On Saturday, October 8, 2011 a group of people met at the airport to travel together to Haiti. This was the second FPC sponsored mission trip to Port au Prince since the devastating earthquake in January of 2010. For those who were visiting Haiti for the first time, the poverty and evidence of the destructive force of the quake were startling and overwhelming. For those returning to Haiti, there was evidence of improvement.

Much of the rubble had been removed from main thoroughfares. Some of the tent cities, and all of the tents pitched in the medians of main streets, were gone. There were new solar powered traffic lights making travel times much more predictable. The water tanks and water trucks have been replaced with public water pumps providing a clean and reliable water source. These pumps were perhaps the most welcome of all the improvements to-date since they are helping to mitigate the impact of Cholera that was re-introduced to Haiti by UN troops just after our first mission team left Haiti last year.

During last year’s mission trip, Haiti was in the middle of an election campaign and the sense of tension generated by that upcoming event was an evident concern. The election has passed and the resulting riots are over for the time being. The new president seems to be making a real effort to improve conditions for the Haitian people. His government has promised free public elementary education through grade six for all Haitian children. This is a huge project and, though it will not happen overnight, it is another sign that there are positive and noticeable changes.

It was a busy and enjoyable week. We were the guests of Haiti Outreach Mission (HOM). Our team helped to paint and wire a medical clinic that is being built in the HOM compound at Cite Soleil by a partnership of Haitian doctors, HOM and Samaritan’s Purse. We also helped pour concrete for a single family home and provided dental surgery to 68 patients. It was a good week.

On Sunday we worshiped with 600 Haitians at the church in the HOM compound at Terre Noire, where we were also housed during our stay. The service began at 6:00 A.M. and continued until 8:00 A.M. We had Sunday School on the roof of the compound, with the clouds draping the mountains that surround Port au Prince on three sides. We toured the city in the afternoon. The National Palace sits wrecked, its cupola pancaked onto the top of the building beneath, still surrounded by carefully manicured lawns and a very tall iron fence. The National Cathedral, which had no fence, has been totally looted. Even the stained glass from the windows has been carried away, leaving a shell that brings to mind nothing so much as the looted and ruined abbeys of Tudor England.

Monday we were awakened by roosters crowing, dogs barking and people moving about. Haitians start the day early, usually before first light, to take advantage of the relative cool of the morning. The children started arriving at school around 6:00 A.M. in their neat red uniform dresses and shirts, white hair ribbons and polished shoes. Our workday started at 7:00 A.M. and ended around 2:00 P.M. After showers and a lunch of peanut butter or tuna, we were off to visit other mission compounds and other parts of the country.

Haiti can still overwhelm, confuse and leave the visitor from more privileged countries with a sense of helplessness. Port au Prince is literally crammed with people who have no jobs and who live in in unbelievable poverty. All business has moved outside of the buildings in the main commercial district because even those that are left standing are so damaged that they are no longer safe. Wherever we got off the bus, vendors magically appeared begging us to buy...a painting, a carving, handmade jewelry, seashells. This is a part of the Haitian experience for visiting Americans. There are thousands and thousands of little stands where families try to sell small items—recycled auto parts, snacks and sundries, books, clothing and shoes…whatever they can do to earn a few pennies. On the main street these vendors are sitting under overhangs of buildings so damaged by the quake that you think they will certainly fall on the heads of the people below at any moment, but these are desired locations because there is shade. We learned that families live in such cramped conditions that they can’t all lie down to sleep at the same time so they take turns…some sleeping standing up much of the night. Books can and have been written about the suffering of the Haitian people…and they are not exaggerated. The situation is almost incomprehensible to Americans, even when you see it firsthand.

How can the suffering of so many people be relieved? Sometimes all efforts to help in Haiti feel like teardrops in the ocean. Why do we have so much and these poor people have so little? Looking into the eyes of adults, much older than their chronological age, you see people who have resigned themselves to hopelessness. Their eyes are distant and sad with such a profound sadness that is hard to comprehend. These are questions that visitors ask themselves again and again when visiting this troubled and beautiful country, which could be an island paradise--its mountains coming right down to the sea, with palm lined, white pebbled beaches and gorgeous sunsets.

Where is the hope in Haiti? It is in the eyes of the young children at school at the HOM compound in Terre Noire where the team stayed. Terre Noire (also known as Blanchard) is one of the worst slums of Port au Prince. But in the compound there is relief from the chaos outside its walls and among the children you see nothing but hope. There is a sense of tough love among the teachers and the students. Life is hard in this grieving country and school is a privilege. Even very young children are expected to understand this and behave accordingly…but children are the same, no matter what national origin, skin color or language. Children laugh and hold hands with their friends and have tears on their first day of school. They play and run and jump and have hope for tomorrow. Children are every country’s greatest natural resource and Haiti is no exception. If Haiti can be ‘fixed’ it will have to be by these children. They are the future of Haiti and the experiences they have now will forever influence their vision of the world. Faith, education and hope will be required to ‘fix’ Haiti and, ultimately, the solutions will have to come from the Haitian people themselves. Education is the first step toward making them self-sufficient.

Haiti Outreach Ministries is a Christian mission to the people of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Their focus is on extremely impoverished areas in and near the capital of Port au Prince. Currently they are serving the communities of Blanchard (Terre Noire), Cite Soleil, Ibo Beach (Source Maielas) and Repatriote. All U.S. staff are volunteers. Haitian staff is led by national Pastor Leon Dorleans, who serves as Field Director with assistance from Pastor Luc Aristhene, Assistant Field Director, and Jacky Dorleans, HOM School Superintendent. Each of the 4 compounds has a church, an elementary school, a medical clinic and vocational and continuing education for adults. Inside the HOM compounds there is a sense of order, a respite from the pandemonium of an extremely damaged and overcrowded city outside the walls. Inside the HOM compounds there are prayers, hymns, faith and hope--God’s people doing the work that needs to be done. Inside the HOM compounds plans are made and implemented to rebuild the city and the country, one house, one student, one patient at a time.

With over 50% of the adult population in Haiti functionally illiterate, education for the children is fundamental to the recovery and future of their country. HOM serves over 1100 students in their primary schools. Almost every Haitian child fortunate enough to receive an education relies on support from benevolent organizations such as HOM. Twenty-five dollars a month for a primary school student and fifty dollars a month for a secondary school student pays for teachers, materials, uniforms, food, vitamins and health care. You can visit the HOM website to learn more about this ministry that was begun in 1986 by the Dorleans. Click here to view the Haiti Outreach Ministries webpage.

Visiting Haiti is an experience that sometimes leaves you sad and always humbled. In the presence of so much suffering, such extreme poverty and complex social and economic problems, you have to wonder how this country can survive. You are forced to ask yourself tough questions and sometimes you struggle with the guilt that comes with the opposite extreme of affluence that is your own reality. Haiti captures your heart. It is a hard, troubled place, but as you board the plane to leave, you are already planning your next visit.