Haiti Trip 09

Last Day

2009-01-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

Well, today was our last day actively involved with the children. Over 40 sponsored children were brought from all over Haiti with a parent to meet their sponsors. What an incredible day. My balloon modelling skills were in full flow – dogs, hats and swords make you a hero out here. And you wouldn’t believe how well a face painted daisy looks on their rich black skin.

Linzi met little Esther, the child she’s been sponsoring for over a year. She’s seven now and was definitely the quietest kid in the place. I think her father was afraid that she wasn’t making a good impression – probably worrying that if the child didn’t impress Linzi she might lose her sponsorship. As the morning went on Esther eventually started to relax and after about 25 circuits of a little tykes slide in the back garden her little smile started to appear. She was so sweet and she started to cry when she realised they were leaving us.

It was an amazing experience for Linzi. She can be in no doubt now that her sponsorship has changed this little girls life, as well as that of her family. Some of the sponsored children had set out on Thursday (two days ago) to be here this morning and meet their sponsor. People, we’re talking 60p per day to TOTALLY change a life. I’m intending to get each of my kids to sponsor a Haitian child when I get home.

I have to say again how much Compassion have impressed me. A truly fabulous, efficient and loving organisation. All the kids got fed today, got a new bible, two huge food parcels to bring home and gifts from their sponsors. They were overawed.

Tomorrow I will leave this beautiful country. It has left an indelible mark on my heart. It’s my first experience of a Third World country, and yes, I know there is so much need in so many other places. But I can only respond to where I find myself, and I have fallen in love with Haiti and it’s people, it’s children in particular. I’ll be back here before the end of the year, logistics permitting. It’s a dangerous place to be. We were escorted by up to three armed guards a lot of the time, many of the business men travel in cars with 2 inch thick bullet proof glass. Compassion have had staff kidnapped in the past. But they continue to serve God and love the children.

I’ve realised how self-absorbed my life at home is. I knew it before I came here, but somehow I didn’t REALLY know it. I’ve also realised that spiritually we are an empty people on the whole in the UK. The richness of their spirituality here puts us to shame.

I’ve been privileged to be here and am a better person for the experience.

Photo link

2009-01-16T20:39:00.002-08:00

If you want to view all photos from the trip go to
here.

Thanks.

Short video of the trip

2009-01-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

Only 2 days to go

2009-01-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

We made the journey back to Port-a-Price today - 4 hours in the bus. It's 36 degrees today. Some of the journey was a stunning drive along the edge of the ocean.
Our hotel for the last two nights is much more the kind of hotel we are used to.
The food is normal to us. For the last three days I've eaten very little, just rice and a few homemade chips. I've avoided the sickness that has hit about a third of the group. Apparently it's normal for travelling groups to get sick here.
The rest of the day we have to ourselves - it will be good to have some time to process everything we've seen and heard, to eat some clean food and to wash some clothes.
Tomorrow Linzi will meet little Esther who's being brought here for a big party along with about 30 other sponsored children and their parents. I will balloon model (shock) and face paint.

Jack's back

2009-01-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Today our very own Jack Bauer is back with us. Eve, our boday guard, and his two compatriots, are all members of the Haitian SAS. That's what he says and I'm not arguing!

We plan to go see two projects in an area called Gonaives (gone-aye-eves). The three hurricanes last year decimated this place and it will prove to be a hard day. For starters it’s a three hour bus journey from where we are staying. Considering the roads and the fact that the hurricane destroyed many of them even more, it’s a perilous journey. There are still overturned school buses, cars piled up in corners where the water has just washed them into a huge heap, bridges downed and electric pylons lying on their sides. I’m sitting at the window and on not a few occasions I’m praying hard that we don’t tip over the edge.

The area is surrounded on all sides by mountains, so in effect all the houses are built in a huge bowl. Hence when the waters of the hurricanes came they had a devastating effect. Four months later there are still HUGE areas flooded. Hundreds of bodies of the 3,000+ killed have never been found.

The first project we went to see was a reverse osmosis plant that Compassion has installed in the city. Basically it takes water of any quality and turns it into pristine water which is totally safe and pure. This is a HUGE thing here, because there is NO mains water and people are drinking everything. That spreads typhoid, dysentery and countless other diseases. And kills hundreds of children. One in 12 children on the island as a whole dies before they reach age 12. The plant costs $20,000 to install and changes thousands of lives. It’s located in an inner city project which has an old blind pastor who positively radiated with God’s love.

We then move on to a small project about half an hour out of the city. It’s located by a dry river bed, but when the hurricane hit here the water was 25 feet deep! 25 feet. It covered the building in the photo below. We listen to testimonies of people who were here when the hurricane hit. One guy told of taking his wife and five children to the second story of his house. As the water kept on rising he moved them to the third floor. The waters kept coming, and no-one else in his family could swim apart from him. So he swam for 15 minutes until he found an old fridge floating in the water, brought it back, and with his wife under one arm and his five kids in the fridge, he just had to float to survive. The fridge overturned at one point scattering his children everywhere – but he managed to round them all up again. They got to a higher point on another building and after three days and nights without food, they survived. Our translator broke down while he was telling his story.

Another guy told of wedging his wife’s head in a tree (I kid you not) to keep her safe in the storm, he tried to save his other 3 children but lost his 13 year old and never saw her again. While he was telling us this about ten ladies in the crowd were crying and wailing, they had all lost at least one child in the hurricane.

The final story we heard was of a man with two small children under his arms. As the waters reached the top of his building he was faced with the choice of which child to let go, as he could only swim if he had one arm free. What a choice to have to make.

The children that we meet in the project are so full of life it defies logic. They are happy, bouncing kids. They sing and dance for us and tell us how Compassion has changed their lives.

The future for the place however is bleak. They need to relocate their buildings farther up the mountains if they are to avoid a repeat of last year. It also happened to them in 2004. Re-locating would probably cost $50,000.

We see a few other very disturbing sights and sounds today. But also signs of hope. We see some houses that Compassion have built for $3500 which will totally change lives. We are told of their goat projects, their water projects and on and on. It’s an amazing organisation and they have changed millions of lives.

Tomorrow morning (Friday) we head back to our first hotel in the capital. Hotels here are CRAZY money, ranging on our trip from $100 to $180 per night. It’s a real rip off, but the only people who stay in them are UN or NGO people, so they charge a hefty amount knowing that it will be paid.

Haiti has had a profound effect on me. There are so many places needing help and so many ways of helping. Really helping. Changing thousands of lives for a few thousand dollars. But that’s all to come. I hope I can be a catalyst to wake a few people up to the need.

Tomorrow morning we will leave our beautiful location by the ocean and head back to Port a Prince.

Hello to my kids

2009-01-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

miss you all so much!

James Bond 007

2009-01-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday small private planes, today speed boats back to the mainland. The names King, Trevor King.

I will say goodbye to la Gonave with a heavy heart. It’s breathtaking in it’s beauty, but destined to always struggle because just as they get on their feet again, another hurricane is likely to destroy the place. They don’t have options. No other country will have them. And they’ve lived here for hundreds of years. It’s a struggle they will have to continue. But they battle on with love and kindness to each other. And with great celebration in their churches that God is real and is with them. We have outgrown our need for God in the west. We can get by without Him. Here they need Him and He’s real. Their singing will bear testimony to that.

Before we leave the island at lunchtime we visit another Compassion project. There are 600 children at this one, and again, every one of them so precious.

The kids tell us about their lives and one of the little boys says sadly that he once had a sponsor but they had to stop. He’s the only boy in his class waiting on a sponsor. Well I’m glad to say he’s not waiting any longer as I’ve signed up to look after him. He’s a very precious little boy. This is him (sorry, don't have his name to hand)

This school like so many others is church based. The pastor started here 24 years ago on a barren piece of ground. He now has a church of 400 and the school of 600 kids. But he has a vision for a church of 4,000 and has started building to accommodate them. He’s been building ten years so far. He was obviously a man after God’s heart.

This school had a computer lab in it with 12 computers which is visited by people from all over the island to learn computer skills and increase their education. It’s a fabulous facility.

At lunchtime we get two speedboats back to the mainland. It’s a glorious sunny day and a very enjoyable trip.

Tonight we have checked into Club Indigo for a two night stay. It’s in a breathtaking location – in any other country people would pay thousands to stay here – but there are about 50 people here and it holds around 1500. The beaches, pools and views are worldclass. My room is 20 feet from the beach.

But I’m strangely depressed tonight. Truth is, I don’t want to return to my mundane existence at home. To being a money making robot. I want to experience some more genuine community, to connect more with God’s heart. To see kids sing their hearts out for a God who has changed their little lives. To see a huge white smile when they get their first ever balloon.

Penguin Pilots

2009-01-14T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well, it really does feel like a scene from Madagascar.

We are in a 14 seater plane flying to La Gonave, an island off the coast of Haiti with a population of 100,000 plus. They have no landing strip there, so we’ll be landing on the beach. Thankfully there’s not a penguin in sight!

No-one really knows how many people live here. It’s one of the poorest places on the planet. There’s no UN in this part of Haiti, we’re not even sure that there’s a police force. There is one clinic for the whole huge island, it was built by the Wesleyan church 50 years ago and is still the only health care in this whole place. It has basic bunk beds for 30 people. There is no immunising of kids against the many diseases.

When we land, I just can’t believe that we’re on the same planet. Little kids, some naked, run from the bushes to the plane. Mothers walk over slowly to see who’s come to the island. They look at you in longing for something, anything. Sweets, clothes, recognition. One of our group brings out some lollies and chaos ensues as the kids fight amongst themselves. Somehow we’ve been transported to a land that I have only heard about and read about in books.

We drive the dusty track to our hotel in open back 4x4’s. The hotel is basic as you would expect – no TV’s, internet or anything like that – but a clean, functioning hotel with ensuite rooms. The only one on the island that we know of. It’s owned by a lady who was a Compassion sponsored child. That’s increasingly what we are finding – that people in positions of responsibility everywhere have come through the Compassion program.

Heading to our first project is an experience. We’re in an open back 4x4, but the rest of the guys graciously let me sit up front when they see the problems my hips give me even getting in. The road that we travel on limits our speed to walking pace. It literally takes us ten minutes to pass a guy that is walking in front of us, we have to wait for a small stretch of road that’s slightly flat as the rest of it is true 4x4 terrain – huge rocks, dried up river beds and so on. This is the main road around the island. We travel on this for about 45 minutes which takes us around 3 miles, through landscape that I would have associated with Africa. Dry, dusty, barren land with the odd little child standing naked and some very thin animals around basic shelters.

When we stop the trucks it’s in the middle of a small quiet village. I never imagined what we were about to experience. They opened a large pair of gates at the side of the road and we pulled into what was obviously a Compassion project. Over 300 kids went berserk at the sight of us, dancing, singing, screaming.

They’d obviously been awaiting our arrival. When we get out of the vehicle we are swamped with little hands and huge white smiles on deep black faces. All the children are dressed immaculately in matching uniforms. It’s completely overwhelming. Two minutes before everywhere seemed to barren and helpless. Now this seems like a little piece of heaven.

We are ushered into a church hall where all the children are gathering, all 300 of them, for a presentation. They welcome us and sit like little angels through the whole thing. Their singing has the tears streaming down my face. It’s absolutely incredible.

As I write this several hours later I’m in tears just thinking about it. I’ll never forget that song and that melody. Compassion has saved these little kids from a life of extreme poverty and given them a real chance in life. Again, I believe it was a glimpse of God’s heart. His heart breaks for all the little ones who still are without sponsors and who need help. I know that I have to do something but still have no idea what.

When I was coming over on this trip I was thinking about how when we get home, it’s so hard to help people understand. They need to be here. Somehow, as well as making poverty history, we need to try to make poverty personal. This has been a life changing trip for me. I can never again live without my priorities being different. Something that strikes you with great power is the fact that there is more happiness here in this project in La Gonave than there is in anywhere I’ve ever been in the Western World. People here need each other, so community is strong. There’s no vandalism, kids in school know they are privileged to be there, so behaviour is immaculate. Kids work hard around the home because they have to for survival. They are all incredibly beautiful children and they smile so much. In the West we have exchanged material things for community. Again today I feel truly alive, like this is where I’m meant to be. Just look at these precious little ones.

La Gonave has made a huge and lasting impression on me. I’ll be back here someday, hopefully sooner rather than later. I’m incredibly indebted to Compassion for giving me this chance.

63000 reasons for hope

2009-01-12T18:06:00.001-08:00

Well today was day one of our project visits. We went to two different projects. The first one was a CSP project. Let me explain.

Compassion have four different projet types - CSP is Child Survival Program (2400) . This deals with kids from 0-3. CDSP is “Child Development through Sponsorship” Program. Ages 4 + (63,000). Then there's “Leadership Development Program” (102) for kids who excel and at age 18 they are given a scholarship in their country. Then there are CIV's, Complimentary Interventions, where they support a particular project in a community. The numbers in brackets are the current numbers for Haiti.

So the first project this morning was kids from 0-3. I was blown away. I think it's the most alive I've felt in the last 10 years. Interestingly, another guy here with us from the US said exactly the same thing to me about his feelings. The kids and mothers were so warm and welcoming. Make no mistake, Compassion has completely changed their lives. A little two year old girl got up in a beautiful white dress and sang a welcome to us.

To my right a mother sat with her little one year old boy, he was missing a right leg and right hand. You could see the sadness in her face. So I went over and picked up the little kid and her face lit up because someone took an interest in him. All these kids when they turn 4 will move on into the sponsorship program.

We went to visit a local home, it was reminiscent of a Romanian home, a ten foot square room which slept six people. Then Timothy told us that this was probably the best house that any of the 50 women had. They’d brought us here because everywhere else that the ladies lived was too dangerous for us to go. We really were the only white people visible in the city, apart from the UN.

There are 5000 UN soldiers here to try to keep the peace.

We then went downstairs to see the workshops that the ladies do. In case I haven’t explained very well, this project is as much about training the mothers as looking after the kids. So they learn cooking, sewing and even how to scrub the dishes! To get to the workshops we had to go through a group of around 50 kids who had gone through the CSP project and now were sponsored and in primary school. I have never experienced kids so excited. They crowded around us, one guy blew up a balloon and all the kids literally went beserk trying to get it. A little clip fell out of a little girls hair and I picked it up. I pretended to put it in one hand , then showed here it was in the other. She giggled with laughter and soon I had an audience of 25 wanting their turn to guess. It sounds stupid, but it was a connection with God’s heart. Bringing joy and laughter to little souls. It really touched me.

These kids really are the lucky ones, Compassion pay for their schooling, their food and so much else. There is NO free education in Haiti, everyone has to pay. It’s only £1 a week, but they still can’t afford that. So over 50% of the population are totally illiterate.

Let me explain another main problem with Haiti. Because families are so incredibly poor, many of them give away their children as Restaviks. A restivik is a child who has been given away by their parents in the hope that they will have a better life with another family. In reality, the vast majority of Restaviks are abused sexually and made to do all the menial tasks that the family don’t want to do. So most of them are up at 4am and work all day long. The host family feed them the scraps and don’t allow them to go to school. It’s a terrible, unimaginable existence.

So this afternoon we went to a CIV, a complimentary intervention. It’s a school run by a church which is designed for Restavik kids. It runs from 2pm until 6pm, when they know the kids will have finished most of their chores for the day. They have gone to the parents of the kids and requested permission for the kids to come to school. They do amazing work with them, but you can’t escape the incredible sadness that there is over these kids situation. They were truly beautiful kids, aged from 10 up to 16 or so. After that, most of the kids run away from their host families. They in turn have no-where to stay and end up in prostitution or whatever. And so another cycle of problems begin.

What really brought home their plight was when one little girl with tears in her eyes, pleaded with one of our group to let her come home with her. It was soul destroying.

To end our first active day, we had dinner with students from the LDP, the leadership development program. When Max, the guy at our table, told us that he was one of 14 children and Compassion had sponsored him since he was 5, it really brought home what an amazing work this is. Max is a fantastic young 25 year old and has just graduated in civil engineering. So we saw today the “cradle to adult” care that Compassion give. I’m privileged to be here, and so so challenged by it all.

Armed guards and warm nights

2009-01-11T19:58:00.001-08:00

It's been a long day - I've been up for 22 hours - just arrived in my hotel room in Port a Prince. We flew into the Dominican republic (my case took 3 hours to arrive) , then got an 18 seater across flight to Haiti. Surprisingly, I loved it!
We were met by a minibus with an armed bodyguard and escorted by another vehicle with a second bodyguard. The streets were crammed with people. The streets had very little light because electric isn't widely available. Most houses were dark and there were fires at the roadside. Roads were terrible. And this is all in the capital city. I'm now about to sleep like a baby, tomorrow I'll give you more details.

Today's the day

2009-01-11T01:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it's here. Sitting in airport lounge waiting on a delayed flight to Dominican Republic from where we get a small charter plane to Port a Prince, Haiti's capital. That scares me, don't like small planes!
I didn't sleep well last night, too much on my mind. It's a bit like flying to another planet.
Anyway, I'll keep you in touch.

Scared!

2009-01-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

Heading out the door in ten minutes for Haiti. Don't think I've ever been as apprehensive about a trip. I'll let you know how it goes.

100 dead men in my lorry

2009-01-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

With my trip to Haiti getting close, I've been trying to find out a bit more about the country.
I challenge you, implore you, to watch this RTE documentary. It's inspiring, yet totally gut wrenching. If you can set aside 50 minutes of your time sometime today, PLEASE watch this.

If you don't have REALPLAYER, click HERE

Leaving on Saturday

2009-01-04T02:48:00.001-08:00

Hello friends

As some of you know, on Saturday I leave for a trip to Haiti with Compassion International. It's the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and also a very dangerous one. If you are the praying kind, I would appreciate your prayers over the next two weeks.

Here's a sample of a couple of Youtube videos which will give you an idea of some of the many, many problems that Haiti has.

It would be encouraging if you would "stay with me" through this blog and let me have your comments. Thanks, I appreciate it.