haiti yay!

Once again I’ve been inconsistent in my chronicling of my time in Haiti, and once again I apologize! It passing day I’m here it gets harder and harder to do this! The reason it’s so difficult is not from laziness (I’m serious!), but because of the amazing relationships I’ve formed with people here. I have Mike my Canadian friend who I spend the most time with. I hope to keep ties with him and definitely invite him to the wedding. There is Mark my roommate from Missouri who I talk with about his love for a Haitian here on base, and we support each other so well in everything going on. Then there are the Haitians on base: Steve, Junior, Patrick, Anasias, Jude, Ronald, Peterson, Philipson, Yvenel, Bo and his wife Merline, Carline, Jonathon, Roberteau, Elage (Eddie Murphy), Alain, and many more I don’t have the time to mention. I love them all sooooo much I can’t put it into words. I truly have a unique relationship with each of them, and I cherish learning about their lives and their testimonies.

It is people like them that give me hope for Haiti. They are the new generation and their visions for the future have already brought me to tears. Speaking of the future, I must also mention all of my students that I teach in gym. I can’t come close to mentioning them all because there are so many of them with diverse personalities but I have to highlight some. There is Nathaniel the fat and pudgy goofball. He is the purest, most innocent child I have ever known. He loves to tell me I’m the best gym teacher EVER hahaha! Then there are the girls Dawna, Taloney, Mikaela, Krystal, Nora and on and on. They love affection and to be thrown in the air or hold hands. They can be divas but they’ll listen when they’re being wrong. Then there are the boys who love to act tough like Aaron, Davie, Harry, Geoff, Eli, and others but who are big sweeties on the inside. I’ll never forget how their toughness completely fled them when we had swimming lessons. I’ve never been clung to for dear life as when I was helping them swim across. They were nearly in tears as I was helping them along, but by the end they were loving it and they always look forward to swimming lessons.

I feel so truly blessed right now. Lately I’ve been feeling sorry for myself about various things and tonight I truly was lifted it. I am in my favorite place in the planet, my soon-to-be wife is joining me here in two days, and I can ride around the city on motorcycle taxies for 40 cents. That is Mike and my favorite thing to do. It’s fun because you never know if you are going to get a driver that is friendly, and likes to talk about his faith, or if you’ll get one that will see an opportunity to scam some money. It sometimes feels like that is the microcosm of the country, people seem to be opportunistic or exploitative, or open, loving, and hospitable beyond any United States measure. Then I realize that is too oversimplified and dangerous to assume about any sort of people group. The whole time here I’ve been trying to formulate in my mind what it is to be “Haitian”. Whenever I think I’m getting somewhere close to an answer, new Haitian people just destroy the mold. I love that though. I really really do! It means you need to take the time to know people and form relationships. That’s true of any place, anywhere. I had no idea where my ramblings this time around would go, but I think this is it. I love making relationships. The deeper they go the more rewarding they are, but more than that, that is how progress in any arena will be made. Change comes vertically; from people to people to people, not from the top down.

It’s pretty awesome how Jesus is like that too. In the book of Isaiah it prophesized that Jesus would suffer and be bruised and beaten for the world. He didn’t come to a thrown and rule by some “trick-down” scheme. He formed relationships with his disciples. These disciples after much learning and many mistakes and grown then went town to town not conquering, but conversing and healing. They showed compassion, they influenced people through perseverance in their actions, and strength in their character. I want my wife and I to do that for the rest of our lives. I want every meaningful relationship in my life; family and friends, to join me in this directly or indirectly. This is my prayer.

I spoke on Facebook with somebody that I haven’t talked to in basically a couple of years, and we’d barely consider ourselves acquaintances. There was by no means any bad blood, we just don’t really have a relationship. I started talking to her about a show that we both liked, but it ended up that I was lifted up more than I can explain here. She said she had read my blog (which means so much to me for ANYBODY who reads this silly thing) and she said in short that she was inspired by Taylor and my love for the nations, and passion for justice. This girl is mending and growing in her relationship in Christ, and she has been learning about inequalities and injustices throughout the world. I was so overjoyed, not for the boost to the ego she supplied (that is if I allow it to come to that), but because she is becoming impassioned as well. I was more overcome than I can explain, and I shared it with Taylor and we were overjoyed so deeply! So for all of you who have given us encouragements, or have mentioned you are praying for us, or praying for us without mentioning it, I want you to know that they mean more than anything in the world. Its so easy to feel bitter for the amount of wrong that is allowed in the world. I have a hard time deciding which is worse, having no clue what goes on in the world, or knowing it and perpetuating it or not doing a thing. I get renewed so quickly first of all from God, but also from the relationships here in Haiti, the relationship with my partner in crime, Tay, and from everybody back at home. Thank you all so much, thanks for reading my bliggity blogs, and thank you all for being you. I look forward to catching up and going deeper in our friendships and in the Lord! I love you all!!!

beach blog!

Wow it has been a week since I’ve updated this! My deepest apologies! I have been busy with many things and it’s very difficult for me to want to sit still long enough to write about my experiences! Before diving more into this I want to forewarn any reader of this that I’ve experienced so much this week, and I’m not sure the best way to go about explaining it. If it is scatter-brained or long, once again I apologize for that. I’ll appreciate anybody that bears with me through this blog! Having said that I wish that everybody could experience Haiti, or at least one of the thousands of poor microcosms of it that can be found in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico, the slums of Europe, Chicago, Philly, ANYWHERE. I wish I could also explain my experiences more vividly or devote more time to explaining about my time here. Then I think about how even Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or Hemingway in all their brilliance would sell places like this short. They have to be experienced rather than read.

This has been such a strange week for me I’m still not sure how to process it. I can the week as an out-and-out tourist. We walked down our Maurepas Avenue, through some houses of people doing laundry (I feel so stupid and blatantly American about that still) along some beautiful cliffs of fossilized coral reef, and to a very cheap, but gorgeous beach. The sand was so powdery and white that even though 90 degree Caribbean sun could not make the sand scorch our feet. The water was so predictably translucent and dazzling blue that it felt like it the newest HD/plasma/whatever TV screen would sell this picture miles short. The water predictably was the perfect temperature, and the people working at the beach were predictably over-the-top friendly and complimentary. My white Iowan skin got predictably scorched, and I was (and am) predictably proud of that fact. It was predictably an island paradise that every middle-class American conjures up in their mind. It was predictably a perfect day in Haiti. I, however, predictably found so many things that broke my heart. The whole walk to the beach was predictably strewn with heaps and heaps and trash (as is the landscape of all of Haiti). The shallows were predictably filled with makeshift sale boats desperately trying to make a living. The beach was predictably void of any Haitians allowed to be enjoying the beauty of their own country. It was all predictable. I hate being predictably cynical in all of my blogs. It just makes me so upset that Haiti truly should be a tropical paradise. There are so many glimpses of it in the animals, the plants, the terrain, the people! It is truly evidence of the destruction that greed and selfishness that people can display. Whether it is slavery, dictatorship, or oppressive U.S. economic policies it can all be traced back to greed and lack of empathy. It makes me sick to be able to simultaneously witness the evil and beauty of the island. There is so much potential for all beauty. That is what heaven will look like.

Anybody that knows me knows how fun-loving and even optimistic I am. Seeing these things, and reading about the route causes of these, however, does something to you deep inside. I realize this sounds cheesy and predictable, but it’s true. It does something deep inside you, it’s an emotion I haven’t really put my finger on. I think it’s an emotion that I think the individual has the choice to shape and sculpt. It can turned to bitterness. It can turn to outright cynicism. Or it can turn to true compassion-which forms into love of people. If you are free of apathy you cannot help but experience some degree of zealousness when you over and over again see injustices and suffering. This zealousness so often can turn to violent zealousness, which only perpetuates the cycle of suffering. Or you can strive for a zealousness of love. This fervor can be used as fuel to devote everything you can to the outcast, to the voiceless, to the suffering, to the exhausted, to the defeated.

Please, please, please don’t get the wrong impression. I’ll admit I have felt bitterness, I have felt defeated in a lot of causes, I have felt cynical, but with every relationship I form those sentiments are defeated. Haiti can be transformed. The Kingdom of Heaven can come to Earth. Please pray that I can stay energized; that I am filled with love rather than anger. Please pray this prayer for yourselves as well. I promise you that if everybody first A) exposed themselves to these injustices and B) responded with compassion as Jesus did then we will see beautiful transformations around the world. I know it. In the glimpses of Heaven I have seen in people I know that it can be contagious. Wow, I went from pissed off to excited! I’m not even sure who I am writing this to, but whoever it is please join me! As disciples, as new believers, as Christians, as curious people who have no idea what to think of Christianity, please please find human suffering and share in it, and overcome it together. Amen?

(I just started typing this prayer without even realizing it. I can’t explain it very well, but it was one of the most sincere prayers I’ve ever experienced. Normally I’m not so public about my prayers but yeah I thought I would end this blog with the prayer that I spontaneously started writing in the middle of this essay).

Oh God please give me strength, the energy, the perseverance, the support to do this all of my life. Lord please free me from anger at the oppressors, but rather fill me with your zeal against the systems of oppression. Jesus please give me knowledge how to do this. Please continue to fill my heart for these children, for these villages, for “the least of these”. Please let me know what compassion truly is, and let me feel it and act upon it. Make me a leader please Father so I am not alone with this, but can form communities who love you and love others. Thank you Jesus for giving me the love I already have. I didn’t know I could love this much or this hard, thank you God so much for filling me with this.

ballin'

Just so you all know... Operation: Ratty Mustache is in full effect and going strong. When i get back you will all be blown away if you've been blessed with the chance to lay eyes upon it.  Be forewarned, the Truth of the 'stache is coming.

another clayton rant. read at your own risk.

i know people hate getting preached at. i'm always so self-conscious about because whenever you implore people to do something or not do something there is almost always at least an implied self-righteousness undertone to it. i'm not exactly sure how to avoid that and i want to truly apologize if i send an "i'm better than you vibe". i include myself in anything i'm about to write in this post. i have absolutely no idea how many people reads this silly blog. i hope you realize that i'm not special. anybody can do anything to help. even if it means giving money at the very least. it can help so much.

i was just reflecting on my time in the villages of the 5th Section today and i have this image going through my head over and over and over and over again. This women in the poorest, most ecologically and physically poor village i will most likely ever see had this strange mechanical contraption protruding through her arm. she had her forearm crushed in some sort of rice production machinery. this happened in JUNE. she is still wearing this thing. what hospital would put this on somebody's body? obviously a hospital with improper medical knowledge, improper funding, improper care from a corrupt government.

then i got to thinking. why are so people poor? i HATE over simplified answers but i cant get this one out of my head. it is because we are rich. i understand it is very easy for me to feel this way when i see poverty and suffering all day and everyday. but it only makes it clear. how can we as a Christian whole--the richest broad people group on the planet-- not take care of each other. when there is suffering does anything else matter? it only takes a thought exercise of any sort. do you know how crappy you feel when you are sick with the flu? when you're strapped for cash? when you're love sick? the poor feel these emotions 23984797 fold compared to us. they cant seek help other than friends and family who are suffering too.

i HATE this. i hate being so angry. i'm seriously crying right now because i cant understand how the world has completely lost the point. everybody pursues what makes them "happy" in life. and that is considered "virtuous". have you ever helped somebody out? like truly had compassion and been there for them? this doesnt have to be in a poor nation, i'm talking about helping friend family stranger ANYBODY. is there any happier feeling? it truly feels like you're in heaven when you know you shared in and eased the suffering of another. dont believe me? try it.

gosh i'm sorry i'm saying the same things over and over and over again. i cant think about anything else though. i just cant. i just hate it that people suffer and die and they feel like they are suffering alone because people in the world are so rich and will never know this kind of pain. i cant get over the sense that nearly the whole world has missed the point. people dont have to suffer. PERIOD. once again that's over simplified but the world has enough for our needs but not enough for our greed. please please please please dont wait for somebody else to do these good things for you. too many people have had that mindset and that's why things dont get done. oh my goodness i hope this makes some kind of sense. i hope we can help support each other to give all of ourselves to "something bigger than ourselves" as my wonderful and beautiful fiance loves to say. it's the most heavenly feeling in the world. knowing you shared in somebody's suffering and lifted them up. Godbless you all. thank you if you read through all of my ranting and raving again. sorry if i'm too harsh but i always feel like i wasnt quite harsh enough. Thank God that God is so much better at this than i am and that i can draw strength from Him. Goodnight!

another day in paradise

I suppose it’s another time for an update! This gets harder and harder for me to do because there is always so much I can learn, so many people I could spend time with and get to know, so much I can read! Then I think about how many people have mentioned that they’re reading my blog and how much that means to me, and how much of a monster I’d be to keep all of the goodness from Haiti to myself!
The daily routine has changed for me a bit. Instead of helping teach preschoolers I am working with the computerized identification system used to streamline distributions to the villages of the 5th Section. This has been a challenge for many reasons. I am once again being shown how difficult and adaptive a life of a missionary MUST be. Terry, the leader of the base, one morning told me I was going to be doing this. He, however, is an extremely busy man and can’t take the time to properly orient me on the system. He has told me vague ideas of what he wants done and I go to town on them. The system is on Microsoft Access, which is a database system similar to Microsoft Excel. Each household in the 5th Section is given an identification card. On this card has a picture of one person from the family. They are given an ID number, and it is recorded how many people are in their family, what sicknesses they may have, what damage their houses endured from the hurricanes, what specific village they are from, and what supplies they have already received.
Like I said I have been thrown in on my for the most part to feel around. It has taken me a while, but I’ve for the most part mastered the program! My task has been to clean the system up. Many groups have come and blessed this place with their help but it is hard to always stay on the same page with new people cycling in and out. Because of this, many of the information is very scattered. Villages are spelled differently, supplies are called different things, etc. I have been consolidating as much of this information so we can exact information from the system much faster. It’s been cool because I’ve actually figured some stuff out that Terry and Rodney weren’t aware of and we’ve really been able to improve the system!
I love doing this work because it truly is important, and truly works, I’ve experienced it the second day I was here! If we just showed up with food and supplies it would be chaos. The strong and clever will make out with a lot and the weaker or just unlucky will be left starving and dying. It’s awesome that I’m able to experience this because I KNOW I will be doing lots more of this later in life and so I’m trying to be a sponge and soak it all in baby! It’s also challenging work and allows me to be independent and somewhat inventive.
I’m excited because tomorrow morning I’m going to be blessed with the opportunity to go back out to the beloved 5th Section! Rodney and I and a Haitian brother are driving out there in order to make measurements on the road and canal. We are doing this because this spot near the village of Lubin is pretty treacherous and damaged and we need to find a way to be able to bring equipment and trucks out here. Ahhhhhh I seriously am sooooo happy that I am able to work with this aspect of the ministry. This is best-case-scenario for me. If only more money would pour into this place so more love and compassion could be poured into the 5th Section!
Oh and also, just for the record it is confirmed today that I indeed have Dengue Fever. After another day battle the incessant loosening of the stool, or what I like to call Duvalier’s Revenge, I broke out into a rash on my arms. That is the other tell-tale symptom of Dengue Fever. Hahahaha how cool is it that I came to a “tropical” island and picked up a “tropical” disease from mosquitoes! It’s been a huge hassle and pretty exhausting and dehydrating at times, but booya for me for the story I can tell haha!
Thus ends another entry from “Mista Clai-Tone” as my PE students pronounce my name. Thanks for reading! I love you and miss you all!

i get worked up way to easily

Injustice. Oh my. I know I will leave this selected writing utterly exhausted, because it is so pervasive, so bleak, and so heartbreaking. Injustice, suffering, Hell, whatever you want to call it, it’s here in abundance. I’ve read scholarly peer-reviewed journals on the strife of Haiti, written papers for class about it, and seen documentaries. Some deep switch inside of you turns on when you see childrens’ hearts beating through their bloated ribs, or feel the same scorching sun that destroyed the rice patties that gave the villages life, or when you smell the garbage throughout the city that the corrupt mayor of St. Marc will not let us clean for free. Experiencing this myself does not make me special, or empowered, and definitely not “super-Christian”. It merely makes me responsible and accountable to do something about it. If I don’t have compassion after seeing all of this, if ANYBODY experiences this and doesn’t have compassion that moves them into action then I won’t apologize for saying this, but you’ve missed the entire commission of being a Christian.
Injustice is more part of Haiti’s identity than “freedom” is part of the United State’s “fabled tradition”. When we get a mild sense of nostalgic annoyance that the bloody redcoats would dare to tax us without representation, the Haitians must be consumed with revulsion when they look back and see that their nation was birthed by the labor of slaves from the west coast of Africa. Going even further back, there is no voice for the injustice and suffering of the indigenous people, the Arawak, because they have been long dead by disease or slaughter. Thanks Chris Columbus! Fast forward to the 1950s through the 1980s. As the United States is being propelled to the most powerful and influential state in the world, they were also filling Haiti’s brutal dictators’ corrupt pockets and even training its personal military. From the beginning Haiti has never had a chance. A vibrant beautiful Caribbean island laid baron by colonial deforestation; a vibrant and beautiful group of people who have never had the chance to elect their own leaders who will serve their humble wellbeing. I do apologize if I sound disgruntled and cynical, but the truth of what has happened and is happening must be heard and seen for justice to come. Just as Moses and the Israelites’ moans had to be heard by God before they could be liberated. We are asked, pleaded, begged to be the hands and feet of Jesus, Jezi, in this broken world today.
Enough macro-historical information, entire books have been written on that. I’ll get into what I have personally experienced. You can’t avoid injustice in this country. In the villages, the cities, the mountains, everywhere. Even seeing the rich houses of the foreigners or wealthy elite class only starkly accentuates how big of a gap there is. My second day here I got to spend a day seeing how poor our world can allow people can get. The base I live at does an outreach in a place outside of St. Marc known as the 5th Section. This is an area of about 6 or 7 villages that are sustained only by the literal fruit of their labor from mangos, bananas, rice patties, and also from anything that an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) has at its disposal to give. Unfortunately the canal system going out to these parts was destroyed during the storms of September. The government is rebuilding this, but at a snails pace. Funding is few and far between, and motivated and well-paid workers is difficult as well. Because of this lack of efficiency people are starving. Rice patties, which depend on standing water, have dried up and a baron wasteland is what is left. Some villages had up to 60% of its houses destroyed by the hurricanes. One village was not even known to exist by the NGOs until after much cajoling our base proved it to them.
The government does nothing. One village I went to had the concrete skeleton of a school completed, but it dormantly waits for funds from the school… for years. The government is more concerned with lining it’s pockets with cash, then providing the one feasible outlet for upward mobility: education. This is injustice. Most of the people have no records of citizenship or property or anything resembling anything official. What the YWAM base has done is come in and computerized the households of each small village and kept records of sicknesses, property damage, and established a sufficient way of handing out food. This was no small feat considering the obliterated infrastructure out here after the hurricanes. As Christians they had enough to do cleaning their own base, and reaching out to the city, but seeing this suffering they had compassion and had no choice but to give themselves. Can we not all do the same?
Yes I’ve felt anger throughout writing this bit about injustice. I’m angry when my friend Philipson tells me about the prison system here in Haiti. How they are not corrected when they are brought to prison they are destroyed. No sanitation, no communication with their families, no dignity, and no justice. I’m angry that the YWAM Haiti team has the resources and the drive to clean up the city and bring dignity but the politicians of the city will not allow it. I’m angry that there is literally no word in Creole for the word “sorry”, and that wrongs are revenged with more wrongs. Whether on the playground between children, or among the masses of a coup d’etat, there are only reactionary violent movements because that is all that has been presented to them. If, however, our anger does not end in love then the deeply entrenched cycle of wrongdoing will only be repeated. It’s a constant struggle for us all, but it’s why our Lord and Savior died alone on the cross. How bout we take up the cross with him, and follow him, and where we see the wrong—because it’s all around—lets spread some love. Amen?? Wow i'm exhausted.

dengue fever

I’ve been told this many times, and always suspected it to be true, but the life of a missionary is very difficult. I’m starting to grasp it in a few ways myself. The past few days I have felt some pretty extreme bloating. My stomach was ballooning out and I could not go number 2 for the life of me. It all came to a pinnacle last night when I had diarrhea for the majority of the night. I apologize if this is too graphic, I had to go in such loose volume that it eventually came out as a clear liquid and barely carried a smell with it. It left me drained physically and emotionally. This morning I woke up utterly drained and had a deep headache behind my eyes. I found out from some Haitian friends that I have what is most likely called Dengue Fever. This is a condition that you get from mosquitoes (which I have had in abundance). I am not complaining because I am on the mend now.
What has been far more challenging and draining than the Dengue are things largely out of my control. My favorite person on the planet, Taylor my fiancé, is going through Hell on earth in Morocco. She feels isolated, lonely, physically sick, and just all around depressed. I miss her so much and that makes having amazing experiences here so hard. I want to be with her and help her and I am here helping others who I don’t really even know. It’s just interesting how everything works sometimes. She would probably be mad that I feel this way because she would want me to focus my everything on the people here rather than herself, that’s just how she is. We’ll get through it and be renewed, but it’s so easy to be overwhelmed by the present. We all know how it goes.
I do have good news though! Rodiz the preschool teacher heard some amazing news today! Her husband with Lyme’s disease was believed to need surgery on his shoulder due to a rotator cuff injury. It turns out that the pain in his shoulder is attributed to the Lyme disease and doesn’t need surgery so he will be joining us on Saturday! I am so happy for Rodiz and her children Ky, Lilliana, and Levi! This is good news for me too because I don’t have to take over the preschool class! I hope and pray this means that I can live my dream and give myself to the 5th Section (the poor rural villages). I’ll let ya know what becomes of that! Thanks for staying in tuned to what’s up in Clay’s world!!!