Perfect! It all worked out as expected…

As I planned many months ago, and as you probably already know, I am in the United States preparing for my next adventure.  What might surprise you is that my next adventure will look a lot like my last adventure.  If you are wondering how working to liberate restavek children in Haiti will compare to the academic rigor of a seminary education at Oral Roberts University, you are simply missing out on a few minor details.  Minor detail number one: I deferred my enrollment at the last minute.  Minor detail number two: I am returning to Haiti to work full-time for another 6-months to a year.

I know, i know… You’re thinking “You are soooo random.  When did all of this happen?”  First off, I’m not random… I am actually very, very calculated.  Perhaps my life calculator has more cool buttons than yours.  To you, this may seem very sudden, but i’ve actually been contemplating this decision since as far back as February (if you are still skeptical, I have journal entries to prove it).  Back then it was barely more than a “feeling,” just a thought in the back of my mind that kept telling me to “expect a longer stay.”  In my heart I felt that unexplainable “knowing;” I knew that something was on its way.  I knew that I was a part of a movement that would pick up speed quickly and somehow I knew that it would take me with it…  It was more than a sense of urgency.  I knew that my own destiny is wrapped up in it.  (Now that I say that, I can probably say that this started as far back as October with a word from Pastor Laffoon).

This may all sound weird to some of you, but I’m very accustomed to this feeling… this urge… this wordless “voice” guiding, pushing, and pulling me.  This voice is the main function on my life’s “calculator.”  In fact, nothing in my life ever equates without it.  With it, everything always runs smoother than a dream.  Over the months I have consulted friends and mentors about what I was feeling.  I discussed it with Joycelyne.  I shared it with my dad… but I mostly contemplated it on my own.  Then as the days went by in Haiti, I watched as everything else that I had ever intuitively “known” for the past four years rolled out before my eyes.  Just about everything that God has spoken to me since the beginning of college has been occurring all at once, and it is all so unbelievably connected.

Every day, especially in the months of June and July, I became more and more aware of the need to stay.  Not just for the Restavek Foundation, but for all of the other work that I have going on in Haiti.  The church is at a unique point.  My ministry toward a small group of children has reached a critical point and is ready to be transformed and expanded.  Even the business that I am starting (which I have yet to write about) requires my presence.  I realized that there was no way that grad school in this kyros moment was the best idea.  I would be leaving an opportunity that I would never see again.

At the time that the feeling became its heaviest, Dad began to say exactly what I was thinking: “Junior, I think that you’re leaving right when you should be arriving.”  He said it several times during the two weeks before I was offered a new position with the JRC Restavek Foundation.  For that reason and so much more, from the moment that I was asked, I knew the decision that I need to make, but I prayed a day or two on it.  I asked for council.  The result of both was the same thing that I “knew” all along.  I needed to stay in Haiti.

So, that’s the “new” adventure.  I will be staying in Haiti doing what I have been doing all along in all domains, but on a different scale.  As the new In-Country Direct for the JRC Restavek Foundation, I will be working on a new project to eliminate slavery in the very area in which I live and work, Petite Place Cazeau.  We will be working to see children uplifted and esteemed, seen as the valuable treasure that they are.  This goal is unbelievably connected to the work that I am now doing with the children in my church (who also, consequently, live in the area).  The work in my church is guided by a vision that was shaped by a series of prophetic experiences that lasted from August of 2006, until May of 2007, and an unforgettable dream that I was given on May 25, 2007.  The vision was formed over a period of 9-months… (Only a few of you know why this is so hilariously ironic and why it is important, but I wouldn’t mind explaining it to curious people who ask).  I don’t even have time to discus my new creole-speaking Puerto Rican Jewish friend, whom I met days before my return to the States.  After feeling an urgent compulsion from God, he is moving from Puerto Rico into Petite Place Cazeau to start a children’s ministry.  He stumbled right into our service on a Sunday morning…  Everything is coming together.  Even my Haitian-American co-worker is deferring a second year to stay on board.

God is working on something big here…  Yes… My life is very calculated.  I’m not always the one pushing the buttons, but believe me, it is so much more fun that way.  If I can give a word of advice to any of my Christian brothers and sisters that are struggling with a decision, I’d say don’t allow what you’ve heard from God in the past block out what God is trying to say to you today.  Chances are that your future is not as linear as your thinking.  Expect the unexpected.  Let go and take a ride!

Watching Lives Change

Imagine receiving your first hug as a teenager.  This comes after spending all of your life belonging to another.  Not as a child or a friend to be loved, but as an object, an appliance; like an old vacuum you are loaned to your neighbor.  You have no belongings, no time for yourself, no time to play, no one to love you… you live in a house but everyday it is made clear that you are not at home.  No one knows or cares if you have feelings, they disregard your desires, they trample on your rights, and they use every ounce of your strength, and give you nothing but food scraps to replenish it.  In their minds and in your own you are no more human than the stray dog that begs for scraps at the door.  You’ve come to believe that your life does not matter.

Now imagine one year later, sleeping in a bed for the first time.  Imagine waking to find that, for the first time in your life, the sun has risen before you and you don’t have a long list of chores awaiting you… so you go out and relax with your “family.”  Imagine going to church for the first time in life and the pastor is preaching directly to you saying “Yesterday is gone, and everything is about to change.  God is going to do something with your life.  Even the misery will turn out for your good.”  Watching everyone around you closely, you do what they do.  You lift up your hands and you say amen, but not just to copy them, but because you have already seen the first-fruits of the pastor’s words.  For once you are surrounded by people who love you, and for the first time you start to feel it.  They show it.  They hug you, the smile with you, they joke with you, they eat at the same table with you, they share their belongings with you, they provide for you… you have a place at home with two strangers that you now call “Mami” and “Papi,” and they deserve the title because of the love that they show.  You share a room with a “sister” that you had never known, and she loans you her mother’s sunglasses so that you can be styling at church.  For the first time, you no longer belong to the home… the home belongs to you.  You no longer belong to a family, you have a family of your own.  In this you see for the first time that you actually do matter.

If that were you, your cheeks would hurt too after smiling and laughing non-stop for days…  It’s a wonder to behold.  Its a privilege to take part in.  I really love my job.  I get to sit in the front row and watch lives transform.

www.restavekfreedom.org

Mountain Climbing with JRC – A Miraculous Journey

Wow… I thank God that my life is not boring.  If it were any less interesting, I may have had a bit more time to tell you more about it…. oh well.  As usual, again there is much to tell, but I’ll choose one thing from two weeks ago…

On the week of July 5th, Jean-Robert and I set out to visit a child that we returned home in the area of Jacmel last year.  She was a restavek for about a year and suffered unbelievable physical, emotional, and psychological abuse.  Her Gran Moun (owner) was a former neighbor of her family that had moved to Port-au-Prince.  This woman convinced the little girl’s mother that she would take care of her, put her through school, and make sure that her life was rosy, but every single promise was a lie.  This woman put the little girl through so much hell that she ran away.  She was found by the police, who took her to social affairs, who dropped her off at a girls shelter that we work with, and Jean-Robert took the 9-hour trek (one way) over the mountains, swam a river in the rain season, and walked for miles to her house, just to see her happily home with her mother again.  Then he took the long way back home in the middle of the night.  (For the record: There is not a man on earth with more compassion than Jean-Robert.  I thought that I loved people until he introduced me to a new standard).

We had not seen the girl for more than a year because she lived so far away.  We went to visit her because she was due a visit, but also because we were hoping that she would be the perfect candidate for the story that CNN was working on two weekends ago.  If you have seen the report (and if you watch tonight) you will notice that this “perfect” story was not chosen (mainly because we were crunched for time and could not go that far out of the traveling alone), but our trip made for an interesting experience, nonetheless.

We made our first attempt to Jacmel on Tuesday, July 7th.  (Yes, I said first attempt.  There were three attempts total).  We needed a big SUV to make it up the mountains, but we only needed the car for one day.  Big cars are on high demand in Haiti, so the smaller, local rental companies are often reluctant to rent out a big car for one day, fearful of missing a longer contract… so they charge you big bucks for it.  Everyone was asking more than we could afford to pay.  Everyone but this one man, whom we had rented from many times before.  It was a pick-up truck.  The car had its flaws, but  to me, it seemed healthy enough to make the trip (I had never been up those treacherous mountains, so I relied more on JR’s judgment).  We had already spent too much time shuffling around to get a car, so we were in a rush to get up the mountains.  We took off quickly after a cursory check up of the car.

We spent a good two hours or so in stop and go traffic, so there was no way for us to know the first problem that we uncovered until it was too late.  Once we started getting out past Mariani and Gressier we noticed that the car began to shake as we went above a certain speed.  We contacted the renter to let him know the problem.  He through out some sort of wild explanation and asked us what we wanted to do.  But we were already so far out that if we waited or went back, the trip would have been canceled.  In hindsight, that should have been our choice.  We continued on cautiously.  Not less than an hour later, our front tire went flat.  We got out quickly to change the tire only to realize that our trusty spare was also flat and balding.  Not only that, the jack that was in the car was no good… it didn’t even have its proper handle.  Someone had really neglected the regular check-ups on this car.  This was my first experience with renting in Haiti, and these are things that you don’t think of in the U.S., but I should have known better here.

Thank God we went flat near some sort of stone/gravel mining operation, and one of the men who worked there went downtown to find someone who helped us fix our spare.  It took a long time, but he did it.  By then, it was too late to go up the mountain, so we headed home.  We got a refund later that week and the man who rented the car to us may be in trouble with his job for being so negligent.  I felt really bad that day because Joycelyne decided to take a break from her studies to go with us.  It was her first road trip in Haiti and all she got out of it was fatigue, hunger, and “tet chaje” (a headache).  I’m sorry Sweetie…  Maybe in December.

We tried to rent a car the next day.  We ran into the same problem as before… no one wanted to rent it to us for such a short amount of time.  We decided to go ahead and get it for three days (the usual minimum), but when we decided to do that, we lost that contract to someone who wanted it for five.  It was like losing an ebay auction at the last minute…  There were no more of the super-big cars that we needed…  Nothing was in our favor that Wednesday, so Jean-Robert went home and I went on to try to pick up a package at the airport for my new business (there will be more on that headache soon).

Early on Thursday, we went in and got a Nissan Patrol for 7-days (since our director was coming in the next day), and took off.  That transaction went much smoother.  We checked everything on that car.  I flipped things over, punched the tires, took pictures… everything.  It was in great shape.  We went on up to the mountains without a problem… except for the fact that it was a LOOONG bumpy trip, and we left at an hour in which all roadside food was cold. (Bumpy is an understatement… perhaps “jerky” or “jarring” would be more appropriate).  We arrived seven hours after our departure.  It took us a while to find the family, but when we did, they were very happy to see us.  (Well, at least they were happy to see Jean-Robert… they didn’t know me yet).

We made a very short visit, talked to everyone, ate some grilled corn, passion-fruit, and drank some coconuts and headed home.  By then it was already past 5pm.  We had a seven hour drive to make home… so we thought.  A few hours into our trip jerky trip up and down the rocky hills, a miracle happened…  We suddenly arrived on the main road.  Jean-Robert and I just looked at each other.  How did we skip two hours of hill-climbing?  I thought that I had fallen asleep, but Jean-Robert’s confusion justified my own.  We proceeded up the winding roads to Port-au-Prince, still wondering about all of the things that we didn’t pass to get to the main road.  It is possible that we got lost, but usually when you get lost you don’t gain two hours.  Also, these mountain roads have very few turning options and very few entrances and exits.  I don’t know how we happened to find the “right one.”

As we drove into Gressier the car started to shake the same way that the pick-up did.  It was late, it was dark, and we had no tools… We had no choice but to continue.  We moved on through Carrefour and just as we pass a police checkpoint, we lose our steering.  Thankfully, we lost it on a straight away, and the car practically “parked” itself out of harms way.  So get this… we are in front of a police checkpoint, so danger is minimal.  We ask the police officer what they can do for us and they offer to take us to a hotel.  Then, when the realize that we had a rental car, they told us that we couldn’t leave it there or we would only find half of it in the morning.  By “chance” the police officer knew a mechanic in the area, and in that moment (11pm) the mechanic was sitting near the street with some friends joking around (Port-au-prince is usually dead asleep by 10).  In no time, the mechanic got under the car, replaced a bolt that got lost in the steering system with a random piece of iron, and we were on our way home.  Even after the quick fix we arrived two hours early…

The next day, Jean-Robert and I awoke to the reality that we could have died several times the night before.  If we hadn’t found the “shortcut” and continued on the rocky mountains, the bolt may have dislodged faster.  Then, if we had lost steering while navigating the treacherous curves, we could have driven right off of the edge and into the sea.  If our car had lost steering a mile before the police checkpoint, we would have been in danger and we would have had no way home.  There would have been no one there to protect us, we would have never found a mechanic, and by that time, a hotel (if we could have ever found one) was out of the question.  The whole experience was Miraculous.

I don’t know about you… but I don’t believe in chance.  I’m starting to get used to this “my life is in His hands” thing.  It makes me feel invincible.

One Month Later…

It has been one month since the Restavek Conference.  The conference itself, as i said before, was an overwhelming success.  We pulled off everything, from logistics to content, almost flawlessly.  The people showed great signs of motivation and interest in this cause.  We even saw a unique miracle as a sign of their self-motivation.  What was that miracle? It was the first Haitian event that I ever took part in in which all of the invitees arrived EARLY (yeah, that’s right… early!… in Haiti!).  We started on time & ended on time.  We started with Tifane’s beautiful song, went into a welcome, heard a couple of talks, and went right into the panel discussions.  The panels ran smoothly up through Mrs. Sixto’s lunchtime speech, and we topped off the conference with Jean-Robert’s moving and challenging speech.  God’s hand was in every detail.

As for me, it was an honor for me to stand before 500+ leaders of various sectors in the nation, speaking on behalf of 300,000+ children who have no voice.  As the emcee of the event, I too had a chance to share my heart about the issue and challenge people to take personal responsibility for the plight of these children.  This great opportunity came after weeks of speaking out for them on television and radio; an honor and a privilege that I had not yet imagined for myself.  It was truly a divine opportunity.

I did not get to take part in all of the panels because I was moderating the religious panel.  I heard great reports from all of the rest, but after spending four sessions with a Pastor, a Priest, and a Hougan (vodou priest) speaking on the same panel about the same issue, I must say that our panel was the most significant… the most miraculous (I may be a bit biased).  Never has it been seen or heard of in Haiti for three men from these three domains to sit together peacefully to discuss anything of substance.  They not only sat peacefully, but they supported one another’s statements, they laughed together, and they genuinely enjoyed one another’s company.  They came representing sectors filled with differences and known for fiery confrontations, but they left as friends united by a common purpose.

That was the miracle of the Restavek conference.  Men and women came from all over the country (and even different parts of the world), from different walks of life, different social and economic statuses, and from different domains of work and they became united toward a single cause: the children, the future of our nation.  Everyone left encouraged and motivated, and I truly felt that the nation is finally ready to start taking some steps toward change.

So what has happened since?  Our office has spent several weeks catching up to our own program, paying more attention to our own children.  Still every week I am receiving calls and emails from excited organizations and individuals telling us about their ideas and efforts.  Many of them need some help and direction getting started and I always wish we could do more for them at the moment, but our own children are our priority for now.  We are still a very small organization, despite the big splash that we made at the conference, and our resources, especially our human resources, are limited.  At times I have been a bit discouraged to see so much momentum yet be so limited in our ability to keep it rolling, but from what I see, the issue is still fresh in the minds of all of our attendees .  The fire is still burning, and it won’t go out any time soon.  I am fully confident that we will be able to contact anyone on our list of attendees, even in a few months, and enlist their full participation.  I believe that the conference had that much of an impact.

I have already called upon the members of my church who were in attendance, and we are now planning a campaign to root out this system in our church and in the surrounding community.  Their enthusiasm is greater than it was on day one because they have been thinking about the issue ever since, and they came ready with some great ideas for a very smart campaign.  This will be the first of many to come.  Hopefully it will become a model to be replicated in other churches and neighborhoods around the country.  The media campaign is still in the planning phases, but we have some great ideas flowing…

Why does all the good stuff always happen when I am just getting ready to leave the country…?  I only have 35 days left.  Booo…

The Time is Right for Change

According to Joan, the movement officially began on Sunday, and I don’t think myself to be egoistic to agree.  On Sunday, May 17, I did not speak.  God really did deliver His message through me.  For too long we, as a people, have been self-focused.  Most of us do not know how to truly love our neighbors by “giving our lives” for them.  We should give our lives, not by dying for one another, but through living to serve one another.  We hardly realize that it is the latter that is more difficult.

There is a potential miracle that exists in an ear of corn.  One could eat the ear today and be hungry tomorrow.  But if one were to plant the 200-400 grains of corn on the cob instead, in a few months he would find 1000-2000 new ears.  Our lives are like those seeds.  If we invest every bit of ourselves into our own “stomaches” today, our investment will die with us tomorrow and there will be no evidence that we ever existed (read my post on “Signs of Life“).  On Sunday, God challenged all of us to plant our lives into one another.  To plant ourselves into something greater.  To plant our lives into a secure future.  To plant our lives into children.  The time has come for us to stop eating the seed that represents our own lives and looking for others to devour when we are still hungry.  It is time for us to stop looking for a child to help us and look to invest ourselves into them.  I believe that God himself has declared an end to exploitation and is calling for a change of hearts.

If I had delivered the message three Sundays ago, as originally planned, it would not have been the right time.  Not only was the time right this past sunday and people were ready to receive it, but everything was aligned perfectly with Radio Lumière so that all of Haiti could hear it live, and even Haitians in foreign nations could heard it and responded.  Judging by the way that the message was received, I can tell that we are ready for change.  But we must keep preaching this gospel to give people the vision for change and confidence to change.  We need to preach it all over the country.  For that, we need messengers.  This Saturday at the “Mwen Se Ayiti Tou” conference (“I Am Haiti Too”), the messengers will be inspired.  We have leaders from all corners of Haitian society, from all 10 departments, that are coming to take part.  We have chosen leaders that can speak.  Leaders that people will listen to.  On Saturday their eyes will be open to the truth and on Sunday they will be sent out to preach this gospel.  Its time to plant ourselves, invest our lives into Haiti’s neediest children.  Our hope as a nation is wrapped up in their very own.

The Beginning of the End of Child Slavery

If you’ve been wondering where I have been, I have been hard at work on the upcoming conference to start a movement against child exloitation in Haiti.  Every day the event gets bigger.  We are preparing to receive hundreds of guests, mostly from Haiti, but also from Europe, the U.S., and other Caribbean nations.  We will also have media present from different corners of the world.  I have a feeling that God really wants to deliver these children (well duh…).  His hand is all over this thing… All of the pieces simply fit themselves together.  The people that we have met in the last week and a half have saved our skin, given us access to corners of Haiti that we thought were lost.  There is much left to do but we are very excited and very positive about it all.

Of course this is not really about holding a conference to talk about the issue and move on (like most conferences in Haiti).  We really are after a movement, and we think that we are well-positioned to get one rolling.  I also think that Haiti is ready to receive this movement.  After all this time, what could make me think so?  Well, all along, there have been more people in our nation that are against this system than there are people who are for it.  All we have to do is convince these people to TALK.  Speak out!  Say “Enough!”

During child interviews this week, I caught onto something that is very key.  Almost every child that I talked to (this week) has a neighbor that feeds them or gives them a little money from time to time because they feel sorry for the child.  But never have I heard of a neighbor that confronts the “owners” of these children while they are in the middle of beating them to a pulp.  These neighbors are friends of the family… They see each other often.  They laugh together and joke around with everyone in the house.  Everyone but the restavek.  They help her in secret, because no matter how close they are to the family, they feel powerless to speak on the behalf of the child who is, very clearly, not in the family.  I bet that some of them wish they could…  Our goal is to convince them that they can… and they should.  We want these caring neighbors to stop thinking “what a shame” in their hearts to saying “shame on you” to their neighbor (of course respectfully, tastefully, and lovingly).  As I look at I’m really starting to believe that we can get people to start talking.

We are preparing for it.  We are getting ready to make a lot of noise.  It won’t be long until this issue is made a public issue.  It won’t be much longer until one neighbor starts talking to another about the sad, shameful stories that they heard on the radio or saw on the TV.  When they start talking to each other, the third neighbor, the one with the restavek, will start to think twice before they beat the child.  They may even buy a mattress for her to sleep on rather than forcing her onto the cold concrete floor every night.  In another year, perhaps the child will be in school… in the morning even, rather than being sent to a sub-par afternoon school which exists in part because there are children in our country that work during the day.  Maybe afternoon school won’t even be necessary anymore… who knows.

I know that I tend to speak idealistically, but I feel this as strongly as everything else that I know to be true.  On May 23, 2009 we will see the beginning of the end of child slavery in Haiti.  God himself has vowed to break the chain.  (Trust me, I know this because He’s a good friend of mine…

What Election?

Thanks again for your prayers.  It turned out to be a terrible election, but not because people were killed, but because the voice of the people was not heard.  Yesterday morning, it seemed like we had more people in our church for first service than there were on the streets of Port-au-Prince all day.  People were either too scared or generally uninterested in this election to go out and vote.  A pre-election survey conducted recently revealed that less than 5% of the voting population was prepared to go vote, and my guess is that less than 5% actually followed through.  I guess, if people actually went out to vote things might have gotten bad… unless these were just empty threats in the first place, aimed at silencing the REAL voice of the Haitian people.

Another thing that I did not fully understand was that all public transportation was stopped yesterday.  I was told that, in the past, criminals would use taxis and tap-taps in election day crimes.  I can understand the need to get greater control over the streets on this day, but how is the common person supposed to go vote without a car?  If civilian operated public transportation had to be stopped, why weren’t state-sponsored voting buses provided to transport Joe Schmo to the polls?  If the state wanted a real election, they should have taken this as their duty.

But maybe they don’t really want Joe Schmo to go to the polls…  I don’t know about Joe, but If I found out that I would be walking more than 15 minutes just to go vote, I would be a little adverse to the idea, especially when I hear that there may be men on the streets with machetes ready to take my lid off and mail my body to the address written on my foot.  So, Joe stayed home yesterday, and I don’t blame him.  While he sat at home listening to the radio with his family, a select few, perhaps the ones who were in charge of the negative propaganda, hopped into their heavily tinted cars and went out to choose “our” leaders.

I would propose a simple solution: a quorum in which no election can be counted if less than 50% (at least) of the voting population is represented, but of course the problem there could be that we may never again have a valid election…  Someone out there clearly knows how to keep people at home.  If things aren’t going their way prior to the election, there are people who would rather stop the election altogether by using the same threats that were used in this election.

There were two notable incidents yesterday, one of which led to the cancellation of the elections in Plateau Central, and another that made me laugh.  In a certain district in the Department of Artibonite, a Christian candidate was favored to win.  In an attempt to turn the tide, representatives of two other candidates went out to try to shut people in in their churches.  Before they got very far, the people of one church revolted saying “Today we’re not gathered to discuss church business.  Today is election day and you’re not gonna stop us.”  A fight broke out which ended after fire was set to cars of these men cars, sending them home on foot, defeated. The people got their victory and went out and let their voices be heard.  I don’t usually promote violence, but in this case, the rules had changed.  They made the right choice to do all that they could to stop these criminals from choosing for them.  If they didn’t stand, no one would have stood for them.

Stay posted in the coming days…  Results day can sometimes be just as bad as election day.