February 7, 2019 Our
Haiti Partnership: 10 Years in the Making
There
was sad news this week related to our partnership with Saint Paul’s church and
school in Gascogne, Haiti. This year’s trip by students, parents, and faculty
from our church and day school to Haiti had to be cancelled. The statement from
our school can be found by clicking here.
This
was a painful, but wise decision.
The
last few months in Haiti have been volatile. Anti-corruption protests have been
frequent, and sometimes violent. And there is a severe fuel shortage, making it
difficult to guarantee transportation around the country. Out of an abundance
of caution, after extensive communication with our sources “on the ground,” it
made sense not to bring our young people into such an unpredictable situation. We
look forward to sending a group next year, and in the meanwhile, we will
continue funding and raising money for teacher salaries, student supplies, a
generator, clean water and school lunch efforts that have been strategic
priorities most recently in our decade-long relationship.
Haiti
faces many daunting challenges. It is the poorest country in Latin America,
with at least 60% of the population living under the poverty line of $2.41 per
day. It is prone to natural disasters. It experiences earthquakes, the most
major of which was in 2010, killing an estimated 250,000 people and displacing
5 million from their homes. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck in October.
Hurricanes are common, including powerful Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Deadly
diseases like cholera have hit (sometimes, tragically, brought by UN
peacekeepers and others there to help).
The
government and private sector in Haiti have a history of ineffectiveness and
corruption. Tens of billions of dollars of aid sent to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake
went missing or was misused. The current protests are the result of accusations
of the theft of funds related to a Venezuelan oil program (Haiti imports all of
its oil). Some 2 billion dollars may have been stolen by corrupt business and
government leaders. With high unemployment, inadequate infrastructure and
supplies, and few opportunities for self-improvement, many Haitians are
desperate to escape their homeland; about a week ago, 28 Haitian migrants
drowned off the coast of the Bahamas, seeking refuge.
Usually,
the Episcopal Church in Haiti has been a source of comfort and hope. Churches
are community hubs, helping those in need, and Episcopal schools provide some
of the best education in the country, including in rural areas that would
otherwise have no educational opportunities (like our partner community,
Gascogne, in the rural central plateau). But this has been a turbulent time for
the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti, as well. There were allegations of foul play
and intimidation surrounding the election on June 2nd of the new bishop of
Haiti, the Very Reverend Joseph Delicat. So serious were these allegations,
that the majority of bishops and Standing Committees in the wider Episcopal
Church failed to ratify his election, leaving the leadership of the Diocese of
Haiti in limbo.
With
all of these challenges, it is easy to become discouraged. But there are
several hopeful things to keep in mind. Our own partnership with Saint Paul’s
has been enormously effective over these past 10 years, led with passion at All
Saints’ by faculty member and parishioner Dr. Beth Carson and in Haiti by Pere
Jeannot and now Pere Alphonse. Because we are working with a specific community
and area, we have been able to consult regularly with our Haitian partners
there, prioritizing the projects they most need. On our annual trips, we have
been tracking the progress of and spending on these projects, in addition to
receiving regular email updates.
Together,
with buy-in, project management, and labor from our Haitian friends, we have
built latrines, and a large school building, funded teachers and students, and
most recently worked on clean water, power, and school lunch programs, among
other things. This is real progress, with positive economic “ripples”
throughout the area. And the experience of traveling to Haiti has been a
wonderful blessing to us. Our friend and friend to Haiti, the Rev. Roger
Bowen, calls trips to Haiti “soul scrubbing.” I have found that to be
abundantly true the two times I have been, and many of our students have had
their lives transformed by the friendships they have made and experiences they
have had in Haiti. For all of the difficulties there, the Haitian people
themselves are faithful, resourceful, eager to connect, and unfailingly
generous with what little they have.
It
is also easy to project blame onto Haiti. To be sure, a prosperous future for
Haiti depends, in large part, on the Haitian people: on their business and
church leaders, and on their government finding the will to forge a stronger,
more sustainable, and more just society. But it is difficult to stand on your
own when a rock is on your back. There is a long history of foreign powers (at
times including the United States) intervening with their own, not Haiti's best
interests in mind, making it harder for the Haitians to attain
self-sufficiency.
We
can’t do much about the past, other than learn about it and from it, at times
with humility and repentance, but we can surely be faithful friends in the
present, helping the people we know best, the church and school of Saint
Paul’s, Gascogne, in their efforts to make a better life for themselves and
their children, and their children’s children. We will stand with them. We will
continue to pray for them, every weekend and during the week at all our school
chapels and at Evening Prayer. And as our friendships deepen even further, we
will encounter the presence of Christ in the faces we see and the voices we
hear. And they will, too.
Notes
- Last Saturday, around 50 of us gathered at All Saints’
for the Re-Entry Challenge, organized by our Prison Ministry. It was
eye-opening. Each of us received an “identity” and then faced the
obstacles of trying to re-enter society as someone who had been in prison.
It was astonishing to realize how confusing, frustrating, and, in some
cases, nearly impossible it was to get back on your feet.
- And then we hosted a beautiful Arizona Bach Festival
concert Sunday afternoon, after church. Two more Bach concerts to go!
Blessings,
Poulson+