Haiti Trip - Feb 2013

Poverty, orphans, trash, and sickness.  Joy, beauty, purpose, and yes, hope.  All of these words describe what Henry and I (Eric) saw in Haiti.  When people ask how our trip was, it is hard to give a simple answer.  
To say it was good, seems to gloss over the fact that there are a lot of big problems in Haiti that seem insurmountable.  To say that it was hard, ignores the awesome things God is doing through Mission of Hope and the great people we met.  So I decided to write this blog entry to give a more complete, less simple answer.

On Valentines Day, Henry (our 4th grade son) and I and 43 other parents/kids from our church left to go to Titanyen, Haiti for a 5 day mission trip to serve a local ministry called Mission of Hope (MOH).  Mission of Hope is an amazing organization and one thing became abundantly clear this week, God is at work through these wonderful people.  (www.mohhaiti.org)    Take a look at the pictures below to see some of what MOH is up to in Haiti.

As part of the preparation for this trip, we were asked to read a book called “The Hole in our Gospel”.  I finished this book on the flight home and it is an awesome book.  The author's main point is that the gospel preached in most American churches skips over a critical piece of the job Jesus gave us to do as followers of Christ.  Caring for the poor.  I have struggled with why God doesn't do more to solve poverty and hunger.  But what if God's plan is to use us?

Here are some startling facts. 

• If you make more than $25,000 a year, you are wealthier than 90% of the world’s population. 
• If you make more than $50,000 a year, you are wealthier than 99% of the world’s population.
• American Christians make up about 5% of the global Christian Church, however we control about half of the global Christian wealth. 

It’s not just about money, but what if God has given us this money so that we can help him eradicate world poverty?  It would take just a little over 1% of the income of the American Church to lift the poorest 1 BILLION people out of extreme poverty. 

God is really working on me right now through our trip to Haiti, this book, and some other things.  I feel strongly moved to action but I need to find an avenue for this energy.  I know part of the answer is getting financially involved in helping the poor through organizations like MOH.   But I want to be open to the idea that God may have a bigger plan for how he wants to use us.    We'll have to wait and see!

Here are some highlights from our trip:

This is the food distribution center that supports a network that feeds 54,000 Haitians a day!

MOH now has three schools that they run in Haiti that serve around 3000 students.  Their goal is to have 10,000 students by 2015!  The first day, our group served at the Bercy campus doing whatever needed to be done.  Among other things, Henry and I helped spread a bunch of gravel around a playground for the school.

This is a picture of a young man I shared the gospel with named Etson.  We had these really cool tracts that had the gospel in English and in Creole, so we were able to share the gospel with people even if we couldn't speak their language.

Many of the local kids would ask to take pictures with my camera.  At one point, I got a little nervous because a boy I had loaned my camera to took off running.  Fearing the worst, I called out to him, but he communicated with his hands that he would be back.  I decided to trust him.  I was rewarded with this fine picture of a goat!

One of the most humbling things we saw was the city of Leveque.  There is a large community of people here still living in the temporary shelters that were built after the earthquake in 2010.  These are very small and only meant to last 6 months.  MOH has been and is continuing to build real houses for these people.  You can see these brightly painted houses down the hill in the background of this picture.  They are also in the process of building a church near these houses and are working with the people there to establish local leadership of this new community.

On our last day there, we cleaned up trash at the school on the main MOH campus.  When the morning session of school was over, all the kids came out and wanted to play with us. This was one of my favorite memories from our trip.

This was taken at a beautiful beach resort we visited on our last day.  It seems weird to go to a beach resort as part of a mission trip, but it's an intentional part of the trip.  The MOH staff wants us know that even in the midst of a lot of devastation Haiti is still beautiful and with God's help it can be beautiful again.  

One thing I learned as I was writing this is that if I feel a little weird about going to a nice beach on the last day of my mission trip, shouldn't I also feel weird about the fact that my home is a resort compared to what we just saw in Haiti?  Yes.  I think I should.  I am more and more convinced that God didn't provide me with what I have today so I can be comfortable.  But let me clarify.  Guilt isn't the desired result.  It's action.  Action to feed the poor.  Action to serve the orphan.  Action to rid the world of injustice.  And you know what we get out of helping the poor?  Joy.  True Joy.

Psalm 41:1a Oh, the joys of those who are kind to the poor!