March 3, 2010

A Week in Haiti
By Roger D. Fal l
Disaster Relief Chaplain
Florida Baptist Convention

I was recently blessed with the opportunity to minister to the people of Haiti who have been so impacted by the earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010. I was part of a four man team from the Florida Baptist Convention, which consisted of two chaplains and two building inspectors. Our journey involved flying from Florida to the Dominican Republic and then riding on a bus across the border into Haiti.

Upon landing in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, my team was joined by a medical team from California, and we met our contact, a missionary from the International Mission Board (IMB). She took us to a seminary that was being used as a staging area to house transitioning teams. The next morning, after receiving our security/safety briefing, we loaded onto buses and headed for the border. The ride was long, but allowed us to see some of the beautiful countryside. During the ride, the chaplain from the medical team provided a brief devotional for both teams.

Upon reaching the border, our IMB security/safety team negotiated with the border guards and ensured our safe passage. We crossed from the Dominican Republic into Haiti without incident. Once across, we stopped at a meeting point where we met the teams who were rotating out. They were leaving Haiti, and headed back to Santo Domingo for their journey home. Although we had never met before, it was like we all had known each other for years. As we transferred luggage from one vehicle to another, the outgoing teams told us what to expect in the days ahead. Then we continued on our trip riding in what would come to be known as “tap-taps”.
A “tap-tap” is a pick-up truck with some metal caging and a cover of some kind attached to the top. Operating as what can only be described as Haiti’s bus system, passengers hop on and ride in the back until they reach their stop, then they “tap-tap” on the truck for the driver to stop. They disembark, pay the driver, and go about their business. These endearing little vehicles would be our primary form of transportation around Port-au-Prince and the outlying areas. Although our tap-taps were exclusively for our use, and not for the public, the experience is unique and something I will never forget. Our ride from the meeting place into Port-au-Prince was different than that from Santo Domingo. We began to see the damage and devastation from the earthquake. The terrain was different, and the landscape turned from trees and bushes to rubble and tents.

We eventually arrived at the Florida House, a beautiful house managed by the Florida Baptist Convention that became our home for the next 8 days. Throughout the week teams rotated in and out and we met people from California, Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, and of course Florida. Some were medical teams and others were inspection teams like us. Each team brought with them their own chaplain(s). As the different teams interacted, the chaplains would gather together and discuss the different ways we could help. Our ministry crossed team borders and each of us would make ourselves available to all team members. A brief devotional and prayer would be conducted every morning during breakfast. As we loaded the trucks and prepared to depart, the chaplains would pray with their driver, security staff, translators, and team members for God’s continued guidance and protection throughout the day.

Our first day out, a Sunday, was a learning experience. It was right in the middle of Haiti’s three days of prayer and fasting. With many of the churches damaged or destroyed, people were worshiping in damaged structures, the streets, or not at all. Many of the pastors were personally impacted by the quake, losing loved ones, members of their church, and their houses. Our purpose was to inspect the churches and the home of the pastor so that they could begin reaching out to the local people again.
It was my experience that the church and its pastor are the hub of the community. Revered and respected, the church is sacred ground and the pastor is considered God’s representative. In many of the small towns and villages we visited there were no government entities to protect or care for the inhabitants; it was the local church and pastor who filled these roles. Now it was our turn to care for the pastor and his church. Because we were inspecting churches and the pastor’s home, we were only coming in contact with Christian church members or the pastor’s family members. Thinking that I would be speaking to lost people about Christ and presenting them with the Gospel while the inspectors assessed the building, I was at a bit of a loss during our first stop. My first site visit started with a prayer for God to show me what he wanted me to do - how I could help. As the inspectors finished their inspection, and we were about to leave for the next site, the Lord laid upon my heart to pray with the people. So before we loaded into our truck I asked, through our interpreter, if we could pray. One Haitian lady looked at me, and through our interpreter said “of course”, as if to say you don’t have to ask… that is what we need.

So this became my team’s regular process. The inspectors inspected the building while the chaplains listened to the people. They told us their stories, cried with us, and shared with us their despair and their faith in Christ to see them through. Then we prayed. Almost every time we stopped at a church or pastor’s home, we prayed with them. I say “almost” because there was one time when we had to leave quickly at the direction of our security team and did not pray with the pastor.
Upon returning that evening to the Florida House, that pastor stood waiting for us at the door. He had traveled about an hour and a half from his church to our house. He told us he needed something very important from us and we had left before he could ask. We were expecting a request for water, clothing, food, or money… but all he wanted was our prayers. So we gathered around him on the front steps of the Florida House, laid hands on him, and prayed over him. Afterward, with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face, he hugged and thanked each of us, promising that he would never forget us and would always pray for us. His desire and need for prayers above all else was repeated by every pastor we met.

We continued our ministry of inspections, listening to stories, and praying at every place we stopped. One day, as we were riding in the “tap-tap” our translator, who had previously worked with another team from Florida, mentioned that he had learned to present the evangicube. He proceeded to go through the entire message of salvation with us in English. He did a great job! After hearing his testimony I thought, “We need to encourage him.” I looked at the other team members and we seemed to be thinking the same thing. We smiled at each other and nodded our heads. From that point on, at every opportunity we had him present the evangicube to whoever would gather and listen.

In some areas we were able to go out into the streets and gather people together. We gathered under trees in the shade, or on rocks, or in the doorway of a church, and he told the people in their own language, how they could be saved. He spoke to adults and children. Some of the pastors that were around us noticed him evangelizing and we would refer to him as a future pastor. At one point he admitted he would one day like to be a pastor. Though I did not know at the time, our translator would come to touch my life more than I expected.

When not out in the fields, the chaplains from all the teams walked around the compound, checking on everyone’s welfare. It did not matter if you were on their team, another team, house staff, or one of the Haitians that were helping us. While I had several opportunities to talk with other Disaster Recovery Volunteers, it was my experience with some of the Haitians that really hit close to home.

One morning as I was walking around, I noticed our translator sitting on the bumper of a truck looking very depressed. I asked if he was alright and he said that he was just very sad. I asked if he would like to talk and so he did. He told me he had celebrated his 22nd birthday just days before the earthquake. Three of his cousins, whom he was very close to, had died and were still buried in the rubble. He told me how we had passed that building several times in our travels, and that he was okay as long as he kept busy, but when he was alone he would think about them and how much he missed them. He said he sometimes wondered why God took them and left him there. We talked and prayed together until it was time to go.

This conversation with our translator, combined with the sites, stories, and experiences of each day, lay heavy on my heart. One day I was wondering, as I took my cold shower and missed my home back in Florida, where did our security, drivers, and translators go at the end of the day. The volunteers entered the house, which is located in a secure and gated compound, ate good food, showered, and call home on our cell phones or chat with family members on the computers. Some gathered and debriefed with team members on the events of the day. But where did our Haitian friends go?

The next morning, I asked some of the Haitians that question and the answers I received were eye opening. Time after time they told me they returned to their “home.” For some their home was a tent, while for others it was the damaged remnants of their house. It hit me then that while people kept thanking us for volunteering and “sacrificing” a week of our time to come and help in Haiti, we still had homes, family members, jobs, and everything that goes with living in America to go home to. These Haitians, who had suffered great losses themselves, came everyday to work helping us to help their people. They worked hard, side by side with us, never asking us to detour from our mission to help them personally. Every evening, after seeing (sometimes for the first time) the suffering of their countrymen, they went home to deal with their own tragedies. They were the ones sacrificing to help others, not me.

After several days of being out in the field, the team I was with was asked to stay behind and help at the Florida House. Because of the need for drinkable water at the house, the team was asked to assemble and install a water filtration system rather than continue using bottled water. We started out as four men moving and assembling parts, but were soon joined by several Haitian men who were eager to help and worked together with us in spite of the language barrier. It was funny and exciting to see us talking to them in our best French/Haitian and them to us in broken English. But we got it built and running, and so the team was asked to stay behind again the next day and train people on how to use and maintain the system.

I felt that as a chaplain I would not contribute to the training as effectively as those with building experience could.  As I was settling in with my devotional for the evening the chaplain from the medical team from California approached. Having spent time in Santo Domingo and traveling into Haiti together, we had gotten to know each other’s teams pretty well. He told me they were seeing over 100 people each day at the medical clinic that they were operating in a damaged church. He said there were so many people he needed to talk with, but just did not have time to see them individually since he was the only chaplain on the team. He went on to say how next time he was bringing a second chaplain. This had to be God at work. I volunteered to help him at the clinic, and he gladly accepted. So on my last day in Haiti I worked in a medical clinic with the team from California. Over 100 people were seen and treated medically and spiritually. I took our evangelistic translator with us and he shared his testimony and the Gospel with the people as they waited. This allowed the chaplains to tend to the spiritual needs and counsel with the people who needed us, while the medical team tended to and cared for the medical needs of the people.

Physically, the doctors worked on saving lives by identifying and treating some critical medical conditions. Spiritually, the chaplains worked on saving souls by leading some of the people in the sinner’s prayer. My last experience there was with a young mother who was at the clinic to have her child examined. The Doctor called me over and said the lady wanted to talk with a chaplain. As we talked, she said she needed a change in her life. She knew about God from church but now wanted Him in her life. After confirming that she understood the decision she was making and going over the scriptures, she prayed to receive Christ as her personal Lord and Savior.
The next day, as we loaded the trucks for our return trip to the Dominican Republic, we said goodbye to all those we had come to know and love in Haiti. The translator, who had shown a love for Christ and a heart for evangelism, approached me and said he now knew why God had left him alive in Haiti. He said that his purpose was to tell others about Jesus, and that God had left him there so he could reach those who might not otherwise be reached. He said that he would continue to spread the Word until God says he is done and takes him home. As we hugged goodbye, I looked at one of the Haitian pastors who had been with us throughout the week and had heard our translator share with the people. I asked him to help the young man grow in his spiritual walk. The pastor smiled, shook the hand of our translator and called him pastor as if to say welcome to the calling.

As I sit at my computer writing this story and thinking of all the experiences of that week, I am feeling overwhelmed. There are just not enough words to describe what one experiences by spending time in Haiti. This past Sunday I heard a passage of scripture that I felt summarized my trip. The Bible says in Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV) 35Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Just as in the scripture, we went out into the towns and villages. We ministered and held a medical clinic in their churches. We met and saw the people and felt compassion for them. I see the need is great, not so much for stuff, but for the message of God. And not just in Haiti or across the globe, but also across our country, across our state lines, and across our streets. I encourage everyone to go… go to Haiti, go to China, go to Chile… go someplace even if it is just down your road. God is at work, but He needs workers. Personally, I will never forget my trip to Haiti, or the people there. I truly feel so blessed to have met such wonderful people, talked with them, laughed with them, cried with them, worshiped with them, and prayed with them. I cannot wait for the next opportunity to go back.