God-sized lessons in Haiti

I lost my Blackberry last night. It was new. As in just-bought-it-on-Friday-because-of-the-trip-to-Haiti new. I wanted something with a better camera and video, so I could share with you. I wanted life’s best, even when I had some clue I would be trekking through life’s worst.And it was wonderful. And I lost it.

And it was upsetting.

Did I mention that I lost it when leaving a pizza place? Yeah, it turns out that our interpreter knew of this place that had just opened before the earthquake and it was doing business, again. We figured we would support the local economy by briefly shaking off the horror we’d witnessed from the safe confines of our van and take a break before crashing in our tents.

The pizza may be the best I’d ever tasted. It beat the protein bars we had for breakfast and lunch. It was better than the scoops of rice I was willing to eat from the plates our Haitian hostess, Mirdrede, set out for us. (I left the salad and peas, at the advice of the health department lady who gave us our trip inoculations. I left the brown beans, for what may seem obvious reasons in a camp with backed-up toilets. But I felt ashamed as I stacked a plate still filled with food in the discard pile.) The cold, bottled Heineken was good, too. All I’d had to drink all day was water I’ve decided to trust through an instant-filter bottle contributed by a caring company to our trip. So far, so good.

Life seemed pretty light again, for the moment, and there was laughter among us as I showed the video of our team in our red HAITI shirts shoving our van up a hill it couldn’t quite top.

And then I lost my phone.

Crisis.

Sure, I saw the irony. I felt panicked, because it was my link to my family back home in my safe, real world and to you, my community of loving, supportive, rescue-me-by-just-walking-alongside-me friends. I felt mortified, because it was a $450 phone. Sure, it cost me significantly less as a longtime customer and, yes, even that was broken into four easy payments. And, OK, I was aware that $450 would match the typical annual income of a Haitian family.

But I sure loved that phone.

I suspected that the restaurant couldn’t find it when we called, because those two Haitian guys at the next table had been eying us closely – especially when it was time to pay and wallets surfaced. I had even looked behind us to be certain they hadn’t followed us out. If I had left my phone on the table, I just knew they would’ve scooped it up triumphantly.

I spent the evening feeling dejected. No more blogs to bring you along with us. Gone, the frequent emails to my precious daughter and son.

I was quiet as Mirdrede wove my stringy long hair into tight braids as the ruins of her university lay crushed behind us. I could add little comfort as she shared that she is the oldest child in her family and so she is the one her parents and siblings call for help. It had only been minutes since they had called, crying, to say it was raining in the streets, again, and they would be wet – all nine of them, her parents and sister and brother and his wife and three kids and a cousin – another night. Was there nothing she could do?

But what could she do, she asked me. She had told them of the tent under which we were then sitting and where they could hover. But, in the morning, the few students remaining would again gather to peer toward a different future than the one of which they had dreamed at enrollment. “We Continue,” the banner beside us asserted in Creole. Patients would again stream through the makeshift hospital that now fills the space once devoted to student parking.

Her family would be displaced once more. She is just a volunteer doctor and it is not her space to offer – but she is the first child, and so it falls to her to care for the oldest of her family down to the youngest. She tries now to keep very, very busy, so that she will not think of what life was like before. This is her life now. One moment, one footstep at a time, this. is. her. life.

I assured her that, once we reached our shipping container in the morning, her family would receive the first tent issued. I asked whether they needed food and she shrugged. Of course, there is little to go around, but everyone is getting by somehow.

The same seemed true of the haunting little boy who had sidled up to us earlier when we stood beside our parked van, waiting to gain entry into a safe compound. We were awed by the sight of our U.S. military guys nearby and their massive, air-conditioned tents and satellite dish. We were cheered to see their presence. Then this little kid appeared beside us and extended his open palm. Quickly, gratefully, we passed him a pack of crackers from the box of our cross-country snacks. Here, at last, was someone we could help, even before our official duty began. He tucked it in his pocket and continued to stand there, expectantly. We looked at each other a bit nervously. There were few snacks left in the box – and we didn’t want to begin a frenzy among the homeless Haitians across the street. They were already eying our truck and its tarp-covered mysteries. For us to dig through it for more, before we had unloaded and sorted it in safety, might invite chaos and even danger.

So we tried to gently shoo him away with his cracker reward. He gestured that he was thirsty. Again, we looked at each other. We had all encountered beggars at resort ports before and, in our experience, they won’t stop asking until you stop giving.

What WOULD Jesus do?

My teammate asked me if she should give him the remains of her water bottle, though it had little left. I nodded. He drank it and stood waiting.

For us. The team who had traveled from Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A., through countless canceled flights and obstacles and driven six hours from the Dominican Republic to help the hurting.

He was waiting for us and we were questioning how much we should give.

I wanted to scoop him up and take him with us even as we turned our backs in the hope that he would give up and wander away. I saw our Haitian driver watching and wondered what he was thinking. Probably that we’re full of sh*t with our matching church shirts and flawed, here-to-rescue-but-not-to-deeply-sacrifice hearts. I was grateful when a man with no arm came up and danced and sang after our small gift to him. That felt better. He let us feel good about ourselves. Heck, I even tossed that kid a juice box as we were told we should now enter the compound, where few beyond the wall could enter.

I was safe, again. And benevolent.

P.S. This morning, I was awakened by the same 4:30 alarm that I had set yesterday in Santo Domingo on my brand-spanking-new Blackberry Bold. It was shoved deeply inside a zippered pocket that, even when lit up by my chiming phone, I could not quickly figure out how to reach. Somehow I had missed it last night in my feverish search, before calling T-Mobile to shut down my service. I was finally able to shut it off, but somehow I can’t sleep. It is still pouring rain outside and thousand of families are huddled in feeble huts with walls fashioned from soggy sheets. It. is. their. life. now.

P.S.S. I thought I would write to you of the horrors and ugliness of what we witnessed today – instead, I have shown you my own. May God – and you, who have sent me here to do God’s bidding – forgive me. Rather than patting me on the back and assuring me that I’m still wonderful, please fervently pray with me that He will change me to live like Him. It is the only way our world will ever change.

Last P.S. The day has begun and the skies have cleared. I can tell, because the Haitians are up. Singing.