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.

From Orphan to Slave

It seems that, in Haiti, when your parents die you die too (Or maybe they are luckier than you).  With no parents, love and care is no longer a guarantee, even if you have other family.  Unlike in developed nations that look at orphans as their own responsibility, and nations that have resources to ensure the proper treatment of children, Haiti’s government is both too dysfunctional and too overwhelmed with general tragedy to take special note of any specific and personal cases.  When your parents die in Haiti, your life and your future are left up to chance and divine providence.

We visited a home for boys yesterday.  While all of the children were singing, dancing, and playing football with the “blancs” (white strangers), we noticed one little boy sitting off to the side by himself.  I went over to have a little chat with him.

He was a new kid.  He told me that he wasn’t playing because he didn’t like to play in the noonday sun.  I could understand that, but as I kept talking to him, i saw that there were other reasons why he wasn’t playing.  He said that he just didn’t feel “at home.”  But as he told me his story, I wondered “when did he ever feel at home?”

I forgot to ask, but the boy was probably around 8 years old.  His mother had died only a couple of months ago.  When she died, so did all of his rights and any hope for a bright future.  It seemed that even his God-given right to be loved and cared for died.  When his mother died, he too passed into a grave into Hell on Earth.

After the death of his mother, this boy was “taken in” by his uncle.  The brother of his own mother took him in and made him his Restavec.  Without ever having a moment to mourn the death of his mother, he spent the first few weeks after her death slaving away at the home of her own brother, his own uncle.  It is unclear why, but after a few weeks, his uncle put him in a car, drove a certain distance, and dropped him off with no promise of returning.  He was abandoned without food, without money, without possessions, without hope.  This boy was more fortunate than the majority of street kids.  He was picked up by an organization only a few weeks later and eventually dropped off at this home for boys.  The home where he did not “feel ‘at home.’ “

I wonder how many street children have a similar story.  How many orphans go down into the grave with their parents, with their hopes and dreams dashed by those who take them in?  With every day, with every story, this issue is growing increasingly complex and depressing.  I keep wondering what the heart of the issue is, and I feel like I’ve dug up several “roots,” but I still can’t seem to understand how anyone would ever begin to justify such terrible use and abuse of an innocent child.

Ahhh… I feel like I’m depressing my readers.  I want you to know the reality of the issue, but I also want you to feel hopeful.  Despite my tone, I am hopeful.  Jean-Robert’s story is very sad, but it is hopeful.   He passed through misery upon misery, but he came out alive and successful, and like the Biblical Joseph, his misery is now serving to liberate thousands.  But even more than the hope of JRC’s story, I happen to believe that there is a power greater than any of us and greater than any problem that can pull these children out of their psychological & emotional graves and revive their hope.  In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus sent his disciples out and told them to “raise the dead” (verse 8).  Well Jesus… here I go.  Give me the power to resurrect hope and restore lives.  In a country so filled with hopelessness, give me the wisdom to know where to start.

Learning to See Invisible Children

All of last week, I interviewed children that are a part of the JRC Restavec Foundation‘s schooling program.  The JRCRF partners with various pastors and schools (mainly in Port-au-Prince for the moment) to find children who are in domestic servitude (“Restavec” children), and ensure that they are receiving, at the least, an education.  As we interview the children periodically we also learn of other ways that we can help and serve them.

After a week of interviews with children in horrible situations, children who beside their physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma, are otherwise normal, I have a strange sense of heightened awareness.  There are about 300,000 Restavec children in Haiti.  Haiti only has 8 million people.  That means  that it is nearly impossible to live in Haiti, especially in Port-au-Prince, and never encounter a Restavec or someone who “owns” one.  Still, most people are unaware, or perhaps voluntarily ignorant of their presence.  I am now more aware of their presence, but unlike Jean-Robert Cadet, who could probably quickly find the only two Restavecs that are in a crowd of children, my eye is not yet trained to see them.

To this day, I can only easily see the distinctions between the well-off and the impoverished, but after speaking to some Restavecs, looking them in the eyes (with the split second glances that they felt comfortable giving me), listening to their heartbreaking stories, and taking note of some of their mannerisms as they spoke, I am beginning to learn that there are some clear distinctions between poor children and Restavec children.  If you’ve been to Haiti, even for a short visit, you may have even met one.  Your response may have been just like mine: “What a poor, unfortunate little girl.  I really wish I could help her.”  If only you knew how poor and how unfortunate that she was, you would do more than wish.

Today I find myself looking closer at these children.  The little boy that I always see carrying a bucket of water that is heavier than he is… who sent him?  His mom or his “gran moun” (his adult)?  The little girl that wears three quarters of a pair of sandals and stays at home doing chores at an hour when most children are in school… are her parents too poor to dress her well and send her to school or is she among the 300,000 children that are neglected, beaten, mistreated, and worked like animals every day?  I don’t know.  But I care.  So should my neighbors who also watch her shuffle down the street, always silent, always dejected, always working, never playing.  But it is almost as if no one actually sees her.  She has effectively faded into the background as a part of the normal scene of abject poverty.

But to be a Restavec is much worse than to be impoverished.  As a Restavec, your “gran moun” may simply decide that you won’t eat today.  No real reason, as far as you know.  Maybe its because you are such a terrible, worthless, bastard child who’s father had good reason to reject you… just as she always tells you.  And tomorrow she might leave you home alone for three days.  Don’t expect her to let you know in advance, and especially don’t expect to find money left for you to buy food or even a key to the pantry, which is abundant in food.  As a Restavec, you may find yourself awakened by the crack of a whip… or worse: the sting of an extension cord striking your nearly bare back, tearing the remainder of the rags that you use for clothing.  As a Restavec, you may be awakened by something even worse.  Male or female, you  might awaken to find someone else’s hand fondling your genitals, or someone using your hand to their own pleasure.  You may find yourself to be the concubine of the teenage boy that lives in the house.  And of course you would never tell on him because you do not have the right to speak unless spoken to.  And besides, you are his property anyway.  You have no voice.  You have no say.  You have no rights.  You are a Restavec.  No one knows that you exist.  And if they did, you doubt that they would care.

As graphic as that last paragraph may seem, it is not a fabricated or embellished story.  It was pieced together by some of JRC’s own experiences and some of the experiences that were described to me last week… by children.  This is their life.  Even if you are not in Haiti and never will be in Haiti, I ask you to open your eyes and see these invisible children.

Being Black in Haiti

I like the long drive to Cayes.  With the car bouncing around and swerving to avoid potholes, and the wind through the windows often accompanied by dust, it is not exactly 4 hours of comfort, but it is four hours of a unique peace that I always enjoy.  I usually read during the drive.  Today, as we drove, I read the majority of Jean-Robert Cadet’s autobiography, “Restavec.”

As before, I was shocked and angered at the way that people could mistreat an innocent child, beating, degrading, demoralizing, and even dehumanizing him at every chance, without an ounce of guilt, remorse, or pity.  I’m shocked at the way that the practice was, and still is, now even at a greater magnitude, considered to be socially acceptable.  But this time my anger was stirred further by something new.

I am bewildered by the fact that a country that is 99.9% black can still be so racist, and that racism still falls in the favor of whites.  The lighter the skin, the smarter the child.  Whiteness is associated with virtue.  Pale-faces are glorified.  White people are instant saints, and even images of actual white saints, as iconized by the catholic church, are worshiped more fervently than black ones.  They are somehow more holy by virtue of skin color.

I’ve always loved being black.  I grew up in a tiny, all-white town, my family was the only black family.  I was too young to remember any major racist actions that were committed against members of my family at the beginning.  All I know is that by the time I was old enough to understand that sort of thing, everyone had fallen in love with my family.  Being black, to me, had nothing but good connotations.  All I knew was that being black meant being a “Bataille.”  Being a Bataille meant that everyone loved you, and anyone who didn’t could be laughed at for their ignorance.  It was to their own loss if they couldn’t look beyond skin color to see clearly that we were the smartest, most dynamic, most athletic, most beautiful family in town (this is not me being conceited, this was mostly true in many others’ eyes and often stated by my peers).  To me, to be black meant you were envied because you were good at everything.  While Haitians in Haiti pay money for skin treatments that they believe will lighten their blackness, I wouldn’t mind being 5 shades darker myself.  To me, black meant “beautiful.”  Black meant “intelligent.”  Black meant “athletic.”  Black even meant “saintly.”  And black definitely meant “successful.”

In Haiti, I am annoyed when people are ready to jump through hoops and practically lay down their lives to serve a man because of the lightness in his skin.  It feels like something inside of me rolls over a thousand times and dies every time I witness it.  I’m reminded of a time when I was speaking to my little friend, Maxi and I showed him that I happen to know a few languages.  After English, Spanish, and French, he asked me if I knew any more.  I showed him how to say hello in a couple of other languages.  He was amazed.  He turned to his brother laughing and said, “Gen lè Junior se yon ‘blanc’ tou” (“Apparently Junior is also white”).  I was very offended.  Not simply because he was calling me white (believe me, I’ve been called white by African-Americans since the first time I met one), but i was offended because of the reason he was calling me white.  I was white because I could learn many languages.  And black people can’t?  It reminded me of what I heard people say of the ghetto mentality toward education in the U.S.: Education is a “white thing.”  I wanted to get sick.  I quickly corrected Maxi’s thinking.

When I read how everyone idolized “Blanc Philippe,” Mr. Cadet’s blood father, saying that he was “such a good man” and that Jean-Robert (or “Bobby”) was “lucky to be fathered by him” I was sickened at that everyone overlooked the fact that he tossed out his black son, who was, with good reason in their eyes, “an embarrassment to him.”  He tossed him out to be treated as less than human by a woman that he barely knew.  He never was a part of Bobby’s life, and never once looked him in the eye.  But he was a saint.  He was perfect because he was more than human.  He was white.  He was equal with God.  He could do no wrong.

This problem exists all over the globe and it makes me sick.  The only thing wrong with black people is that we hate ourselves and we hate each other.  In our own minds, everyone is better than us.  We’ve gotta do something about this.  Whoever is reading this, no matter your color, love it.  Appreciate its unique shade.  For your own good, define it’s “real tone with a word other than “black,” “white,” or “yellow” (something that I appreciate in Joycelyne) and love the way that it fits you.  Love your culture.  Love your people.  Love yourself.