Play Ball!

One of the challenges of this trip was language. Spanish is spoken in the Dominican Republic (DR) where we slept at night, while Creole is the national language of Haiti where we worked during the day.

So every morning as we crossed the border into Haiti from the DR, our brains had to shift from one language to another. We went from wishing people "Buenos dias" in the DR to "Bonjou" after passing through an opening in the fence that separated the two countries.  

Foreign languages ​​have never been my strong suit. While I know a smattering of Spanish, my Creole vocabulary is basically zero. Rev. Kara gave us a sheet of "Helpful Creole Phrases" before the trip, which I promptly tossed into my carry-on bag and never looked at again.

After working a couple of hours under the searing Haitian sun, my language difficulties became even more pronounced. The two languages ​​became a jumble in my baked brain, so after about the third day I resorted to a friendly wave rather than risk a greeting butchered.

And that's when an impromptu game of baseball saved the day. We had brought a few tennis balls and Frisbees to throw around with the older children at the refugee camp in Haiti. One day a kid wearing a St. Louis Cardinals shirt showed up with a stick and within minutes it was "Play ball!" The Frisbees served as bases and an empty bag of fertilizer was designated home plate.

Shortly after the game started, I began hearing my DR-born teammates using a familiar language: English. I was told English is commonly used in Spanish-speaking countries to describe baseball terms, so I was delighted to hear cries of "foul," "out" and "home run." Finally, words I could understand--the international language of baseball.

Standing on that dusty field suddenly feeling confident to add my two cents to an argument about a ball hit "fair" or "foul," I was overwhelmed with the feeling of oneness with my Haitian brothers and sisters. Though I lived in a spacious home with more bathrooms than occupants and they resided in huts built with sticks and old clothes, we exchanged laughter and high-fives like old friends.  

So thank you God for the opportunity to share the love of a game with new friends and to help me see that we truly are all God's children.

Wednesday: Brave

Travel is always tiring, but rarely is it as exhausting as it has been this week.  Emotions have been intense and I have felt the toll on  my  body and spirit.  

Daily trips to the refugee camp (if you can even call it that) have left me with  different perspectives every day.  In more normal times, there might have been a more gradual evolution in my thinking.  But these have not been normal times, and my mind has struggled  to understand the immensity of the  experience.  

The first day obviously was shock.  I have visited and lived in refugee camps before, but not like this.  No UNHCR, no host country protection, no daily food distribution, no local community awareness, and no international orgranizations to provide other basics of everyday life.  Nothing but too many scared and lonely  (I suppose) people on a parched piece of land trying to survive far from any other signs of life.

In response to this scene, I think the whole group attempted to go into action mode.  The children touched our hearts and we wanted (still want) to fix this.  But what could we do?  Erect a shade net?  Donate clothing since they seemed to have nothing?  Bring in food that we purchased outside?  Mobilize our home communities to build a wáter filtration system?  The list is long, but In the end, all we feel  is overwhelmed because the needs are so great and we are so small.

Today was yet another emotion.  Today I remembered many of the tiny faces from the two previous days.  We were actually starting to KNOW these childen.  Like I knew my own childrens´friends when they were little.   Or maybe even like a parent knows his or her own kids. 

One little boy in particular sticks in my mind.  He "adopted" me.  He showed me his handiwork and wanted my praise.  For some reason he had to leave for a moment, and he made sure I knew he was going.  After a few minutes, he rushed back up to me as if to say, "Hey, I´m back!"

But this story isn´t about me, or our group.  It is about this group of Haitian parents, children, friends, and individuals alone in the world whose jouney here, I suspect, is as long as our time with them has been short.  When they were undocumented Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, they must have known for a long time that their status was precarious.  They knew they were considered undesirable there, and that the day was coming soon when they would be forced to leave.  To a country that may have been the place of their birth –or maybe their parents´birth – but that they knew little about.  

Yet however dire their predicament, they smiled when we came.  They clapped along with the music.  They handed us their babies.  They offered us chairs to sit in when they had none.  …I wonder if I could be so brave and hospitable.

So tomorrow is our last day there.  I wonder how that will feel –for us and them.  I hope they don´t think we are abandoning them.  I hope they will know that we have been deeply touched by their accepting us in their midst.  I hope they will know that we will continue to think of them and the humanity that we share.  I hope they will know that we will keep them in our prayers and look for ways, no matter how distant, to be their friends.

-By Jeanine Greene

Joy on Monday

The team had a remarkable day here in Haiti, culminating in a joyful time with refugee children camped outside Ans-a-Pitre.

I want to write about those experiences but I first want to briefly address an important matter: this was the team's first day with coffee since arriving in the DR. Our previous lodgings had not offered morning joe, and buying a cup made with local water can be a risky proposition. For some of us, coffee is more than a morning routine–it is a necessity. And our energy level was high when we left our hotel in the morning.

Another important detail: this was the team's first day with cash. Our first order of the day was standing in line for an hour at a local bank to swap US dollars for pesos. At last, we were empowered to buy sundries and trinkets.

Two major service projects anchored our day. First, our team worked at Sadhana  Forest in the morning. We mixed compost, sorted recycling, built a garden bed, and helped to prepare lunch for twenty-one volunteers from four different countries…five if you count California. The loss of Haiti's natural forest over the course of three centuries is a tragedy colored by complex political and economic circumstances. See, e.g., http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?nstoryId=123374267.  But it's encouraging to think of the incremental progress being made each day.

The second part of our day took us six miles outside of town to a refugee camp. Some context may be helpful. During the past two months, a long-running immigration dispute between the DR and Haiti has come to a head. An article about it can be found here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/07/haiti_s_refugee_crisis_the_heartbreaking_plight_of_haitians_kicked_out_of.html. When Rev. Kara was out for a run last week, she found one of these “repatriated” refugee camps about six miles outside of Ains-a-Pitre. Our team decided–at her suggestion–to spend a large chunk of our time this week finding ways to service this largely forgotten camp.

The camp is 500+ people. It has no clean water source and no access to medical care. It is located six miles from the edge of town in a desert of rocks, brush and cactus. When the wind blows hard, the tents made of sticks and used clothing resemble boats at full sail. The largest solid structure is a church with a thatched roof and walls; it seats about sixty people.

These refugees have more needs than we could ever hope to address in one week. But our team had an idea. All eight of us piled into the back of a pickup truck with backpacks full of crayons and coloring books. When we arrived at the camp, we asked the church's pastor to spread the word that all children in the camp could join us in the church for some coloring time.  It was magic. Within minutes, the church was filled with more than forty smiling children anxious for a colorful diversion from the afternoon heat. Even parents and teenagers joined us in the church to see just what the ruckus was all about.

We all talked about this experience tonight when we got back to our hotel. None of us will ever forget the smiles on the children's faces–and how something so simple could bring so much joy. And perhaps those smiling faces were His eyes looking back at us.

–John, with much thanks to the whole team

FIrst day in Haiti

Today was our first day crossing over into Haiti. It was also my first time experiencing the crossing. We went to church in Ansapit, and then we went to Sadhana Forest. We had to get to the border early because sometimes it can take a while to get through, but we also could get there too early because the border stations don’t open until 8:00 in the morning.

When we got to the border on the Dominican side, we had to fill out those migration cards like you do at the airport; it wasn’t too much trouble for us to leave the Dominican Republic. When we got to the border on the Haiti side, however, it took us a little longer because each of us had to turn in our passports and a fee; then, the border guards had to fill everything out by hand. Before we were able to give them our passports, I was a little worried that we wouldn’t be allowed in, but it did work out.

Church had already started by the time we arrived, but the ushers there pointed us out to some seats right in the front where we could all sit together. I have been to church services in other countries before, but this was one of the first times where I did not understand the language of the service. It was such a good experience, though, because I could still get a sense of being in worship, despite not understanding the language. At one point, Kara was invited up to tell the congregation who we were. They then all sang a welcome song for us. I just felt so welcomed during that service. They sang a lot, and several times, people from the congregation would come up to us as we were struggling to figure out what song everyone was currently singing. Sometimes they would take our hymnals and turn them to the right page; other times, they would just hand us a new hymnal with the page already turned to the right song. It was a nice experience being able to worship with the church in Haiti.

After church, we walked over to Sadhana Forest. I’ve heard about Kara’s visits to Sadhana Forest over the years, but this was my first time getting to see it myself. It takes a lot of dedication to keep up their reforestation effort, and I really admire what Sadhana Forest is trying to do. We spent some time resting while Kara helped make lunch. We had lunch with several of the people who are currently volunteering at Sadhana. Kara took us on a tour around the property.

After our visit to Sadhana today, we walked back to the border and walked back to the Dominican Republic.

One thing I noticed about the trip over the border was just how different things looked in the Dominican Republic vs. in Haiti. The roads in Pedernales, for examples, are generally all paved, but in Haiti, we walked on a lot more gravel roads, especially towards Sadhana Forest where you aren’t right in the center of the city. I know both places experience poverty, but I hadn’t thought about how different that would look in each country.

Saturday: Driving Towards the Here and Now

Today´s drive from Santo Domingo to Pedernales was an exercise in releasing control of my to-do list and moving with the events of the day.

We woke up in Santo Domingo and four of us ran along a beautiful beach, accompanied by a gorgeous sunrise.  After a roof-top breakfast consisting of the local fruits and cereal, our two cars headed in a south westerly direction on Route 2.  After a few uneventful hours of highway driving punctuated by "are we there yet" queries, we stopped in Barahona to visit our missionary friend Jessica Hogan and her parents, Marty and Lisa. Their call is to distribute food to the stateless Haitians who have lived in the Domincan Republic bateys for generations.  These people of Haitian descent were brought to the Dominican Republic to work in the sugar industry.  Jessica´s family also supports the efforts of the local Haitian pastor, Pastor Ramon. 

After an enjoyable lunch of pizza in Barahona, we packed into our respectives cars for a drive along a terrain much different from the progressively drier terrain we left behind.

Chickens, cows, horses, goats, pigs, and children all mosied or scurried in and along Route 44 with its breath-taking view of the coast and mountains, and mountainous speed bumps.

We arrived in Pedernales as the sun was setting.  We quickly dropped our bags at the hostel and went to our restaurant near the ocean where, family style, we relaxed to a satisfying meal of beans, rice, salad, plantains, and eggs.

In time, we returned to our rooms, wondering what adventures Sunday would bring us.  One certainty, the to-do list I brought Santo Domingo will be forgotten. 

-Sterling

A Highway in the Desert

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord!
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”

-Isaiah 40:3-6

As I've spent this last week preparing for our BUMC group's arrival on the island, I have had many of the "prepare ye the way" passages from the Hebrew  scriptures, as well as several Advent/Christmas songs, running through my head. Never before, though, had I noticed how these scriptures are so steeped in desert and water imagery. As someone living in a temperate, developed pocket of the world, the pictures painted in the Bible about barren wastelands, straight highways, and springs gushing up in the desert are nice to think about, but they don't directly relate to my day-to-day experience. Spending eight days in a place that hasn't had rain for eight months, however, has transformed the power this imagery has to elicit almost a visceral response in me. I am thirsty here. Everything is thirsty here. Sadhana Forest, the reforestation project where we work, has put a hold on planting,amything until the rains come again. People are hauling water great distances just to drink and wash. The dust is overwhelming, and it's hard to think about anything, outside of getting enough to drink and protecting myself and others from the sun and the dust.

And here, in this harsh and barren place, I am to prepare a way for seven people who have stepped out in faith and agreed to join me? I can imagine the ancient Hebrew prophets in their own deserts, wondering how they were supposed to prepare a way for God in the midst of destruction, fear, and hopelessness. 

I don't have a great answer, but I did read the passages again this evening, after I collected the group fromthe Santo Domingo airport and we ate together in a quirky artists' enclave. I notice  that the prophets don't say that they are the ones making the way or causing the waters to spring up.  They are only heralds, workers in the fields, and people who re-orient us toward a God who makes the way. The prophets`job is to be present with the people in their most despairing times. With their presence, they keep faith alive, carrying a candle for God in the places where people´s hands are too full, or where their spirits are too drained.

Looking back, there have been many prophets in my life this week. Enolve, the Haitian reforestation volunteer who carried my water bucket when I protested that I simply couldn'tgo on without breakfast first. Enolve began to sing a song as we walked, and he looked me im the eyes and told me I was strong.

Another person, Lixonne, brought his guitar to a makeshift camp outside the city and got the people there, of every age, to stand up and sing  powerful songs in Creole about freedom, standing up, and protecting human dignity.

God is all around us, and prophetss help me to see and feel that truth. They remind me to keep the path open and to ¨never never never give up.¨ I pray that this week, as we give thanks for and support to the prophets in Haiti, we also might, in some small way, join their ranks, calling attention to the presence of God in what  others have dismissed as a barren desert.

Reflections from Worship Service: Sunday, July 27

Having safely returned from Haiti and the Domincan Republic, our group led both the morning and evening worship services at Bethesda UMC on July 27th. During the morning service, we reflected on different aspects of water: water as source and foundation (Ezekiel 47:7-10), cleansing water (2 Kings 5:1, 9-14), and the binding waters of Baptism (1 Corinthians 12: 4-6, 11-13). The reflections offered by Jacob, Sarah, and Kara are below, as is the reflection given by Jill during the evening service. This service incorporated several of the elements (hymns, scripture, welcoming of guests, and verse recitation) of the Haitian worship service we participated in while visiting Anse a Pitre.

Water, the Origin of Hope

Everyday we take water for granted.  We brush our teeth with it.  We drink it out of the water fountain, we even use it to flush the toilet.  How could you live if you no longer had easily accessible water?  That was one of the many situations we faced in Haiti. 

Anse-a-Pitre is a small border city in Haiti which although impoverished, has had many excellent streams of life emerge within the community.  One example of these streams was the organization we visited every morning, Sadhana Forest.   Sadhana Forest, is an approximately 4 year old community on the edge of town that has begun working on reforesting its grounds and the community with trees that are native to the region.  Sadhana Forest specifically picks trees that can provide food for the community to provide both the nutritional and horticultural benefits.  This need exists because much of the native forestry in the Anse-a-Pitre region has been cut down to provide wood and charcoal for fires.  Now the soil in the region has become very sandy and unfit to grow new trees. 

Sadhana Forest has taken this challenge and has spent a large effort in developing sources for water within its community.  This water for watering plants, cleaning, and drinking.  These efforts are the beginning streams, as described in Ezekiel,  of fresh water that is necessary to try and address larger issues within the community.  They have produced a pocket community in Anse-a-Pitre that is almost completely nutritionally sufficient, and is providing outreach to the community to bring trees out into the community, teach the community about these trees, and ensure their success as both a tree for the region, but also a source of resources for members of the community, who have no regular access to certain nutritional goods or water.  Furthermore, because the local market only meets on Monday and Friday, access to fresh food on other days of the week can be difficult without a local source.  Sadhana Forest is working to become a contributor to alleviating this issue by bringing the fresh water throughout the community.

One of the many people we met on our trip was Eddy.  Eddy is a former inhabitant of Sadhana Forest, and is a strong member of the community in Anse-a-Pitre.  After he left Sadhana, he started his own garden on a plot of land within the community.  On his land he has planted many plants including thousands of cedar tree seedlings.  These seedlings, each in individual soda bottles will be distributed throughout the community. In order to keep his seedlings alive, Eddy has acquired a deep fresh water well at his residence.  In addition, he is working with his neighbors for access to water for his garden through the shallow canal system in Anse-a-Pitre. 

Eddy has taken steps to be educated in permaculture through both local education and online education.  This education has allowed him to understand the values of proper soil enrichment, and the correct heterogeneous gardens he needs to plant to sustain the health of the entire garden.  With this knowledge he has helped influence many in the region to become better stewards of their limited resources, even including his father.  This has allowed many in the community thrive with a better understanding of the resources they have.  Again, Eddie is both physically and metaphorically planting trees to bring fresh water to a new region.  He does this for the love of his family, the love of his community, and the love of God.

These are just a snippet of the experiences we all witnessed on our trip to Anse-a-Pitre of individual leaders within a community expanding the reach of  the physical fresh waters, mixed with the fresh waters of God and spreading the word throughout the community.  I invite you to ask any of us about our experience in Haiti.  The stories I have just described are just the foundation of thriving community that is overcoming challenges of limited resources and using the spirit of God to lead them along their journey.

Amen

-Jacob

The Water that Cleanses

Bonjour! I’m not sure if you all know, but this was my first trip out of the country.  I was inspired to take this journey by Kara’s enthusiasm for the land and people of Haiti.  I had always thought that people living in third world countries were dirty and sad, which came from many of the images that we see of poor people around the world on television, but I was wrong!  The people living in AnsePitre were very clean and well-dressed.  It was clear that they washed both themselves and their clothes often.  I was amazed at how dirty I became while working on our project and how clean most of the Haitians were despite doing the same job.

One way that I connected to the people of AnsePitre was during the times I needed to wash in order to become clean.  Early in the week I partnered with Ronnie, a 15 year-old boy to do a load of laundry.  We had worked together all day and now it was time to get our dirty clothes clean.  He clearly had a great system going and had even soaked his clothes during our lunchtime.  I was the novice and he helped me to get my “load” started, despite not speaking the same language.  It was at this point that I began to feel part of the community at Sadana and accepted by the people of AnsePitre.

Later in the week, I took bucket showers in the afternoon before going to work with the children at the school.  One day when it was time to shower about 3 other men in the community had the same idea at the same time:  the three shower stalls (think woven palm leaf walls for privacy) were occupied.  One of the men we worked with earlier that day, Tu Tu, saw me struggling to find an open stall.  He was nice enough to ask the men to join up together to leave a stall free for me AND he filled my bucket with water.  I was able to communicate with him enough to understand that it was my bucket he filled and say thank you for his efforts.  This man, who has a lot less than me, was able to give me the gift of grace by helping me to wash and be clean.

-Sarah

The Water that Binds

We weren’t very ambiguous about the theme for this morning’s worshp.

Scripture, Reflection, Visual aids

All pointed to...

Water!

Throughout the whole week,

Water was on our minds,

First thing in the morning.

Making sure we had clean water to drink,

Remembering not to use the sink water to brush teeth,

Walking across the dry, hot road to the border.

A bridge that used to pass over a river,

But now just passes over a rocky ditch.

It hasn’t rained in this part of Haiti since April.

When I was preparing for the rest of the group to come,

I worked on a reforestation project.

We watered every day at 6:30 in the morning.

We’d fill five gallon buckets—

I started with two at a time and was demoted to one—

And walk back into the deserty bakara to water the trees we’d planted.

Walk and walk,

About ten minutes or so.

Dump the water—one bucket per tree—

And walk back to the tap to refill.

One.

There were about 300 trees planted out in that bakara.

We needed water for cooking,

Washing dishes,

Doing laundry.

Water, like Jacob said,

Is the foundation from which all life flows.

It’s how we’re made clean,

Like Sarah talked about.

But as the week went on,

The eight of us,

Ambassadors from this church immersed in another community,

Found ourselves connected through water.

The more people we met,

The more we were bound together.

And so our final scripture reading is about the waters of baptism.

Water that flows into the cracks and the chasms,

Water that transports and transforms,

Water that makes us into one people,

God’s people.

Now the Bible is a lot of things,

But it is not a depiction of perfect people.

It’s not a picture of this idealistically unified humanity.

From the very beginning,

The Bible chronicles divisiveness.

It spares no details on how hard it can be to live together.

There’s the sibling rivalry of Cain and Abel, Noah’s sons,

Rachael and Leah,

Jacob and Esau,

Martha and Mary,

All the way down.

From Joseph and his brothers

To the split of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Any type of division we can experience,

You name it,

It’s in the Bible,

From a little bit of jealousy to a disagreement about the law,

to all out war.

the Bible testifies to a brokenness between people

that has plagued us as far back as memory goes.

What’s going on in our world today—

The things we prayed for this morning,

The things we don’t know to pray for—

Are nothing new.

They are huge, and they are close to God’s heart,

But they are not new.

Haiti has suffered political, economic, and social isolation

Since independence in 1804.

The United States didn’t even recognize them as a country until sixty years later.

There have been struggles between our country and theirs,

And with their neighboring Dominican Republic as well.

Our team this week stayed right on the border between the two,

And crossed over freely,

While Haitians were turned away

And buses were emptied out in search of stowaways.

There’s a population in the Dominican Republic of Haitian descendents,

A few generations removed from farmworkers who migrated from Haiti.

These folks live on the outskirts of town in places called bateys,

Similar to the townships in South Africa.

The Dominican Republic has revoked their citizenship because they are of Haitian descent,

And the Haitian government doesn’t recognize them either,

Because they were born in the Dominican Republic.

There is a fierce divisiveness,

A widening chasm,

And these people have been caught in the middle.

On our first day of the trip,

We stopped to visit one of these bateys.

How did we find out about it?

Susie Turner!

Her uncle Steve started a ministry here in the bateys,

And so we drove over there to connect with Jessica,

The missionary who works there now,

running the Least of These Ministries.

Jessica and her team are in the chasm,

in the middle of the divide,

feeding people.

God just called me here, Jessica said.

She’s about my age,

And her parents, who used to live in Frederick,

Just up and moved down to work with their daughter full time.

God called, and God provided a way.

Our first group picture was in the church that Jessica and the batey residents helped to build.

Pastor Ramon was our host.

These people opened up the doors to us,

Called us brothers and sisters,

Prayed for us before they even knew us.

We were bound together by a greater love,

Baptized in the same water.

Just three days later,

We met another man who dwells in the in between,

A man whose strong faith roots him in a place where it’s hard to have roots.

Rafael is both Haitian and Dominican,

And manages to be a trusted friend on both sides,

When it might be easier to just pick one.

I am here because of God,

Rafael told us over dinner,

God put me here,

And it’s all about God.

Rafael puts on concerts for youth from both sides of the border,

Leads a VBS,

And helps groups like ours go back and forth.

He used his truck to haul 800 pounds of cement for us,

Among other things.

“See, I am making a way in the desert,”

God says in Isaiah.

“See how the new thing springs up!”

The Bible testifies to more than just brokenness,

More than just the misunderstandings and selfishness and callousness that divide us.

God’s word is a call to care,

A vision for connection,

A command that we beat our swords into ploughshares,

Stop for the guy on the side of the road,

Mend what has been torn.

In his letter to the Corinthians,

Paul paints a picture of a church that is knit together by the Spirit.

One spirit,

One water,

One baptism.

Pastor Ramon, back in the bateys,

Had a different theological education from me, for sure.

Maybe Jessica and I wouldn’t agree about everything

when it comes to how to run a ministry.

Rafael and I come at parts of scripture from very different angles.

But we were all baptized with the same water.

The same spirit calls us—

Calls me and each of you and each of the people in all of these pictures—

It calls us to work together,

To figure out what that great vision is,

For a people united,

A people filled with good things,

For humanity restored.

And that’s why I go to Haiti every year,

That’s why we invest in trips,

Instead of just sending money over.

Because we were meant to live together,

Not in separate worlds,

Not like this,

Where we don’t hear cries or realize how hungry people are,

How hard they have to work to get by.

We were made to work together,

To put our minds together to come up with new ideas.

You should have seen Jacob with his engineering skills,

Conferencing with people from India, Israel, Haiti, the DR,

Maine, about how to build this shade structure.

A little mini UN right in Haiti,

Except no one was arguing.

Everyone was in it to win it for something bigger than their own egos.

This kind of learning,

This kind of relationship building,

Has long term effects that no one can predict.

Long after this shade net is torn down,

We’ll remember each other.

Whether you were on the trip this year,

Or a part of it through your prayers, your gifts, or your kind thoughts just this morning,

You’re connected with a community in Haiti that loves you very much,

Not for what you’ve done,

But for the God you praise by working.

When this week fades a little bit and becomes another memory,

Our baptisms will still be valid,

That water flowing between us,

Filling the chasms

And seeping into our bones

Will still be activated,

Still ready to change us,

Any one of us,

And all of us together.

Remember your baptism,

Each and every day,

And remember the body it calls you to be a part of.

Remember, and be thankful.

Amen.

-Kara

Reflections on a Week in Haiti (7:02 service )

It’s interesting that the theme we used -- led by Reverend Kara -- for today’s Sunday morning service was WATER.  That’s the first thing that struck me--and probably all of us--in Haiti :  the  dust, the  scarcity of water, the lack of rain.   We, and plants and animals, do all need water.  It’s precious, though we tend to take it for granted until we’re in a place where it’s neither plentiful nor clean.  

No doubt water was (and is) a key concern in the land of Israel.   It comes up a lot in the Bible.   Two particular passages come to mind, from Isaiah.

Isaiah 44:3       “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.”

This verse particularly reflects the first experience we had in Anse a Pitre:  going to church at Galilee Baptiste.  We’ve just tried to give you an idea of what church is like there.   It lasts a while(!) and it has a lot of variety – Sunday school, bible-verse-memorizing, lots and lots of singing, a good long sermon.  Everyone was dressed for Sunday, especially the little girls many in bright yellow dresses, some of the women in bright hats or bandanas or with white doilies on  their heads.  We were welcomed warmly.  Everyone seemed full of joy and energy; the littlest kids were mostly very patient and stayed with it, right through the service.   Many of the prayers and the hymns spoke of hope for a better future in the next world, and perhaps in this one.  At Galilee Baptiste the way to that better world is clearly through Jésus who was absolutely the center of the service—with much praising, hand raising and singing!

Beyond church -- the next day -- another water passage from Isaiah seemed relevant as our BUMC group learned about the “greening” efforts in Anse a Pitre -- replanting trees and vegetables.  As you know, Haiti has been terribly deforested over many years.   People usually have no other source of fuel for cooking so they cut trees and gather wood for daily use.  We did see a wind farm of tall modern wind turbines as we drove past Barahona and towards Santo Domingo going to and from Anse a Pitre, but a wind farm requires a distribution system and that is still lacking.   We saw solar ovens at Sadhana Forest—using sunpower, usually to dry  or cook beans.   Clearly energy, especially for cooking, is still a big issue and deforestation  contributes to the heat and dryness which are so striking around Anse a Pitre.  Restoring tree cover and adding vegetation will help relieve this and slowly begin to restore a better climate while increasing water levels.  

In chapter 41, verse 18-20 Isaiah says:  “I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys.  I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.  I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.  I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together, that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.”

We saw that Holy Hand at work in Anse a Pitre -- particularly at the Sadhana Forest project and also in the garden and seed nursery of Rev. Kara’s friend, Eddy.   

At Sadhana Forest, where we had vegetarian breakfast and lunch each day, we met volunteers from several countries -- India, Canada, US, Israel (the director) and several young, local Haitians.   Volunteers working  the early shift (6:30 – 8:30 am) go out to hand-water the many trees they have planted.  This has to be done early before it’s too hot to head out with heavy buckets toward the mountains and around the several acres of land at Sadhana Forest.  Other volunteers work from 9:30 to 12:30 making lunch and taking care of other jobs (like cleaning the composting toilets!).  

The Sadhana staff also give away fruit trees -- and plant them in water-filled mounds, mulched with old clothes -- around people’s homes.   This way the locals help care for the trees too.   Altogether, Kara tells us, Sadhana Forest has planted more than 34,000 trees of all kinds.   We also learned that over the last several years, the tree planting effort has actually raised the water level by about 6 inches so far. It hasn’t rained in Anse a Pitre this year at least since April.

One afternoon  we had a tour of a plant nursery , a garden not far from Sadhana.   We were invited by Eddy, a young Haitian whom Reverend Kara met 3 years ago.  He used to come to Sadhana Forest at night to read for his exams by electric light (solar).  He had no electricity at home.  Eddy has really informed himself about perma-agriculture or what I know as organic or eco-agriculture.    He has a large variety of plants and vegetables in his garden, under a shade net rather like the one we were building in the school yard near Sadhana Forest.   Eddy also had several hundred small Cyprus trees (about 2 months old I think) raised from seeds from his mother’s tree.  He doesn’t buy seeds, but gathers them from local plants and sources.  He enriches his garden soil by growing corn and other crops to turn back under to add nitrogen and structure to the exhausted soil.    His watering system was especially noteworthy  -- it’s a bit precarious and, appropriately, based on trust and hope.  Although there is a well, he really has little or no water for the garden.  Now he is using water from a neighbor’s hose.   Despite some early reluctance, Eddy has persuaded his neighbor to share water since it will do good for the community and for Haiti.   

What does Eddy see for his future?...  he wants his neighbors and his father (a farmer) to adopt his kind of gardening -- more nutritious and good for the Earth.   His father, who began by saying “I’m your father I know what is right,” is beginning to trust his advice.  A good start!

I worked at the World Bank  quite a few years ago and since then with a French agriculture research organization providing  their local office in Washington—connecting them to projects planned and underway at the World Bank and sometimes the Inter-american Development Bank.  The current president of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, actually began his development work in Haiti more than 25 years ago.  He co-founded “Partners in Health”  with Dr. Paul Farmer and others in 1987.   You may have heard of a book about Dr. Farmer’s work in Haiti -- Mountains Beyond Mountains [full title:  Mtns beyond Mtns:  The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World].   You might like to read the book.   It won a Pulitzer prize in 2004.

In the agriculture sector, the World Bank and the IDB mostly give grants (not- repayable) to Haiti to finance things like improving the extension training system for farmers, to better connect farmers to markets, and to improve plant and animal health standards so as to reduce losses and allow for more marketing and exports.  These projects are designed by bank staff along with governments and, increasingly, with local organizations.

So for me, this trip was a wonderful first-hand experience about the need to involve local, small farmers and residents in improving their future and their development.  In this light, for the last 4 years I’ve developed a close friendship with a French couple who are researchers with CIRAD (my French ag research group).  Andre is a specialist in land rights and land tenure in Africa and elsewhere.  He’s developed programs to help give small farmers a certificate for the land they “own” and are using.  Issuing certificates is being  done increasingly through decentralized, local institutions—rather than by the central or provincial government.   If they have some form of title, small farmers are freer to invest and improve the land where they are working.

Cecile, Andre’s wife, is a geographer with a keen interest in valuing ‘local knowledge’.  She wants to see local knowledge able to hold its own against big top-down theories which governments and lenders sometimes impose – even with good intentions – and without much local input.   

So – I have a couple of big takeaways from this wonderful week in Haiti.  One is the usefulness and the fun of creating people networks, community.  Kara talked about that this morning.   These networks flow from BUMC  (new and old friends there) to young Haitians who Kara has connected us to and ripple outwards from there.  I think encouraging local leaders like Eddy and Rafael (another young Haitian-Dominican whom Kara met just the week before we arrived to join her) is key to improving life for Haitians.  

Another take-away is the thought that big-money, top-down loans and grants can be useful, but connecting at the local level is essential to meet real needs and help create lasting change.

Between Sadhana Forest and Eddy’s nursery, change is happening.  A large number of trees and plants are growing—if not all the ones mentioned in Isaiah, at least many which are indigenous to Haiti and can slowly help soften the hard, hot climate and bring the blessings of shade and      more water to Anse a Pitre.    May God continue to bless this work.

-Jill