1 Corinthians 16:13: Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.
Hi! Thanks for taking the time to come here and read this post.
My name is Brooke, and I will be starting off our 11 Days in Haiti blog today, July 11, 2020.
First, if you haven't already, it might help to head over to the about section and get some info on what this is all about.
Before I talk about Day 1, let me give some background on myself and why I was on this trip to begin with. I went to Haiti in July 2018, just a couple months after graduating high school. I went to Catholic school from K-12th grade, and college would be the first time that I was no longer in an educational setting that had faith integrated within. Because of this, I felt inspired to broaden my world and faith perspectives before beginning the next chapter of my life. I was thrilled to learn of a mission trip to Saint Marc, Haiti, through the Archdiocese of Baltimore that was being co-led by one of my high school theology teachers. To make it even better, my best friend Olivia was going to go with me. We were accepted on the trip around Thanksgiving of 2017. After a few group meetings to prepare, we arrived at BWI airport bright and early on July 1st having no idea what the next couple of weeks would be like.
Mission trips are known to be "life-changing" or at least thought-provoking for many. Ours certainly was, but if you read the about section on this site, you'll see that it was a little different from your typical mission trip... more on that later.
For today, I wanted to share some of my favorite moments and important realizations from early days in the trip before it took some unexpected turns.
Allow me to set the stage: on July 1, we flew from BWI to Port-au-Prince (the capital of Haiti), then took about an hour-long van ride to the city of Saint Marc, which is on the western coast. If you look at the two locations on a map, they may not seen incredibly far, but things like paved roads and traffic signals aren't always common when driving. In fact, driving itself isn't a common form of transportation. Many people walk, and many people use 'motos' which are like mopeds that you can pay someone to ride on the back of – like a taxi meets motorcycle ride kind of deal.
We lived and served at Les Bons Samaritans (The Good Samaritan) school. The school itself had a house portion with a kitchen and bedrooms, as well as classrooms and areas for playing outside. See the pictures below for an attempted map of this. We were going to run a summer camp for the kids who attended the school during the school year, around ages 7 to 9. The summer camp would have stations such as outdoor games, crafts, and teaching english, and then our group would go on different excursions in the afternoons.
There's definitely culture shock to be expected when traveling to anyplace unlike where you're from, especially when that place is a third world country. This shock came right away for me, beginning with the drive from the airport. On the drive, we were all given "Welcome to Haiti" bingo cards to play. I checked off nearly every space, including things like 'Large package carried on head' and 'a burning trash pile.'
Our first day in Haiti was one full of rapid adjustment and figuring out our new surroundings. Some were simple, like that soda that came in these cool, refillable glass bottles and the lack of hot water for showers. And some were jarring, like the guards armed with machine guns standing outside simple grocery stores and the barbed wire that surrounded school buildings.
But perhaps what was most striking to me wasn't any of that. Instead, it was this spirit– intangible, and not easily describable, that radiated off each person we interacted with from the moment the plane landed.
I think a misconception of mission trips is either (1) because the place you're visiting is impoverished, the people there must be sad and in constant struggle or (2) because you're from another more developed country, the people will resent you for visiting.
I can confirm that on this trip, neither of those things were true. Every person we interacted with had a smile on their face and a passion for life that was overwhelmingly evident. "Happy as a Haitian" soon became one of our go-to phrases.There weren't points and judgmental stares at our group, but rather waves and smiles when we walked around Saint Marc. When we went to church, people hugged us and shook hands eagerly. On the 4th of July, a bakery went out of their way to make a cake that said "Happy 4th of July" even though it is an American celebration. When we found out we would not be going home as planned, people volunteered to help teach us how to wash our laundry in basins.
...but it wasn't all bright and happy. While the interpersonal interactions, love, joy, kindness, and faith were stronger than anything I had seen before, the impoverished nature of a third world country kept determinedly poking holes in the picture of joy the Haitians were so consistently painting. Trash and plastic literally covered stretches of the ground and beaches to the point where you couldn't see what was underneath. The vast majority of buildings were really unfinished foundations, and those that were finished had tin roofs, barbed wire for protection, and unstable foundations. Sanitation is not a wide-spread availability or commonality. Education is not widely available or prioritized by the government (part of the reason why the Mortel Foundation and Les Bons Samaritan school is so important!) so kids run around anywhere and everywhere. The average daily wage is just a couple of dollars, so mere survival is a constant struggle.
The Mortel Foundation intentionally goes out into the community to find some of the most impoverished families and children and give them a ticket to come to Les Bons Samaritan school in an attempt to break the most deeply rooted chains of poverty... soon after doing this, though, they realized they had to take a picture of the child they gave the ticket to, because some families would have to make the heartbreaking decision to sell it to another family to survive.
Imagine that: knowing that the only way your child could ever have a better life is through education, but having to sell away that life-changing opportunity because without doing so, the child of family wouldn't even live.
In my journal on the first night, I wrote "I feel constantly joyous because the joy of the people here is contagious... but then constantly sad, too? I don't know how to feel or react to this. It's a lot to take in. I guess one thing I feel for sure is that this isn't fair. Why do I have literally 10 tee- shirts packed in the suitcase at the end of my bed when most families here don't even have that many combined?"
It wasn't fair, indeed. And that is something I still struggle with to this day – trying to make sense of why, by nothing I did or did not do, I was simply born into a family with innumerable blessings that I take for granted every day. Why did I get to complain about going to school when some families paid all they had for their child to have that same opportunity? Why did I get my own bedroom at home when many would never even have a home – let alone a bedroom – to call their own? Why did I get to walk down to the kitchen and always have food available when I knew families and children just outside of the gates I was living in were starving and may die because they didn't have the same?
Unfortunately, these aren't easy questions, and I recognize that I will likely never have the answers. However, these questions and feelings from the first hours of landing in Haiti are what made the rest of the trip so impactful, particularly with our unexpected ending. They're also questions that have never stopped bothering me, and ones I hope never do. It's by questioning these things that I feel driven to keep trying to make an impact in Saint Marc.
So, I'll leave off with that for Day 1. Please check back each day for the next 10 days to see a new blog post from myself, Olivia, or one of the other teenage missionaries in our group as we reflect on our trip and why it is important to remember and share, especially now.
If you would like to donate supplies or funds to our campaign, we and the children and teachers in Haiti will be forever grateful. For them, this is the only way of any hope for a better life, and COVID-19 now hitting the country, the need now is greater than ever. And if you are unable to donate financially, please consider lifting a prayer to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the patroness of Haiti, or Saint Xavier, the patron saint of missionaries. I truly believe that through God and through prayer, all things are possible.
To donate, click here or visit the "donate" tab.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
Pictured left: Me and a girl named Juliette. Juliette was around 3 or 4– too young to be at the camp, but the daughter of someone who worked at the school, so she was there every day. She always had a smile on her face, always wanted to help, and was never afraid to jump right in and do what the"big kids" were doing.