How is Fred, and how is Mark?

Nothing could have prepared me for being an “Opa”. We have two beautiful granddaughters and I can’t find words for the emotions they stir in me.

I still remember how it felt when our own girls started calling us mommy and daddy. Ma-ma-ma or da-da-da. I was sure I heard them say it, probably long before they actually did. It feels like nothing else to have that connection. Now, with the granddaughters it’s the same thing all over again, just different words and it come mostly via Skype or on the phone. Every time it makes me tear up with happiness.

Would you believe that when one of our orphans in Haiti calls me papa that it moves me that much too. They don’t call just anyone that and none of them ever remembered their real father. It makes me feel all the more aware how much they crave parental love.  

The other day I was doing some work on my laptop and that is usually a “group activity”. A ton of kids hang on my shoulders to either see what I type on the screen or even better, look at pictures. No matter who is in the picture they want to know names and what the occasion was. If the person in the picture did ever visit Bohoc, they will say it even before I can. They never, ever forget you! You are part of their family now and they want to know all about you. It blows my mind how they can keep up with it.

Not only the kids but many of the adults in town will come to me and say things like: How is Doug, when is he coming back? When is Sarah coming again? How is Ms. Beth? Believe me they will ask about so many, you have no idea!

That’s what I mean with relationships. You are part of their life now and I hope they are part of yours. They love you! You know their circumstances and their needs. That’s why I jokingly tell new team members that their life as they know it, is about to get ruined. You can never forget this anymore, you are a different person.

Oh, there is Hope!

I like the analogy of God shaping us like a piece of soft clay. No matter what we turn out to be, His finger prints are on us. Some of the events in my life seem to be more forming than any other regular time. Last Wednesday was one of those days. I woke up to the sound of eager mission team members preparing for the day. I am not a get up early person and almost decided to snooze a little longer but for some reason I did not and slid down the ladder that connects my bed to the floor. I dressed and stuck my head out in the cool morning fog that awaited me outside. Almost instantly the laundry lady came to me and her face showed a lot of concern instead of the bright smile she usually has for me. Tears were in her eyes and she asked me to come along quickly to see Cardouche, a family member of her, because he was ill. I was glad that we had a doctor on the team so I did not have to do this alone. I pulled Doug from behind his breakfast that he was enjoying with most of the other team members. We quickly followed the lady who walked ahead of us taking a narrow path leading to Cardouche’s hovel. The family had always been poor as dirt. We ducked into the little house and it took our eyes a moment to get used to the darkness inside. There on the floor, outstretched and seemingly unconscious was the sick man. For some reason or another, the family had laid him on the dirt floor the night before. We picked his body up and laid it on the only bed in the house. His pulse was erratic and all over the place. His breathing was labored and rattling. It was clear that he was about to expire if nothing was done. He might have had a heart attack or suffered of congestive heart failure but it was impossible to determine that on the spot. We decided he had to go to the hospital which in Haiti is easier said than done. First and for all the family had no money, not even a penny. Transportation would cost money, not to think about the expense of being in the hospital. This was most likely the reason he was still home. The family hoped that we would take care of the expenses. I decided we would take care of the situation. Something had to be done quickly. We hurried back through a small crowd of curious neighbors. I asked Jeff, the driver for the orphanage to get the truck and come with me. In the mean time I went back and talked with the wife and son of the sick man. Jeff showed up shortly thereafter but was not driving into the garden of the little house and waited on the road. Cardouche had to be carried to the truck but just at that time nobody seemed to be able to help. I reached over the bed and picked him up but although he was a skinny man he was tall and must have weighed well over a hundred pounds. I carried him out and about to hurt myself, I jelled out to one of the older orphan boys who was watching me from the road. He hurried over and helped me carry Cardouche to the truck.

Right then the family showed up and crowded in the back seat with the sick man. Pauluis our director appeared out of nowhere and slid in the cab as well. As careful as one can drive over the bumpy Haitian roads, Jeff tried to get to the hospital as quick as possible. The sick man moaned and groaned constantly. About halfway the hour long trip, he started to talk and it was clear that he was seeing things. “Papa, papa, papa” he cried out followed by as much more soft and reverend voice saying “Jezi, Jezi”!, (Jesus, Jesus) I have thought long about this and whatever the explanation, I am sure that dying people are in a state of mind where they seem to be between this life and the hereafter.

We reached the hospital and got a gurney to wheel him into the emergency room. The reason I know that it was the emergency room was because it was written on the wall. Not because anything inside gave me a hint.

When he was laying on a bed inside everyone seemed to be busy talking to the nurse and I had a minute alone with Cardouche who seemed now far gone. Long time ago, when my dad was dying in the hospital and unconscious,he seemed to be very encouraged when a preacher read him the passage of John 15 where Jesus said he was going to prepare a room for us in heaven. I leaned over the bed and whispered the same thing in Cardouche’s ear and I was thankful for God teaching me Creole. I will never forget his reaction. From the depth of unconsciousness his voice was very clear and outspoken! “Wi, Wi”! (yes, yes) he said and it seemed to confirm something he was very aware of at that moment. After that he was just as far gone as ever and from what I know he never came to anymore.

The next morning when we heard the news of his death, the family asked again for help to get him back home. We had planned to go out with the team to do a clinic in the mountains and the truck would be needed for that. I just knew that our plans were about to fall apart if things were just left to happen. I quickly decided to go along and make sure that the process would move expeditiously. When arrived at the hospital things got difficult. I had expected that the body would at least be in a pine box or so, but that was not the case. Apparently when you are that poor in Haiti you are just on your own.  The orderlies laid the body wrapped in a dirty sheet in the bed of the truck. There were two knots in the sheet, one over the face and one over the feet with the toes still sticking out. The family put a pillow under the head. What an effort in futility.

We started the truck and at the last minute all the family members crowded in the cab. No one was sitting with the dead man. This is Haiti, fear of death all over.

The drive back was very upsetting to me. I know the dead man was not feeling the rough ride but it hurt my sense of decency. Dead people are not supposed to bounce in the back of a truck and arrive huddled in a corner. That’s not right.

As soon as we got within hearing distance of the house the wife started wailing. The windows were down and the wail was quickly taken over by the neighborhood. In Haiti this is a form of sympathy with the family. It is very common that the wife as well as other female family members get completely hysterical doing this. The wife had to be held down after she was going bonkers in the yard next to the house. What a difference with the ride back home when I had heard her just softly crying and although I know it is part of the custom it unsettled me very much. When unloading the corpse I had to hold back my tears. The suffering of these dear people was so clearly visible and I felt powerless.

We paid for a simple casket and the next day half of the village followed the procession walking down the dusty road to the cemetery. Things were as they are supposed to be.

Now a few days later I can look back and see how every family goes through these circumstances at some point. Whether rich or poor we all will die one day and our family is going to be shocked by it. We might have a decent funeral or we might end up shoveled in a mass grave like so many Haitians were after the earth quake. But what is essential is to know that Jesus went ahead to prepare a room for us. I have seen my dad’s face and I witnessed Cardouche’s reaction. They both confirmed to me what they knew to be certain. He is alive and waiting for us.  

 

Where did you learn that?

Did you ever stand still by the things in your life that have always been there or that you have always known? I am talking about simple things like how to open and close a water tap. How to screw in a light bulb. How to flush a toilet or how to take a warm shower. These are all things you learn from your parent(s) when you grow up.
When I was four years old I went to kindergarten. Not that I particularly liked it but I went. From that time until I finished high school it was a recurring activity in my life. No choice, whether I liked it or not. I never once thought about the expense of school. That was not my problem. Mostly the schools were free, you just had to buy some stuff for it. My parents paid for the stuff.

Now imagine growing up in Haiti. Your parents have no money. They have no paying job, they just work hard in the garden to grow some food. They might have a pig or a goat and hope to sell it when they need money urgent like for medical help or for school. Not for all of their kids, are you kidding! maybe just for one.

Schools costs a lot of money. You cannot go if you have no shoes or uniform. You have to pay tuition, got to buy books and stuff. The government does not pay for that. So if the pig lives and gets sold you might, just might, go to school. If the rains don't fall there is no grass for the goat or much for the pig to eat. They'll die or get sold for very little money. Forget about school that year. Someone needs to go to the hospital: Oh well, now school is beyond the horizon.

This is why I run into people of all ages, all the time in Haiti who have virtually no education. They break the light bulb when you ask them to change it. They destroy a nut while trying to loosen it. It does not occur to them that they might have to turn the other way. They break off a door handle because they don't understand the working of it. It drives me nuts sometimes.

And yet the solution for the problem is simple. Education! From when they go into kindergarten until high school is finished. Maybe even college after that. I'm dreaming, I know.

And all that lacks to do it is money. Just a little money.

One thing I never learned in school. Why was I born in a country where that problem did not exist.

Everything Is Possible.

Haven't blogged in quite a while. Not that there was nothing to write about. On the contrary it has been crazy busy. Now there is so much to tell you that I have to break it up in pieces. Just to make sure you don't fall asleep and drool all over your computer. Here we go:

Last week I was talking with some of the masons who help us build the refugee houses in Lakos. We had to make a budget and order the materials for house number two. When I asked how much gravel they ordered for the first one, they shrugged. Didn't remember that. Well, I started to explain how you can calculate that. They followed along until we decided we needed 70 cubic feet of gravel. Their response was "well it only comes in a large truck". They did not know how much one of those carried. Now since a few months  we have a brand new flatbed truck. It is small enough that it can drive all the way up to the building site, whereas the big truck only can dump the gravel  on the main road a quarter mile or so away. So I suggested that we would fill our own truck up at the river where the gravel is sold. I did the math and figured that two loads would suffice. They all shook their heads and said, that was not possible because we could only buy it with a big truck. I asked why this was and if we could not try to make a deal with the people there who could even make a little more profit selling it in smaller quantities. The savings for us would be to use our own truck and not having to pick it up from the road where  it would be dumped. To make a long story short, it took a lot of convincing before they accepted the plan and then the first one said, "I get it, Hein is trying to tell that we can save a lot of trouble by using the small truck, It will work!"  This is something I run in a lot. There are ways they do things. They just never think about how you could overcome problems or how it could be done better and maybe less expensive. These were relatively young people who went to school. That is the problem. Haitian schools do not teach students to be creative or how to find solutions on their own. They memorize tons of things, mostly useless facts. They learn math but don't know how to apply it. There is fear to do things in a new way. For Haiti to climb out of their problems we need many people who can be innovative, who dare to take risk and try new things.
This experience made me more than ever determined to start a new school for our orphans, for children in the community who do not get a chance to use their brains because they are poor, because they cannot pay
for uniforms.
Hopefully we will get the money it takes to do this. We are working on it. Oh, if you happen to have $250,000, we will even name the school after you or someone you want to honor with that. I am not joking. I did that once last year, the next day I had the $30,000 we needed. Learned my lesson, everything is possible. With God.