Lespwa Fè Viv

Aug 22, 2018
6 min read

I’ve been back in the US for four weeks now and while I’ve been planning to write one or two more blog posts, I’ve been putting it off because I don’t want to admit that my time in Haiti is really over. I also just don’t know how to wrap up such a life changing year of my life in just a few hundred words. I learned so much during my time in Haiti and I still feel so lucky that I was able to have this experience. There were several things that made Haiti hard to leave – the dear friends that I have made, the culture I have learned so much about, the food that I will miss so much, and the work I have been doing. They say you never really leave a place you love, you take a part of it with you and leave a part of you there. I know I’ll always long to go back to Haiti because a part of my heart will be there forever, but I’m so thankful that we live in a time of social media where I will be able to continue speaking with everyone in Haiti and see pictures of what they are up to. I was even able to video chat with a few members of the water team earlier this week which was really awesome.

It was also hard leaving Haiti knowing that there is still so much work to be done there. This is a place that has faced hardship after hardship and really hasn’t had a fair shot at developing into a country with the same luxuries we are used to here in the US. It’s not hard at all to look around and see where you could have a hand in helping someone in need whether it’s with an engineering problem involving water or electricity or simply raising money for a worthy cause. While I am leaving knowing that there are still areas of great need, I am also leaving with incredible hope for the country. There is a Haitian proverb that states “Lespwa fè viv,” or hope gives life. It’s something that is evident in the way people go about their lives. Despite the hardships, there is hope that things will get better.

While it’s easy to look around and find areas of need, it’s just as easy to find people who are actively trying to make the world around them a better place. People who, instead of waiting for someone else to come help them, are making every effort they can to help those around them in order to lift their country out of poverty. It’s my friends Raul and Malachi that are going to school to become doctors so that they can help people in need. It’s the members of the water team that are always looking for ways that they can support others in gaining access to clean drinking water. It’s the man who used all his personal resources to start a school in his home village so children wouldn’t have to walk miles to the nearest city. It’s the hospital administration who works hard every day to provide quality healthcare despite very limited resources. It’s my friend Gerky who is finishing his civil engineering degree so that he can complete projects that will help Cange be a better place. What the country lacks in resources and leadership, it makes up for in willpower, determination, and heart.

I also have a great hope in the new interns that will be taking my place. This summer, four new interns came to Cange to work on a wide range of projects. I was able to spend about two months with them this summer and I am already so impressed with how they have made connections within the community and began so many projects. Lillian has come to work on the creation of a water committee in Cange that will transfer both the responsibility and the financial burden of maintaining the water system to the community. This will go a long way in making sure the system is sustainable and will last for years to come. I applaud her for how she has began going about this project because as you can probably imagine, it’s going to be a long and difficult process. She is also writing a blog that you can check out here! Madi is working on continuing an evaluation of the processes involving medical equipment in the hospital here in Cange. She has been doing great work already and has become a regular working in the hospital. She has also expanded her work into other areas of the hospital and has even been able to help with repairing some of the medical equipment that wasn’t functioning. I know she is going to be a great help to the hospital and I’m excited to keep up with what she is doing. Caleb is working on an analysis of WASH (Water and Sanitation Hygiene) practices in a network of around 40 schools in the Central Plateau. While I was still in Haiti, I had the opportunity to do a few of the analyses with him and some of the other interns which consist of everything from creating a drawing of what the school looks like to documenting things like where students get their drinking water from to where they use the restroom and even how they are getting rid of garbage. In the end of his internship, Caleb hopes to be able to help the school network determine where they can best focus their efforts on improving WASH in their schools. Chase has been working on any and every project he can get his hands on. He’s looked at several projects involving water both in Cange and in several surrounding villages as well as other projects involving electricity and construction. I’m really excited about a lot of the projects that he has begun work on and can’t wait to see all that he will be able to accomplish while he is in the country.

Me with the new interns the week they arrived. From left to right is

Chase Gabbard, Madi Stiglich, myself, Lillian Hardaway, and Caleb Cantrell

Lastly, I have hope in the Lord that he is still at work in Haiti. This could be a whole blog post on its own, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts short. A few months ago, I reread the book Radical by David Platt and it served as such a challenge and an encouragement during my year of radical-esque living. While being in an area of extreme poverty, I was face to face with what some of the book challenges its readers to think about: how we as Americans largely ignore the fact that so much of our world is living in poverty. It’s easy for us to do because we’re just so far removed from it all, but for the first time in my life, these stories we hear about extreme poverty became a reality. This gave me a deeper understanding of the gospel and the importance of sharing with others what I have experienced. Platt discusses that “If [we’re] going to address urgent spiritual need by sharing the gospel of Christ or building up the body of Christ around the world, then [we] cannot overlook dire physical need in the process.” Meeting physical needs is something that was important to the work of Christ while he was on Earth as well as something mentioned in God’s Word several times and so it was so special for me to be able to experience the Lord in this way. You may be wondering, however, why I would say being in this situation gives me hope when I was surrounded by so much need. It’s because I was continually reminded that God has such a greater plan than this and that he is not going to leave Haiti in its despair. Almost every Sunday of my internship, I attended church services where I was inspired by the faith of the Haitian people in the Lord and humbled by the realization of how large our God is. Even in this small town in the middle of rural Haiti, I was standing among hundreds of people gathered together worshiping the same God that I put all of my hope in. Platt paints the picture in his book that one day we’ll see “individuals from every nation, tribe, people and language bowing down around the throne of God and singing praises to the one who has blessed them with salvation. This is the final, ultimate, all-consuming, glorious, guaranteed, overwhelmingly global purpose of God in Scripture.” Until that day, I will always miss Haiti, but I know that there are so many reasons to have hope. And hope gives life.