place in this country and it started with the courage of a young, innocent couple who followed God's calling to settle in a place where so many earthquake survivors fled, years and years after they started the original church, school and clinic.

Ben, who is the resident liaison for HOM pointed out, that if Leon lived in the States, he would've become a millionaire, maybe a few times over, because of the drive that fuels him.  Jackie, Leon's wife, lovingly reflected that, "working with the poor and the needy is the greatest joy because they are the apple of God's eye.  There is nothing greater than this because He loves them so much."  Certainly a stark contrast to what might have been and what God tells someone otherwise, and most assuredly a supreme example for Stacey and I to serve under while we are here.