What’s Up? A Lot… (Explaination & Agriculture Update)

So I’ve got a lot of ‘splainin to do.  Why the long break between blogs?

Well, a couple days after having the meeting with the Agriculture Cluster, my mac decided to go swimming.  Well, not really.  I left the mac on the work table under the stage at the church.  I left it wide open so it could sing me to sleep with worship music.  At 2am I awoke to the sound of rain outside and dripping inside.  When I checked out the dripping, I found that I had perfectly placed my wide-open mac beneath a leak in the roof that I had not yet discovered.  Still dogg tired, I pushed everything out of the way, accidentally knocked over the entire table in the dark, shook my head, and stumbled back in bed.  In the morning I checked it (and 2 other laptops) out.  They were all shot.

The other two came back to life after drying for a couple days.  The mac decided to wait until the day after I had purchased a new one in the U.S. (last week) before it made its comeback.  This allowed me to transfer all of my files.  After doing this, the old mac decided to die again.  Thanks for the chance at recovery, God.   I think that He wanted me to get a new computer…

After that, I spent a week catching up with people, plans, and activities here in Haiti.  This took a long time since there were many emails missed while I was mac-less.  So that is what kept me from sharing news with you for two weeks.  Forgive me?

Many of you asked about the result of the U.N. Agriculture Cluster Meeting.  To summarize it all, when I finished speaking I received a (seated) ovation from everyone, and the room was full of relative commentary.  (They probably would have stood up if it wasn’t so crowded in the tent).  My suggestions just made sense, and everyone saw it with clear eyes.  Yes we need millions of dollars worth of food… but we also need our internal industries to thrive if we will ever be truly independent.  Why not kill two birds with one stone and give poor families Haitian grown food?  Fill some bellies while stimulating the economy.

Before I spoke, I sat through the whole meeting and listened to the great news that we are receiving tons of seed and plants to stimulate our agriculture.  That’s awesome!  They are thinking of sustainable development.  But there’s a problem…  No one can afford to buy the food that these seeds produce except for NGOs right now.  The blanket distribution policy was aimed at lowering the market prices of food so that more people can afford to buy it, but we’ve already discussed how that can kill our current failing agricultural industry.  If the NGOs don’t buy Haitian grown food or make way for it in foreign markets, the brilliant agriculture cluster project will fail, and so will Haitian agriculture.  Then, the world will be giving us aid until the end of time.

The agriculture cluster members were eager to hear more and move forward in making partnership agreements with the WFP and USAID, but unfortunately I was “barred” from the next meeting.  The next time I went to U.N. compound, they did not let me through to get to the meeting.  My name was somehow missing from a list that I signed up for at least a half a dozen times.

This has happened almost every time I have gone to these meetings.  The only reason I had ever gotten through into that compound was because I was accompanied by an American (who needs little identification).  Actually… they were accompanying me, but security finds that hard to believe.  It seems that it is nearly impossible for a native Haitian organization to get put on that list, but as an American friend who was accompanying me would put it, “The whole place is full of all kinds of foreign Yahoos that don’t know what their doing or who they’re serving.”  Or Jars of Clay would call them “Heroes from the west, that don’t know us, but they know best” (Jars of Clay – Light Gives Heat).

I haven’t been back to the meetings since they last rejected me, but that is more because of other priorities and trips.  I have been following the group’s email conversations and my subject seems to have been dropped.  I hope to make an appearance next Tuesday and the following Saturday to see if I can pull together a team to seek to resolve the issue.

Update from “Food Aid Policy” Post

My email to the various teams working on distributions earned me an invite to speak at the U.N. Agricultural Cluster meeting this afternoon. It may sound like a big deal, and I guess it could be, but it really seems like a tiny step. Pray that I am well-received and that I speak with God’s wisdom.

Concerns with Food Aid Policy

The following is an email that I sent to various leaders in the Haitian aid effort.  Please read it and forward its message to anyone who holds power in this aid effort.  Some of you have more “powerful” friends than I.  Spread the word & bombard the following organizations with emails, calls, and visits:

World Food Program
USAID
Food for the Poor
U.N. Haiti: MINUSTAH
Anyone else that you know…

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In a previous email Mr. Kaiser made mention of a food distribution strategy that concerns me, our foundation, and many “thinkers” among the Haitian people.  If I am not mistaken, the strategy of the WFP is not to give each family a sack of rice to live off of for a month.  It is to “blanket” the market with donated rice in order to lower its market price on the streets.  Please consider the following concern:

After the rain season will come Haiti’s largest rice crop from the Artibonite Valley.  In the last few decades, Haitian rice has already struggled against foreign rice in the local markets.  Locals would normally choose Haitian rice for its quality and flavor, but it has no competition against the prices of foreign brands.  A word of caution: if careful measures are not taken in this aid effort HAITI’S FOOD INDUSTRY WILL NOT SURVIVE for another year.  This disaster would be greater than the first, raising a need for another wave of food aid.

We have seen this happen before (See: http://www1.american.edu/TED/haitirice.htm ).  Haiti used to be able to feed itself, but now has a net import of ALL of its staple foods.  Farmers, tired of running deficits, are quitting to come to Port-au-prince to beg for jobs.  Men & women of the WFP/PAM, the UN, and others, Please take care that your policies DO NOT BUILD DEPENDENCE on foreign aid.

CONSIDER THIS PROPOSED SOLUTION:

I propose that the WFP, in partnership with other NGOs, buy out the ENTIRE CROP of Haitian rice from the coming season to be given in the next round of aid.  To balance the cost of such a move, sell any surplus in foreign markets and label & market it as another Haitian Aid effort.  This will not only save Haiti’s agriculture industry, but it will provide a considerable boost to the Haitian economy so that the Haitian people can PULL THEMSELVES out of this disaster.  Anything less will be a mistake.  Anything less will cause another disaster.

We would be glad to discuss this policy with anyone who has the desire.  Please forward this message to the proper authorities.  Thank you for serving our great nation.

With sincerity and respect,
A SERVANT of the HAITIAN People.

J. Gerald Bataille, Jr.
Fondation Gérald Bataille Ministries
www.geraldbatailleministries.org
509-3786-2504 – HT Cell
513-404-4976 – US Cell
jgbataille@gmail.com

Lost in a Dream Amidst Chaos

January 12, 2010.  Another regular day was coming to an end.  At times I prefer to ride home from work by tap-tap.  The ride is longer, it’s bumpier, and it is much less comfortable, but by traveling alone I don’t feel awkward about sinking away into my own world, as I often need to do in order to collect my thoughts and spend a moment with God.

Lately I’ve found it much easier to lose myself when I flip the switch on my new noise canceling headphones, a gift from my lovely fiancée.  I enter another world, where I can think, where I can reflect, where I can pray.  Where I can come to grips with the fact that I really am working to end child slavery and i am dreaming to rebuild a nation.  Through these moments of prayer I find the audacity to believe that our efforts at the Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation can actually break chains of slavery.  In these moments of peace I find the environment to nourish the impossible dreams for my nation, my family, my church, “my children” and myself.  In these moments of consecration I am given the dreams of God for a nation.

That’s where I was at 4:53, when everything came crashing down.  With my eyes closed and my mind centered, I thought that the shaking was a sign of the potholes that I am used to passing through.  Then I opened my eyes to take a peak and realized that the car was stopped.  Unusual.  I looked outside and saw a large puddle… it was “wobbling.”  Even more unusual.  As I continued to look down the street and noticed people picking themselves up and dusting themselves off, I realized what had just happened.  I had just unknowingly “experienced” an earthquake.

At first I was pretty excited.  I had never seen anything like it before, and being in a vehicle and in a place of lesser trauma I didn’t see any immediate cause for concern.  I texted my fiancée to tell her not to worry.  “I was just in a “minor” earthquake, but everything is fine.”  The message never arrived because communication was instantly shut down due to fallen towers.  I tried to call my Dad and my brother, still nothing.  I knew in my heart that everything was fine, so I continued home in peace.

As we continued to drive I began to see the damage and the devastation.  Buildings reduced down to rubble, people in tears, wailing in a way that I have only ever heard Haitians wail.  Still, I watched from the tap-tap almost as if it were a movie with my heart still in its usual state of peace wondering, “is it really that bad?”  For a portion of the way home I had to walk.  I walked steadily, greeting people that I knew along the way, asking them how everything was, still taking everything in.  Like the road I was on at the moment of impact, my home community was better off than most, so I still wondered if it could have really been that bad.

When I arrived at home, my internet was still connected.  I took advantage of my internet phone at that moment to console everyone that I knew and let them know that everything was okay.  They were worried about what they were reading on the news, which, in their words, was “unreal.”  I told them to never get their news from TV if they can get a source on the ground.  The news is always unreal and sensational, and I saw with my own eyes that everything was fine.

Then I went to read it for myself… and it was unreal.  Truly unbelievable.  I know very little about the Richter Scale, but I know that 7.0 is a high number.  I saw that it was high enough to take down every government building in the capital (which I was seeing online—all but the national archives).  It was high enough to kill the then-estimated 70,000 people, an estimate which has grown to surpass 200,000.  What I saw then and what I am witnessing today is beyond catastrophic.

Many said that day that Haiti had been destroyed, finished, “fini.”  They saw a fatal blow to a nation that had never really had a chance to flourish throughout its 206 years of existence. With half of the population living in the capital and more than half of all commerce and official business taking place in Port-au-Prince, I can understand where they are coming from.  But my mind is not wired to think that way.  In the midst of hopelessness and doubt I still held another perspective.  As I survey the disaster and devastation, as I and the foundations that I am working with respond to cries of desperation, as behold the ever-growing chaos, I see that Haiti has really just begun.  Haiti is being born all over again. The cries of agony are just the birthing pains that will bring forth a beautiful hope beyond anything we could ever imagine (but I bet my imagination comes close…).

How can I see hope when thousands of homes were destroyed?  Where is the hope for hundreds of thousands of children who now have no school to attend?  What about the hundreds of businesses that are closed, crushed along with their managers who were inside doing their official end-of-day accounting at the time of the disaster?  Where is the hope in all of this?

The hope is in a new beginning.  When everything comes crashing down, make the best of it and build a new foundation. Haiti greatly needed one.

I would say that the source of at least 85% of the problems in Haiti reside in its capital.  Nearly 50% of the country’s population lived in Port-au-prince or in its vicinity.  I hear that by standards of the capital’s original design (which is not clearly evident, by the way), the city is/was overpopulated by at least 3 million.  (Haiti has a population of only 9 million).

Overcrowding leads to poor sanitation, poor infrastructure, higher crime rates, poor job markets, and just about every other malady that Haiti suffers from.  The problem is that almost every bit of opportunity that the country has to offer (primary education, business, jobs, university studies, networking, etc) resided in Port-au-Prince, attracting more and more people creating and complicating more and more problems (including “restavèk”).

This crowding also leads to the underdevelopment of the outer provinces which again encourages them to come to the city to get a piece of their hope.  It was an endless cycle that no one knew how to stop… until now.  On January 13, 2010, the decentralization process had already begun on its own.  Why?  Because today, Port-au-Prince is no better than any other town or city in the nation.  Let’s keep it that way.

What do I mean?  I mean that we should rebuild Haiti, NOT Port-au-Prince. Yes, we should make Port-au-Prince into a great city, but it should be a great city within an even greater nation.  Haiti is a beautiful country.  Anyone who has ever been outside of Haiti’s capital knows that Port-au-Prince is “its own republic.”  It is not representative of the rest of the country.  Most of the pictures of “Haiti” that you’ve seen on the internet all come from one place: Cité Soleil, the nation’s worst slum which happens to be built on prime beach-front property (which I pray will one day be transformed into a beautiful all-inclusive resort).

But now we are in a position to change this.  In a matter of minutes Port-au-Prince was lowered down to the level of the minor cities of country, and with that, in a matter of days, thousands left and went to their homes in the countryside.  Will they return?  Well, they will if we make the mistake of rebuilding Port-au-Prince.

Where is the hope for destroyed commerce?  I heard several people say out loud “I’m going back to my hometown where I can work the ground for food.  Even if I don’t make money, at least I can still eat.”  All over the world Haitians seem to be happy picking fruit for a living.   We do this everywhere but in Haiti.  We serve rather as an American/Dominican Franchise, buying from the U.S. and the Dominican Republic and selling back to our countrymen.  Everyone is selling and no one is buying.  As a result, Haiti cannot feed itself nor can Haitians afford to buy food.  We have a net import of our staple foods, rice and beans.  A decade from now, this will no longer be the case, if we follow a clear vision and plan.

Where is the hope for the destroyed educational system?  As we give assistance to rebuild schools that were destroyed, why not give mostly to those who agree to relocate their schools to their hometowns in the provinces?  Then families will no longer have to send their children to the cities to go to school, where they can fall into the restavek trap.

Where is the hope for the destroyed homes and broken families?  My sympathy goes out to everyone… But take a survey.  Ask how many people would still want to live in Port-au-Prince if their hometowns had jobs and education.  You will find that everyone would be ready to go “home” in a heartbeat.  Let’s find a way to send them home.

Where is the hope for the governing of this rising great nation when every government building has been destroyed in the capital?  First we must admit that there was never really a government to begin with, only now there is no longer a stage to play “leader” or “Prince of the Palace.”  The international community has given its remarkable response, but the people have yet to hear government officials rise up to their aid with a plan, yet even in their “absence” nothing has really changed.  The people continue to govern themselves in the same way that they used to.  Haiti has been a “functional anarchy” for decades, and it continues to be so, for now.  I pray that the right leader will rise up with a plan, with a passion, with a good heart, and with great wisdom to bring true order to our great society.

The government may not have a plan, but we, with the help of God, are working on a brilliant one.  Please pray for us, our colleagues and our partners.  For many decades the international community and innumerable NGOs have been working hard to build a better Haiti.  They built and built and for many decades, then whenever the rains came down, and the floods went up, the winds blew and now even the earth shook, just as Jesus said, the foolish man’s house fell flat.  There is still something lacking in all of these efforts: common vision.

If you are bringing aid to rebuild, I commend you and I thank you… but please do not be a foolish builder.  Don’t simply come with your ideas and plans.  Look for and submit to wise leadership.  God is sending a master builder to lead us in this process.  He is working on a master plan that will serve as a great foundation for this next great nation.

This plan will be published in the days/weeks to come.  Haiti will rise again, and you will help us build it.

J. Gerald Bataille, Jr.

P.S. Isaiah 60.

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Gerald Bataille Ministries

Jean Cadet Restavek Foundation

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Last Weekend in Ohio

Many of you have asked me how my trip to Ohio went.  Most of you have gotten the short answer: “amazing!”  In truth, I don’t think that there are many details to tell (other than specifically what I spoke about–which I think that I outlined pretty accurately in another blog), but I can tell you a bit about what it felt like to speak at home.  As planned, I spoke to the Freshmen about living above society’s weak standards for them.  I challenged them to step out and try “hard things,” and I gave them a chance to do that by spearheading a relief drive for Haiti.  They have been at it for a week, brainstorming, meeting, talking to teachers and different community leaders, building a website, and pretty soon they will have some concrete plans in place.  I’m already so proud of them, and I have full faith that they can go the distance and accomplish their extravagant plans and goals.  The kind of message that I gave to them is one that has to be preached over and over for most to get it.  I hope that it will be preached by example through some of those who responded present to organize this drive.

I also spoke to the Seniors last Monday, asking them to challenge the societal definition of success, pushing them to live for a purpose greater than themselves.  I spoke to them about what it means to leave a legacy, to live your life in such a way that when you die, there is actually evidence left behind that testifies that you had actually lived (a topic I plan to discuss at length on this blog, soon).  I don’t think that I had ever been so well received in my life.  I feel like I had their undivided attention, and it showed in their next period of classes.  I had a teacher come to me and thank me for my words of encouragement, saying that her students talked about my talk for the whole period.  One student felt like her call to be a missionary (this is not a Christian school) was confirmed in my talk, and she is now corresponding with me through email with the school Guidance Counselor to see what she can get her hands on after she graduates.  I thank God for such an opportunity.

When I spoke to the Church in Felicity, I said very little about Haiti.  God had another message in mind, a “call to ministry” for everyone in the congregation.  I spoke to the pastor afterward, and she said that everything that I said was a confirming word for what she has been preaching for months, and it was a great encouragement to some of the new ministries for the community that are beginning in the church.  God knows what he’s doing.  Though I said next to nothing about Haiti, they still plan to help.  I will find out what they plan to do very soon.  Later that evening, I spoke at Bethel UMC.  It was very humbling to stand before the congregation that I grew up in.  I told them that it was interesting to stand before them to present the word of God when many of them had a hand in raising me and giving me God’s word.  It’s something that I probably never imagined as a kid.  Just as before, they were so very interested in what I am doing and quick to extend a hand to help me.  I truly am blessed to still have them “by my side,” supporting me.

Before and after speaking, I reflected on the scripture that says that a prophet is never honored in his hometown.  I realized that this principle probably would not apply to someone whom everyone expected to someday become a prophet.  I received a very honorable “welcome home,” every where that I went.  It’s because no one is surprised at what God is doing in me, with me, and through me.  They knew it all along, and they have always been pushing me toward it.  They are the ones who encouraged me in the work of the Lord all of my life.  They all spoke great things over me and always raised the bar higher for me.  I am so blessed to have had such strong support behind me as I grew up.  And I am thankful that they are still there for me.  God bless you all!