I awoke very early that Saturday morning, just before daybreak, to see the team had begun cooking. I was anxious, wondering what it was going to be like having a bunch of children in a big open space up on Bellevue Mountain. But the biggest concern that was repeating in my mind was, Will I have enough food for them? Since the cooking was well underway with plenty of hands to help, I simply watched the meticulous preparation. After a while I realized I wasn’t needed at the house. I felt restless, so I decided to go ahead and walk to the top of the mountain to pray under the tamarind tree and wait for the tap-tap to arrive with the food. It was scheduled to be on Bellevue Mountain around four in the afternoon.
Within minutes of my arrival, even though there were hours before the food would arrive, children started coming up to Bellevue Mountain from every direction. Some were extremely young. How do they even know where the feeding is supposed to be? Other kids were sweating profusely, and I wondered how far they had walked. As each child arrived, I smiled and said, “Bonswa!” and waved for them to come play with the others.
Hours later, at around 4:30 p.m., Bernard arrived, an example of what I’d come to learn—that things in Haiti never happen on time or the way they are supposed to. Bernard, who was working as my translator, is a smart, passionate, young guy who loves kids and the Lord. He had grown up in a rough neighborhood in Haiti. The few Brooklyn deportees who had taught him English were now living in his same neighborhood.
We started out with a prayer led by Bernard, and then we sang a popular school song, “C’est la Journee” (“This Is the Day”). I recognized the tune and was able to sing along in English. As I looked at each child’s face, I was overjoyed. Everyone is a child of God. Everyone has been born with a beautiful purpose from Christ. Did they know? I wanted them to understand this, to really know and believe they were beautiful and worthy and special. As we sang, they began to smile and laugh and dance. Glancing around, I saw children with tinted orange hair, from malnutrition; tiny feet, barefoot and dirty; yet on every face was a beautiful white-teethed grin. The mountaintop was transformed into a lively playground by their sudden joy.
While we were singing and playing, the tap-tap arrived, nearly an hour late. The driver parked down the field from us, and one of the local pastors, his wife, and some of their church members helped the children line up to eat. Michaëlle’s aunt volunteered to help serve, so we climbed into the back of the tap-tap and began scooping food onto the plates. Each child received a big plate of rice and beans with salami on top. It sounded gross to me, but they loved it.
We served dozens of children. After a half hour or so, I realized that the line continued to stretch around the back of the truck so I couldn’t see how many children were still waiting in line. I was worried about running out of food for them. These children were truly hungry, had walked long distances, and had stood patiently in line for a plate. All right, Lord, I prayed. This is going to be like the fish and loaves, right?
I was freaking out a bit, but as we came to the end of the food and began scraping the pots, the line seemed to come to an end too. I looked up and saw just one little girl remaining, and my heart leapt—we had just enough food for her. I reached down to scoop up the last bit of rice but just then looked up and saw a young boy approach. “I didn’t get any,” he said, embarrassed, his sunken-in eyes looking at the ground. Oh, no! My heart sank.
I handed the full plate to a man who was helping so he could give it to the little girl, but he misunderstood and handed it instead to the boy who had just walked up. I tried to tell the man to give the food to the girl who had been waiting, but it was too late. I looked down into the pot again and moved my large serving spoon. There was exactly enough rice and beans for this young girl. I couldn’t believe it. I was sure we had run out of rice and beans on the last plate. Immediately I was reminded that I am not the one planning this; God is. He has every grain of rice counted for these children.
Afterward we ran and played and sang and danced again. I had so many children trying to hold my hand; it made me wish there were a hundred of me, just to show each child how special each of them truly is. The most beautiful thing about the whole day was how many children came up to me, looked me in the eye, said, “Mesi,” and then kissed my cheek. Bernard said for most of them, it was their first, and probably only, meal of the day.
As I walked back down the mountain, spent but happy, I started to get a little picture of the work ahead of me in Haiti. So this is what life is about. This is what being the hands and feet of Jesus means. I can’t change the fact that it’s perfectly normal for young children to walk up and down a slippery, steep path with a bucket of water on their heads. I can’t change the fact that people here are in survival mode and sometimes all these children eat is rice and beans once a day, if that. I can’t change the political situation or force people to care for other people.
I crossed through the mango grove, a new determination in my step. Now I know what I can do. I can show these children love. I can show them joy. I can show them compassion. I can show each of these children Jesus. Force will not affect Haiti. Politics will not have an impact on Haiti. Jesus will.
When I arrived back at my crooked gate, I looked at my house in a whole new way. I’d been feeling a little sorry for myself with the chilly bucket showers and the light switches that didn’t work. But every one of my neighbors lives in a tent or half-open house. No one has running water here. No one has electricity. I don’t have electricity or running water, but I have a roof and four walls, so I am still better off than most of Gressier.
As I opened the gate and went inside, I suddenly felt exhausted. I took a quick bath, crawled inside my mosquito net, and lay in the darkness, thanking God for what He had done that day. Just before I dropped off to sleep, I thought of Michaëlle. She had been on the mountain with all the other children, and her little stomach was full tonight. That made me smile. No throwing rocks at birds for her today.
I thought of her sweet brown eyes and how she’d fiercely hugged Bernard and me with her thin brown arms. Lord, please watch over Michaëlle and keep her safe. Let her feel loved and cared for and precious, because she is.
I drifted off to sleep. And that night the voodoo drums were silent.
FIVE
A Restavek
A person’s a person, no matter how small.
—Dr. Seuss
Non,” she shouted, clinging with all of her strength to the branches of a scrawny little bush in the mango grove. Michaëlle was refusing to let go. It was a Sunday morning, and we were halfway up the path to the blue tent on the mountain where she lived. With tears streaming down her face, yelling and screaming hysterically, words poured out of her so fast I couldn’t understand even one syllable. I crept closer and sat down next to her in the dirt. When I got down on her level, I realized I didn’t have to understand any Haitian Creole to know what was going on. I didn’t need to understand a single word to see that her face was filled with fear, fear of returning to her tent. I was rocked by the waves of terror emanating from her tiny seven-year-old body.
My heart ached, and I felt anxiety rising inside because I knew I couldn’t really talk to her, even though I tried. In my most soothing and confident voice, I called her Micha (pronounced “Mee-ka,” my new nickname for her) and told her everything was going to be okay, but it didn’t seem to help. After a few minutes of feeling completely helpless I, too, burst into tears as I stared, transfixed, at her frail body shaking and plastered to the dusty bush. I’d never before felt so helpless, and I begged God to show me what to do. Why is this happening? Please! Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.
The waves of fear and anxiety rolled over me, and I almost felt as though I was drowning. I felt alone, confused, and frustrated. Words weren’t working, so I began to sing, in a quiet and thin voice, as the words to “When I Am Afraid” came out of my mouth. Over and over I sang this song, based on one of David’s psalms, for Micha and for myself. Each time I sang
it I felt a little spark of comfort, and I prayed Micha did too. I finally managed to pry her off of the bush and sit her in my lap, her tiny body still shaking. As we sat there together, with me still quietly singing, I could feel her body begin to relax and her breathing slow down. I prayed over her and held her tight. All I could do was repeat in English that I loved her.
She leaned back for a few minutes; then I felt her body tense up. I watched as her back grew stiff and her stoic face returned, almost like her shell was hardening again. She pushed my arms away, stood up, and walked up the path. As I called after her, “Micha!” she began to run ahead full speed without turning around. I watched her disappear up the hill, a small puff of gray dust hanging in the air where she’d started to run.
Should I follow her? I wondered. But I was exhausted by her random outburst and my attempts to comfort her, so I turned around and walked back to my house. With each step I asked myself if I was helping her or hurting her by bringing her to my house each Saturday evening after the feeding to spend the night, take a bath, and have her hair braided.
Micha’s aunt and the others in the tent where she lived didn’t seem to love her. At least they didn’t show it when I was around. It was so confusing. Why is Micha so sad all the time? Why is she the one that seems to be doing all of the household chores and all the work? Why doesn’t she want to go back home? The questions and curiosity and confusion swirled around in my brain and wouldn’t stop. My stomach clenched, telling me there was something deeper happening and I needed to find out what it was. After the emotionally exhausting morning I wrenched open the front gate, crossed the front yard, and burst through the front door, frantic to find my cell phone. I needed answers, and I didn’t care how expensive the Internet data charges were going to be.
I turned on my cell phone and pulled up Google. Then I typed in the three words that would forever change my life: Haiti + child + servant.
A word I’d never heard before popped up in big, black, bold letters: restavek.
I froze, staring at the word on my cell phone screen for a good five minutes before scrolling down. There is actually a name for this way of treating children in Haiti. My mind reeled in confusion. I didn’t want to believe it, but as I continued reading, my head felt as though it would explode with this horrific discovery. The word restavek (sometimes spelled with a c instead of a k) is translated “to stay with” and is a common arrangement in Haiti, where parents force a child to live with another family because they are very poor or because of parental death or illness. Sometimes it includes the child being sold, kidnapped, or borrowed for a period of time.
I read a statement by the United Nations, condemning the restavek system as a “modern form of slavery” where even young children are put to work as laborers and treated as less than human.1 The majority of these restaveks are girls between the ages of four and fifteen, and they are responsible for all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and fetching of water for their households. Additionally, restaveks often suffer severe abuse and are very rarely enrolled in school.
There was much more, but I’d seen enough, and I put down my phone. The room felt as though it was spinning. “Micha,” I gasped. Like an overwhelming rush, everything started to make sense. This is why she wasn’t in school when I met her. This is why I always saw her carrying heavy buckets of water or washing clothes in a tub outside the tent or surrounded by endless piles of dirty dishes. This is why she sleeps under a table on cardboard.
I remembered the day we came to enroll her in school; her aunt brought some chairs outside of the tent for us, and she wouldn’t sit down even when I patted the chair next to me. She’d whispered something in my ear, and Bernard had translated: “Chairs are for adults. I can’t sit.”
Like a slideshow, images from the last few weeks popped up in my head as I remembered the many young girls I’d seen around Gressier who seemed to be working constantly. I had wondered why they stared down at the ground, eyes glassy and sad, and shoulders drooping. It was all starting to make sense, and I knew I had just made a life-changing discovery; I was finally able to put a finger on the disturbing feeling that had crawled its way up into my heart every time I passed these children. It was as if I could see the darkness of the situation and the evil behind it. I realized what the Holy Spirit had been stirring up in me the past few weeks, and I felt as though the Lord was igniting a fire inside me.
Children’s faces, one after another, popped into my head as I realized that Bellevue Mountain and much of Gressier were full of restaveks in an epidemic of child slavery. It made me sick to my stomach that I had been walking around this community for the last few weeks, knowing that something was wrong, wanting to question the situation, but not knowing how to begin. And it made me even sicker to know that so many Haitians had accepted and participated in this form of slavery in their own country with their own people.
I couldn’t find any firm statistics, but organizations that had studied the situation estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 children in Haiti are restaveks. I couldn’t get my mind and heart around that number. I still can’t. I never will.
Over the next few days I began to ask questions, read, research, and soak in every last bit of information on restaveks, no matter how disheartening or disturbing. I wanted to know everything there was to know about this crisis and what we could do to free these children in bondage.
One restavek named Jean-Robert Cadet grew up in Haiti but moved to America with his “aunt” when he was a teenager. He eventually left her, got an education, and wrote a book about his experiences. Here’s how he described the system:
Restavecs are treated worse than slaves, because they don’t cost anything and their supply seems inexhaustible. They . . . are made to sleep on cardboard, either under the kitchen table or outside on the front porch. For any minor infraction they are severely whipped with the cowhide that is still being made exclusively for that very purpose. . . . My clothes were rags and neighborhood children shouted “restavec” whenever they saw me in the streets. I always felt hurt and deeply embarrassed, because to me the word meant motherless and unwanted.2
I had seen dozens of restaveks since I’d moved to Haiti, and I didn’t even recognize it. I’ve been so naïve.
On a walk with Bernard, I asked, “How do you know when a child is a restavek?”
“You just know,” he said.
Three minutes later I saw a tiny girl by the side of the road. She looked frail, like she could break in half. She wore a woman’s skirt, pulled up to serve as a dress, and she was barefoot, dirty, and carrying two heavy water jugs, filled to the brim. She stopped and waited as we passed, her dull, sullen eyes following us. Bernard took one glance at her and said, “See her there? She’s one.”
That hour in the mango grove with a traumatized Micha changed me, and I looked at the children of Gressier through eyes sharpened by my newfound knowledge. The Lord had begun to remove the scales from my eyes and I couldn’t go back. I called my mom to tell her what I’d discovered about Micha, bawling into the phone and telling her I had to do something to help. And I knew cooking pots of beans and rice or singing songs with kids wasn’t going to be enough.
SIX
The Orphanage
When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed, you see something that you can’t un-see.
—Bono
The first time I walked through the red, six-foot gate into the courtyard of Son of God Orphanage, I felt in my spirit as if a dark cloud was blocking any sort of light from reaching inside. Immediately I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of children who quickly attached themselves to me, grabbing on and wanting to be held and touched. I slowly tried to make my way to a concrete bench, trying not to fall or trip over someone. As soon as I sat down, I couldn’t even count the number of hands on me, rubbing my face, braiding my hair, patting my legs
, and even touching my painted toenails in my flip-flops.
I had heard briefly about Son of God Orphanage and had the urge to visit for some unknown reason—maybe to see it with my own eyes or maybe because there was a tug on my heart that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The orphanage was in a three-story, gray, concrete-block building in a crowded city not far from Port-au-Prince. On the front of the building were open hallways lined with red metal railings, stacked on top of each other and overlooking a dusty gray courtyard.
Sitting on the concrete bench with dozens of children’s hands pulling the hair on my arms, I only had an hour to spend at Son of God. Honestly, I was relieved when the time was up. Since this visit was on a trip before my decision to move to Gressier, I left thinking I would never return and remembering only lots of children, dark hallways, and bad smells.
Despite the heaviness of my first visit to the orphanage, one of the first things God prompted me to do after I moved to Haiti and settled in Gressier was to return and check on these children.
I had learned there were some organizations in the States that supported Son of God Orphanage, so when I returned in January 2011, I hoped it would be different, better, maybe infused with a little more joy and light. I took a deep breath, knocked on the gate, and felt dozens of eyes glaring down on me from different corners of the broken building. The gate creaked open, and I was met by a young girl who grabbed my arm and led me down a dark hallway, spouting something in Creole that meant nothing to me. She led me into a room on the ground floor of the building and showed me some chairs with a coffee table in between. The room was dark and windowless; there were piles of unmarked boxes stacked up in the corners with sheets thrown over them. The air felt sticky, and I was sweating profusely, so I propped myself on the end of a floral fabric-covered chair. I looked around and saw little eyes peeping at me from everywhere—behind, in front, and even out of the window. I heard a few giggles and some quiet scurrying.
Miracle on Voodoo Mountain Page 4
