Crackin' Me Up

The knocking at the door was insistent.  Loud, hard, a lot.  Seriously, I’m coming.  “M’ap vini!”  At my door is an older man and a young, 9 year old girl.  I’m pretty sure they don’t belong together.  He holds out a bowl and takes off the red cloth, showing me the militones and korosol he wants to sell.  “Was the gate locked?” I ask.  “Yes,” he says.  “Then why did you come?”  “I was knocking on the gate a lot, and she” – he points to the girl, “showed me through into the yard.”  David questions him, “Through the little gate?”  “No, through the hedge.”   Unreal.  David responds that when the gate is locked, we don’t want people coming into the yard.  “Wi, se konsa, mesi,” he responds.  “Yes, that’s true, thanks.”  Then he went a little too far.  Tapping his hand on the palm of the other hand, and alternating this rapidly several times, he said the meaning of the gesture.  “It’s not my fault.  She showed me.”  The gesture, the words, the probable broken, recently-repaired fence, and the lack of respect for privacy gave an edge to David’s voice.  “Yes, it is your fault.  She is a kid.  You are an adult.” 

From time to time, Orrin used to ask me, “Mom, are they crackin’ you up?”  I know he was not using the saying correctly, but it’s kind of funny.  Yes, son, sometimes they are crackin’ me up.  Or driving me crazy.

There are lots of lessons I’ve learned about giving since I moved here.  Giving with love, because many times I’ve given and still continue to give without love.  Speaking the truth in love, because many times I have “answered roughly” to the poor, as the Bible says.  To think no evil, especially when I’m so quick to distrust what people are telling me.  I mean, I know not every child in Haiti is mother-less!  There are a lot of days I wish I had a truth meter.  I feel like if I could see someone who was truly suffering, truly starving, I would help with a heart full of compassion.  If around me there were eight year olds who weighed 30 lbs and were starving.  If I knew that the mom was homeless and had no other options than selling herself on the street, I feel like I would try so hard to do what I could.  But I know that would be a huge struggle, seeing real, critical needs and not being able to help everyone.  Here, I know life is difficult.  But I also feel like it’s possible.  Maybe not the quality of life that is desired, but I feel like I don’t see starving people.  So this is my struggle here.  Struggling with myself to try to see the needs, to feel the compassion, to have the right attitude.  These are the raw, honest failures of mine.

Marie (names changed) sees me step outside to check on the kids.  The gate is locked and so she is standing on the other side of the fence, waiting.  “What do you have?” I ask.  She motions me over.  I sigh, put on shoes, and walk over.  She tells me what she has.  I look at the grenadias that look like they’re soon to spoil.  How much, I ask.  She names a price that is 8 times what is right.  I counter offer.  Twenty gouds, or around 45 cents.  She wants 50.  I say no thanks, 20.  She asks for 25.  “I have 20,” I tell her, “and the 5 gourd coin that you told me the other day is no good.”  It was dirty.  She tells me she’ll take it.  “It’s ok today?” I ask.  “Wi.” Yes. 

Gerald came to ask for money to finish buying his motorcycle.  The owner was leaving for the States the next day, and he had to go down the mountain to sign the papers that day.  He needed 2,500 gourdes or around $50.  We were in the middle of a landscaping project, and were lacking enthusiasm.  Here, you can plant this tree today and come back tomorrow to do some more work on the landscaping, we’ll give you the 500 gds, then we’ll loan you the rest.  It was a fair deal, we wrote up a little paper showing the few months that he was supposed to come and pay the money back in, and off he went to finish buying his moto.  The week went by and he didn’t come.  I finished the landscaping.  He came by a week or so later and said he had been in an accident and couldn’t work.  I told him he could come back when he was better.  Then a week or so later he showed up and said he had been sick and couldn’t come.  He finally came one evening as we were preparing to go out, so I showed him a little work, and left him to it.  He came and paid the first month’s payment.  A little later, we were talking at a meeting, and his name came up.  And it appeared that his last little bit of money he needed to pay for the moto had been paid to him by a few of us J  Not too surprising, but a little depressing.

Gade sa ou ka fè pou mwen.  “See what you can do for me.”  It’s a common phrase I hear at my door.  Someone who comes and wants food, or money, or laundry soap, or help with school, or shoes, or sometimes they just tell me to give them something.  “What?” I ask.  “Anything.” 

The almonds were in season in July and August, and were raining out of the trees.  If you were standing under the tree talking to someone, you would invariably get hit on the head.  They littered the yard, and Emanier would rake up buckets full each week when he worked, and throw them away.  I started talking to Madam Ino about them.  She said her sons used to crack them when they were younger.  They would sell the almonds to some of the missionaries here, or make cookies.  I asked why no one was coming and gathering the almonds and cracking them and selling them to me….or by jingo, eating them.  Why in the world would you walk over perfectly good food to come to my door to ask me for food??  I’m totally good with giving you food if you need it, but why not take what’s available?  Then I asked Madam Ino why no one makes almond cookies.  Why doesn’t she make them and take them to market and sell them?  She said no one would buy them…they don’t know what they are.  (Insert an American who loves trying new foods pulling their hair out here).

Daniel wanted to plant some beans, so instead of giving him money, we gave him a bag of beans.  A while later, he was back, asking for money to help pay the people who worked in his field J  Then a while later, he was back asking for more beans.  We asked what happened to the beans we had given him.  He did the same hand signal for “not my fault.”  “The rain didn’t fall,” he told us.  “They didn’t grow.”  This is something we struggle with a lot.  Especially with people we know live by water or a stream.  We know you can’t carry water to water a whole field, but why not water what you can?  And they always say, “I have nothing to do.  I sit.  I need a job.”  We don’t understand why if there’s nothing to do….why not at least water your plants so you have food?

There is a young boy who comes very often, who always complains of being hungry, was not respectful, and who said his dad couldn’t work because he had a foot problem.  I finally asked to talk to his dad, and one Saturday they came to our house.  His dad has two club feet.  Why is it easier now to give him some food when I see him?  Does it matter?

There’s another young woman who I’ve gotten acquainted with recently.  She had a baby the same day as Cassia, and often comes to tell me that she doesn’t have food for her kids, or that she wants to start a business, but doesn’t have the money.  When the hurricane came, she said her home was destroyed, and her and her family was living at a church.  She didn’t have any money to fix up their house.  Her family is her grandmother, a few sisters, and her kids.  There are no men in the picture, no men to help provide daily necessities, none to help repair the house, none to help make charcoal from the fallen trees to make some money, and none to help her raise her kids.  The brokenness is so sad. 

We have been lied to over and over.  We have stopped believing people because they tell you that they lost everything in the storm – completely – but they use the same words to tell you that Haiti lost all of its trees, which looking right behind them as they talk, you can see that didn’t happen.  So we stop trusting.  We stop believing.  We can listen to someone tell you that their house has been knocked down and everything is gone, or a young kid comes and tells us that they have nothing to eat, and we look at them and just don’t believe it.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked by many to help rebuild their houses, to get them a tarp, a plastic tote, a suitcase, and bookbags.  I’ve been asked to take someone’s baby because the mom came and brought him to the dad and left him.  I’ve been asked to help host someone’s wedding by finding a dress and probably paying for the whole thing.  We have had our yard man suggest a passage of scripture to read at the lunch table, and (once again) it was a story about the rich giving to the poor.  I was asked to buy a young man a smartphone because he said I told him I would help him buy one, and he doesn’t have a phone to call his mom…after I had seen him talking on a nice smartphone while out walking earlier in the day.  I was asked to help pay for a girl to go to the hospital because she didn’t have the $2 to go to the hospital.  Then she wanted me to help pay for her to go to another town to get treatment.  I was asked to give someone more food because the food I had given her she shared with other people.  I gave her a bit, and then a few minutes later, her cousin came and told me the same story J

These are the kinds of situations that come to us so often.  The opportunities that daily come knocking at our door.  And I confess, that a lot of times, I am more annoyed than anything.  Annoyed at the knock at the door at 6:30 am, annoyed at the fourth knock in a period of 5 minutes from the kids playing in my yard and all they want is a drink of water or to tell me they’re leaving, or the third time I get pulled away from my sink full of dirty dishes.  Or the knock that comes right when we sit down to supper.  I leave my table laden with food, and am annoyed to see the young girl who comes nearly every day to ask for food.

Trying to figure out the giving thing has been one of the top five most stressful things being down here.  It has brought so many conversations, hunts through Bible verses, whispered prayers, heaved sighs, tears, frustration. 

Then I hear my preschooler heave a sigh when the knock sounds, and leave the couch from the book we were reading together.  I know he learned that from me and I am ashamed.  When I think of the food that’s on my table and that they may not eat tonight, I feel ashamed.  When I think of the good job my husband can go to every day, and lack of steady income jobs here, I am ashamed.  When I think of the hard work these people do hauling water, washing laundry by hand, walking miles to market, and I throw my load of laundry in my machine each day, I am ashamed.  When I think of how Jesus would look at all the stuff He gave me, and how unwilling I am to share with the faces that come to me personally, I feel ashamed.  I ask God forgiveness so much more down here than I ever did back home, because, wow, I feel like I fail so much so often. 

For a while we were able to just say, “I don’t speak Creole.”  Now that’s changed, and we can understand the story.  We can hear the two sides of the story from the mom and daughter and son who alternately come to the house.  The mom borrowed money to get the son out of prison, and now the lender is going to call the police to get the money from her.  Then the son starts being abusive at home and the sister fears for herself and her kids after he hit one of the children.  She stays at different people’s homes, and then wants to build a little shelter.  She builds part of it, and then her brother throws rocks at it and tears it down.  He says he didn’t do it.  He feels like he has mental problems, but doesn’t have the several hundred dollars to pay to travel to Port, see a Psychologist, take tests, pay for medication.  They can’t make any money because they can’t work in their garden together due to the son’s mental illness.  When you can understand at this level, it’s tough.  It’s tough to know if you should help, how to help, and then there’s always the lingering question….is this the truth?  But does it matter?  There is so much wrestling.  So, so much wrestling. 

A lot of people come asking for jobs.  We prefer to have someone do a job and pay them if they need money, rather than just handing money out the door.  It feels a little better.  There are lots of people who come to David asking for work, but he can only hire so many.  Sometimes he will call me and say there’s a person up at the hospital who is looking for work…do I have anything for them to do?  We find odd jobs…cleaning the steps that go up our hill to the Hospital, washing chair cushions, planting flowers, or cutting down coconuts.

The issue of giving complicates relationships.  It makes me very insecure in friendships, as this is always something that may come up….what we can do when there is a need.  Also, I get so weary.  I want to minister to the soul and spirit, not just to the stomach and pocket. 

Furlough gave us a little time away to gain perspective.  Yes, we are in an agricultural community, and they can grow some crops, but it realistically won’t provide food for every day, and money to send 6 kids to school, along with medical bills and a house, etc.  So yes, people do have hunger here.  They do need a boost sometimes.  When I see the daily flow of people at my door, I begin to think that I’m being asked to care for the whole of Bonne Fin.  But stepping away has made me realize that I probably only see a small percentage of the people.  There are a lot of people out there just going about with their lives and not coming to me to ask for things.  We also realized in various conversations with others back home, that there are lots of other situations that people go through with giving….with their family, neighbors, co-workers, or other community people they are trying to reach out to.  These situations are usually never easy, clear-cut, or have fast solutions.

Language used to be our most constant prayer request.  Now that this seems to be at a point where we can get by, it’s still on our list, but now the giving is moving to the top.  Or more accurately, our attitude while giving.  That we would give with love, that we would treat others with respect.  We plead for you to pray for us that we can have wisdom.  There will always be needs, true needs, if we can stop judging and see them clearly.  We need wisdom to know how to help, how much to help with, and how to love as Jesus does.  The more I see and experience, the more amazed I am at the character of our Lord and Savior.  How pure His love is, and how un-human this is.  How loving of a God we have, that He loves the poor and those who don’t have anything.

“The poor is hated even of his own neighbor:  but the rich hath many friends.  He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth:  but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.”  Proverbs 14:20-21.

There is such an opportunity here when that knock sounds.  I can heave a sigh, and have Orrin ask if they’re crackin’ me up, and model for him what selfishness is.  Or I can think of this as an opportunity that would be so much harder to find in the States – and try show my children what Christ-like giving should look like.  To daily model loving others, cheerful giving, gracious sharing with those in need, and having compassion on the poor and the orphan and the widow.