By Kandy Sanders
I have been unable to finish my account of our trip to Haiti, in part due to the busyness of home schooling, soccer games, dance class and all the other activities that seem to fill my days, but primarily because of my sheer inability to get something down on paper that conveys my experiences in a manner which makes sense. I have decided that there will be no more waiting and I will just write down what comes out and hope that you can understand in some small way the impact that this trip had on my life. Rather than writing a separate post about each day like I planned (which might take the better part of a year), I will do my best to summarize our entire week in this one post. We’ll see how it goes :)
On Monday morning the men left very early to begin work on the church in Souvenance. Souvenance is a village a few miles from where we were staying, and most of the people there practice voodoo regularly. It is a desolate place and I cannot even begin to describe the area except to say that it is extremely dark spiritually. About six years ago, the Holy Bible Church planted a church there, and the building they used was made of sticks and scrap pieces of tin. It was very small and definitely not sturdy enough to withstand tropical storm force winds. Not only were they holding church services in this “building”, about fifty children were going to school there as well. The few believers in the area have been faithfully preaching and living the gospel, all while the voodoo witch doctor lives perhaps a hundred yards from the church building. This witch doctor even visited the job site a few times during the week, which was very interesting, but that is not my story to tell. Perhaps one of the guys can write it down so that you can see how God was at work in this seemingly godless place. So, it was at this building in Souvenance that the men spent a majority of the week.
One of the men that came with us is an expert at water filtration, and he and Sam spent most of their time working on a water filter for the village. This filter will provide 3000 gallons per day of clean water to the people of the village of Petite Rivierre and the children who attend the Holy Bible School. Most of these people have never in their lives had clean water, and suffer from constant sickness due to their continued drinking of water from the river and irrigation ditch. Yes, you read that right. They drink water from irrigation ditches and mud puddles. I saw this with my own eyes. They do not even boil the water since it is so difficult to obtain wood for their cooking fires and they do not want to waste the precious wood to boil water. Can we even imagine having to make the decision whether to cook our food or boil our water? If you add to this the fact that severe hunger is a constant reality to them, it becomes easier to see what decision we would make. Is it possible for us to fathom the fact that there are whole villages full of people all over the world who must make this decision every day? I walk into my kitchen and turn on the tap and there is wonderfully clear, life sustaining water, any time I want it. How would I feel if I had to give my children water that I knew was making them sick, shriveling their little bodies, bloating their bellies, and turning their hair that awful rusty orange color? My heart hurts and I feel physically ill at the thought of the reality that these people face daily. The water filtration system will potentially change the lives of everyone in the area. The plan is to set up a bottle filling station at the school where the villagers can bring their own bottles and pay a very small fee to fill them with clean water. We pray that this will be a way to not only dramatically improve the health of the community, but also jump start the local economy.
There were two other ladies from our church who worked with me for most of the week. We spent some of our time teaching bible stories and hygiene classes to the local children who ventured to the area. We taught them the difference between clean water and dirty water, how to keep their water buckets clean and how and when to wash their hands. We also used the Jesus Storybook Bible to tell them about Christ. We had brought some copies of the book translated into French, and we left some of them with the school teachers. Jeremy also purchased some Creole bibles, which we left with the pastor. One highlight of my time with the children was when they sang “Change La Vim” for us. Jeremy had recorded them singing it on his first trip to Petite Rivierre and I had listened to it again and again over the last few months, but now I was able to finally hear it in person. The children sang so beautifully about God’s love for them and how they desired for Him to change their lives, that my eyes were suddenly filled with tears. This seemed to be the way my emotions operated while in Haiti, with sudden dramatic bursts of uncontrollable weeping. If you do not know me, let me tell you that this is very uncharacteristic of me.
After our bible stories, songs, and hygiene training, the children would go into the school yard and play games. Sam was able to join them some of the time and he enjoyed it thoroughly. He had never been around children who played soccer on a rocky field while wearing no shoes, and was quite surprised at how athletically talented they were.
One interesting occurrence during the week was the slaughter and butcher of a goat, which I was able to witness- a first for me. The pastor’s wife then cooked it and served it to us for dinner. It was very tasty and I did not hear many complaints from the other team members. We also at some small, whole fried fish one night, which tasted very good. Beans and rice were incorporated into pretty much every meal, but we ate significantly more meat than is typical of the Haitian diet. I know the guys had lots of Spam and peanut butter at the job site, so I am sure they were happy to see some hot food in the evenings, even if it was a little different from what they are accustomed to eating at home.
The afternoons were spent doing health surveys in the village surrounding the school. This was the most eye opening part of the trip for me. I had known that we were going to see hungry, sick people. I had not known the extent of the poverty that I would witness. The people there have nothing. Many of them eat one meal per day or nothing at all. Those who are well-fed eat twice a day when they can find enough food. Most of the people have gardens, but they are small and provide primarily corn, beans and sorghum. They all drink dirty water. Most of them are sick quite often. Many looked as if their bones would break if they were hugged too tightly. All of the children showed signs of malnutrition. Not many of the villagers have jobs, as there are no jobs to have. Many spoke of losing loved ones in the devastating hurricane and subsequent flood that swept through the area a few years ago. I was completely unprepared for the magnitude of desperation and sadness that I would witness in Haiti.
On Tuesday, Jeremy and I took a very long, arduous trip to Thommonde, which is located in the central plateau of Haiti. Providentially, on the flight from Miami to Port-au-Prince, Jeremy had been sitting beside a man from the CDC who is doing work in Thommonde, and Jeremy was able to find out about a project that the CDC is involved with there. This man has been working in Haiti for ten years with people from many different agencies, and they are training local health workers to help the people in the area, as well as teaching them how to grow and process food. They have done some fantastic work so far and we wanted to see how they are doing it. The man from the CDC invited us to come and talk to the workers in Thommonde, and fortunately we were able to find time to go, despite the fact that we were several hours away from their headquarters. However, we were able to glean some great information from the staff there and we hope that some of the ideas can eventually be transferred to Petite Rivierre. A clinic building has been sitting right next to the Holy Bible School for ten years, but due to lack of money, construction was never completed. If some of the locals can be trained in basic healthcare, perhaps this clinic could be operational some day. If this occurs, many of the health issues in Petite Rivierre will be nearly nonexistent.
On Thursday some of us went into Gonaives, the closest city to Petite Rivierre, to buy supplies, order textbooks for the school (provided by donations from you guys!), and take the Judy dolls to an orphanage. The first orphanage we tried would not even let us in, but we kept looking. After asking around, we finally found one that would let us come in and distribute the dolls. The orphanage housed twenty-nine children, and they seemed well cared for. The boys and girls had separate rooms with rows of bunk beds and lots of space. All of the children were wearing clothes and there were only a few signs of nutritional deficiencies. We were able to tell them about the dolls and explain to them why we were there. They were, of course, very happy to see us since we came bearing gifts. What child doesn’t love to receive a gift? The children were sweet and beautiful, and loved to pose for pictures. After leaving the orphanage, we went back to Souvenance to get the construction crew and were surprised to find that they were only ten minutes from completing the roof. I was able to watch the final few minutes of construction, then found myself teary eyed again as Richard climbed the ladder and hung a wooden cross on the front of the building. After lots of pictures, we gathered everyone together inside the building for a dedication service. One of the highlights of the service was Brother Mark preaching while using the bible on Jeremy’s iPhone, a sight I am sure will never be seen again. After speeches and prayers from some of the men involved in the construction and church planting, we all sang “Amazing Grace”, a song that people in many cultures seem to know. I have been a part of many worship services with people in other cultures, but hearing those precious believers sing in Creole while we sang in English made me want to shout with joy. In my experience, I can think of nothing closer to the scene in Revelation where John recounts his vision of seeing people from every tribe and tongue praising God around the throne.
After leaving the new church building, most of the crew headed back to where we were staying, in order to get cleaned up and ready for dinner. A few of us, however, walked the half mile down the road to the voodoo temple. When I said earlier that voodoo is practiced regularly by most of the people in Souvenance, I was not exaggerating. Souvenance is home to one of the largest voodoo temples in the country and is considered the center of voodoo activity in the northwestern portion of Haiti. Many voodoo rituals and healing ceremonies take place in the area where we were working, and one of our interpreters showed me the signs of a voodoo house. There were several of those houses, recognizable by the strange items in the yards or charms hanging from trees. Around one tree was tied an infant sized casket which was painted red. I could write pages about how the people of Haiti are in bondage to voodoo and how they are so desperately looking for help that they call out to evil spirits daily. However, I will leave you to research that on your own if you wish. Just know that voodoo is dark and evil, and according to our interpreters, 90% of Haitians practice it in some form. We arrived at the front gate of the voodoo compound, were given permission to enter as sightseers, and began to look around. We could see many people sitting around, eating rice and talking with one another. They looked no different than the other Haitians we had seen. I think I was expecting to be able to discern the voodoo people from everyone else, but soon realized I was wrong. We saw many small huts which housed some of the people in the voodoo community, children running around playing, and several large, strangely shaped trees. One of these trees was in the middle of a large pit in the ground that is used for bathing during rituals. The voodoo worshipers believe the strange trees are magic. At night (according to voodoo beliefs), some of the people are able to go inside the trees, converse with the spirits, and be healed from all their ailments. Other trees are used for curses. The people believe that by wrapping an individual’s clothing around the tree, wrongdoing can be avenged. We began to talk to some of the children, found out if they could read, and gave them some Christian literature if they could. Since there were a couple dozen adults gathered together in the center of the compound, we headed that direction in order to strike up some conversations. We were able to talk to a few of them one on one before Jeremy asked if he could share a message with the whole group. They seemed eager to listen, and more people began to appear. Jeremy began to preach the sermon that Paul preached at the temple of the unknown god in Athens, slightly adjusted to fit the voodoo context. The people were excited about the message and seemed to agree with everything he said. I was more than slightly confused, as I had expected to be kicked out of the place as soon as he mentioned the bible. When Jeremy told them that they must throw down their voodoo charms and worship only the true God, pandemonium broke out. There suddenly seemed to be dozens of people there who weren’t there only moments before. They became extremely angry, and one of the men (who we later found out was a witch doctor) came up to Jeremy and began to argue and quote bible verses at him. I was even more confused at this point, wondering why he knew anything about the bible, but learned later that it was a ploy to confuse everyone so that they would not listen to the message. The amazing part was that he seemed to know more scripture than many Christians. This was the first time I had come face to face with what I recognized to be syncretism. As I looked around, I realized that many of the people were wearing shirts or necklaces with saints on them. They knew the bible, and agreed with everything Jeremy said. They talked about the miracles of Jesus, and told stories of Moses. They honestly believe that they are worshipping God, yet their voodoo practices contradict the idea of one Sovereign God. I have never felt more spiritually discerning than I suddenly did at that moment. I am not the type of person to talk much about spirits of good and evil, and I am not charismatic, but at the time I could almost see the forces of good and evil at work. It was an extremely strange experience for me, one which I have never had before. To be honest, if it happens again, I hope to be much better prepared than I was. All I could do was stand there, pray silently, and watch my husband attempt to share the gospel with these people. Another man began to talk to Jeremy and said that if we would give them food they would accept our God. Jeremy explained to them that we could not bribe them to believe in God. Besides, we had no food to give them. After a few more minutes of conversation and people yelling things in our direction, we decided it was time to go. We left the voodoo compound, but we pray that a gospel seed was planted in someone’s heart.
On Friday morning we were able to meet with the teachers of the Holy Bible School and have a hygiene and sanitation class with them. They learned many things, asked many questions, and were very receptive to what we taught them. We are praying that they will understand the importance of the information and teach it to their students. We left plenty of sanitation literature with them, in their native language, so they can study and learn even more.
After we finished that class, we all loaded up onto the bus and went to an orphanage, this one just a few miles up the road from the school. What I saw there was, at the very least, heart wrenching. We walked down a dirt path to a crooked gate made of sticks and tin, and as we walked through the gates, the children quickly gathered together and began to sing to us. It was so sweet to hear them sing, “We are glad to see you, glad to see you, glad, glad, we are glad to see you!” They sang it first in English, then French, then Creole. After the song, Jeremy told them why we were there and we began to hand out the dolls. I handed out a few, and then began to walk around and look at the orphanage conditions. The things I saw made me feel like crying and running and screaming all at once. The children were malnourished. Many had no clothes. Some were obviously sick. They all smiled at us, however. I felt silly handing dolls to starving children. To my right was a small mud hut that the orphanage worker said was where the children slept. I ducked through the small door and almost instantly had to turn my back to the children and face the wall, because my body was suddenly being racked with sobs. I had no control over it. These precious babies and children were sleeping on top of one another on a dirt floor in a tiny mud hut with nothing under them to cushion their emaciated bodies and nothing over them to keep away the disease carrying mosquitoes. When I could finally control myself, I turned around and began to try to talk to the children. None of them could speak English and I had no interpreter with me, so I had to resort to smiling and hugging them. It seems funny to me now that I was frustrated by that, as if somehow loving on them was inferior to talking. I spent a lot of time in that room and could not seem to bring myself to leave. I snapped a few pictures, but could not muster the strength to take more. When I finally walked out of the dark little hut and into the midday sunshine, my team was gone. I looked around and finally realized they were all on the bus, which was up the road waiting for me. As I trudged up the dirt path to the rocky dirt road, I almost felt numb from the experience. I was leaving those children to starve and die from some preventable disease. How do you process that? I still haven’t figured it out, but I nearly had a shouting fit when I learned last week that the members of the Holy Bible Church had taken some of their small water filters to the orphanage and are going to try to get them some food.
We drove back to Port-au-Prince that afternoon and flew home the next day. While I have had a difficult time processing some of the things I saw in Haiti, I know that God is sovereign and His plan is being worked out, even when I do not understand it. While it breaks my heart when I think about those sweet babies with no food to eat, I see that God is now mobilizing some of my brothers and sisters at the Holy Bible Church to help as much as they can, and He will be glorified. While I have no comprehension of what compels Haitians to practice voodoo, I see the small church in Souvenance faithfully plowing the fields with the gospel every day, and I know that God will be glorified. When I see natural disaster after natural disaster shake the small country of Haiti and do not understand why, I know that God will be glorified.
Please pray for the country of Haiti. Pray that those in bondage to voodoo will be set free because “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36) Pray that those who go to bed with hungry bellies tonight will look to the Word to be filled. Pray that those with no bed in which to sleep will look to God for their comfort, even amidst their suffering.
I hope that from this post you are able to get a small glimpse of our trip to Haiti in September. I could fill pages and pages with the stories we brought back with us. If you ever have an opportunity to go on a trip like this, I pray that you will seriously consider going and experiencing God’s work in a different culture than your own. It can be life changing.
"I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." Acts 26:17-18
