My Heart for Haiti

My call to missions began in fall of 2010. I had moved Augusta, Georgia in the summer and was trying to find a home church. By early fall I had been dying for a young adult group to get to know people my age and have people to hang out with. I began attending college age group at a church we only went to a few times and we were doing a book study on Radical by David Platt. This book is mission minded and it helped me realize how desperate people in other countries were. He shared stories of his mission trips and I wanted to make an impact like he had. During this study we attended a church during their mission’s emphasis month. Each week they had a different pastor from a different country preach and of course they used stories from their mission field to illustrate. One Sunday morning I began to think about how awesome it would be to be a missionary full time. This thought had NEVER crossed my mind before so I kept it quiet and tucked in the back of my head. One pastor during that month was from India. He talked about the thousands of kids that roamed the streets everyday with no place to call home or no way to get food. My heart broke for these children and I even spent time crying and praying for these beautiful creations of God.  

Nothing else came of that and someone told me it was pointless to just cry, I needed to take action. At this point I could not go to India, but I could pray and I could impact the world around me. Augusta is a good sized city and there are many, many homeless people who scatter the streets. I continued my work with them when I could and felt safe enough to do so and met some incredible people. It was so awesome to pray for them and give them hugs to remind them that they are still human.
One Wednesday in March I was listening to the radio on my way to work and a song came on. It wasn’t about missions or anything, but when the song ended I told God that all I want to do is show people the love that I have for Him. As soon as I said that I slapped my hand over my mouth and said “What did I just say?” I was terrified of the commitment I had just made!

Just a week and a half later our pastor at church gave a sermon on Jonah. It was presented in a way I had never heard before (maybe that is because God just wanted me to hear it differently, I don’t know). I couldn’t get out of my mind the opportunities Jonah missed out on by not going right away when God called him to. I did not want to let anyone miss out on what I could do for them or miss out on an opportunity to share God’s love because I was afraid. The thought of someone dying without knowing Christ, where I could have changed that frightened me even more. As soon as the service was over, I went forward and told the congregation about my commitment so they could pray for me and keep me accountable. I did not want to back out because of my selfishness.
About this time Inga Swope and her family moved in right across the street from us. Inga had started an organization called ‘3seams’. As soon as she began telling us about it I was interested in doing what ever she needed help with. There wasn’t really anything I could do, but I prayed for it and loved hearing about the directions it was moving.  Eventually she mentioned needing someone to move to Haiti. I told her I was interested, but didn’t think anything would come from it. About a month later she said she really needed someone but that was all she was going to say. I began praying for her to find the perfect person to go, whether it was me or not. All the while I began researching Haitian culture and making flash cards of Creole words. I then realized I was jumping too much on this and wasn’t letting God work. I stopped everything I was doing and had no answers for a couple of weeks. I fasted for an unknown time to pray specifically about where I was supposed to go or do in this missionary walk. On day seven, I felt like I was supposed to stop at seven days and seven hours. I was down to the last few hours and still had no answer. I was a bit frustrated, weak, and hungry. What better to do than go shut the door to my room and pray, so that is what I did.  Among other things, I prayed that wherever I would go, if I had to learn a new language that it would come to me easily. Immediately after I prayed that a picture of someone holding a Creole to English, English to Creole dictionary. After talking with someone else to get their advice on exactly how to interpret this, I knew I was supposed to come to Haiti with ‘3seams’.

I was able to come visit my new home in June to be sure this is what I wanted to do. I fell in love with the country. The first time I was able to begin to understand how Haitians live was when we got to walk through a village. This was the most eye opening of the whole trip. Families of 14 lived in small one room buildings with concrete floors and walls with curtains as a door if they were lucky. These houses were about the size of a small, American living room. Kids were running around with only a shirt on because diapers are expensive and they do all their laundry by hand. But yet, throughout the whole time, we saw smiling faces. These people are so full of joy even though so much has happened to them and the kids are occupied by the simplest things for hours on end. 

It rained a little bit every day we were there and we were going to walk through a tent village referred to as "the mud," but it literally was too muddy to walk through. When someone would ask these people where they lived they would reply "I live in the mud." No person should ever have to say that, EVER! Re-writing this memory tears are stinging my eyes as I picture what we saw. Pictures cannot do justice. I met one boy who lived with his mom and 7 younger siblings in a tent, heartbreaking. 

As we drove around one day we could see building still in rubble from the earthquake, and then tent cities all over where literally hundreds of tents side by side fill an open space. Someone who lived there when it happened said these cities went up within hours of the quake. 
The last night we were there it poured for several hours after raining off and on the whole week prior. We knew this weather was not good for the people in the tents and could not get our minds off of them. In the morning we left early to head to the airport and flew out. Once we got to Miami, we found out there had been a mudslide and at least 11 people had died and everyone else lost everything they owned including vehicles and livestock. We saw these pictures and were heartbroken because these were the people we had met and walked through their village. Some had invited us into their houses to see their babies or just to talk and everything was gone. We felt so guilty for getting up and leaving these people who so desperately needed help and love to come to a world of air conditioning, clean water, warm water, paved roads, and never wondering where our next meal will come from. We had no idea what the devastation was for these people who were just getting their heads above water from the earthquake really was until we reached American soil and saw pictures posted on Facebook. Seeing these pictures made me want nothing less than to be back in Haiti helping and made my desire to move there even greater. 

I was able to move to Haiti the very end of September and have loved being here. Time has really flown by. At times I have to remind myself I live in Haiti. Sometimes it seems like it’s the summer in the states just without any air-conditioning and I’m unable to communicate with 90% of the people I see everyday.


Then, I go outside and I’m reminded. When walking the streets, I see broken glass amongst pot holes as big as a person. Merchants line the roads selling goods from sun up to sun down (sometimes longer) to make a few dollars a day. Driving anywhere, young boys come up to your car to try to “clean” them with dirty rags to make some money for food. We see children bathing in ditches filled with rain water and old men digging through the massive amounts of trash that line the streets. 

The people we see have stories that are all heart wrenching. Pain, poverty, abuse, death, gang life, domestic violence, disease, hunger, and the list goes on. They have stores no person should ever have to encounter but continue living. They are strong, hard workers (well this is true for about half of them, the other half would like to live off of give aways), and are very resilient. Children run around naked or with only a shirt on but know no difference. They are lucky to be able to go to school or even just to have the clothes that are required to do so. Multiple times a day death happens for so many reasons and life goes on. Murder, sickness, suicide, heat exhaustion, dehydration, and disease are all common causes of this tragedy. Yet, those we are able to employ or are employed by the Apparent Project happily work long hours to make more money, are pleased by simple things, and look out for everyone around them.  People here are so willing to go out of their way to help someone else, it is humbling.

I had a deep desire to get to know the culture and the people more. I wanted to get out and about and see what life was like, but the communication barrier stood in the way (it is lessening, but still there). I wanted so desperately to talk to these Haitians and see their perspective on life and what’s going on.  I want to show them God’s love through conversation and not just action. I am continuing to learn Creole and hope to be fluent sooner than later. I knew crazy things were going on in these people’s lives and wanted to be there for them, but didn’t know how. I had heard of arrests, death threats, violence, murder, hunger, and more, but being unable to communicate I was very limited in how I could help, so a distance remained. I did not allow myself to absorb the pain and tragedy these people go through on a normal basis because I really couldn’t comprehend it.
After I had been here almost a month, a baby died that I saw almost everyday. The barely one year old twin went to sleep and never woke up and they still aren’t exactly sure why. They think it was because of respiratory problems. We are now giving the surviving twin inhalers and hopefully soon some medicine because she too is very raspy and we do not want to loose her. I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with the surviving twin and she is as precious as ever. She is definitely traumatized because she has always been with her sister and has no idea how to process this tragedy. We were able to make her a little mask from a pop bottle to administer the inhaler and I’ve been able to rock her to sleep a few times. She is a special little girl.

The night of her death I began to realize how much pain and agony the Haitians experience as a part of everyday life. I will never fully know, but I can start to. This precious baby girl has changed my life at just one year old—everyone has a purpose in this world no matter how short or long they live. I began to piece together all the negative things that have happened just in that past week and knew there was so much more that I didn’t even hear about. It broke my heart to know that this life was lost. As I sat out on the back porch, staring at the sky, reflecting on how much goes on in Haiti, I began to cry. Its unexplainable how much these Haitians suffer, and I want to help them through it. I want to point them to God and let them learn to rely on Him through hard times because it makes the load so much lighter. 

Haiti has resources, not nearly as many as the states, but they have them. The issue is that the vast majority of the Haitians do not have money to attain these resources. With our Christian American mindset, we want to help, but can’t make the trip ourselves, so what do we do? We send supplies to “help” them out. Toiletries, medicine, toys, clothes, etc. but hand outs are not the answer. Job creation is the answer. We need to empower these people to help themselves and not rely off other people. The economy in Haiti will never take off if everyone is given imported goods for free. Where I live right now, we have a supply of medicine and get donated goods every once in a while, but these are given out when they are needed or as Christmas gifts to the people who work for us. The medicine is more freely given out when needed; many times friends or family members who are sick are helped as well. I am so blessed and honored to be a part of creating jobs for these people. 
I work for an organization called ‘3seams’.  It came to be over the course of about 4 years.  A passion had been growing within our founder and director, Inga Swope, for women and children around the world.   At the same time, as a mom of young children, she had a great passion for helping to grow global perspective and compassion within our next generations here in America.  As she watched our culture become more and more materialistic, indulgent, and self-centered, she realized that our young upcoming generations had very little concept of how incredibly fortunate they were, and in the same respect, very little concept of the extreme poverty and struggle going on around the world.

(This became the question.)

How could she tackle both of these passions with creativity?

(And this became the answer.)

‘3seams’ is an organization dedicated to both issues.  Our organization creates opportunities for people to purchase clothing and accessories for their children while at the same time supplying a child in need with an identical piece.  Each piece of clothing is made in sets of two and all pieces are sewn by our Haitian seamstress program!  One of these pieces goes home with the buyer and one is donated by ‘3seams’ to an organization that ensures a child in need will receive it!  Not only does a child somewhere around the world receive a much needed item and someone else a much needed job, but the child here in America knows that there is a child in another part of the world wearing the exact same dress or pants or shirt.  

Our hope is that through job creation in the developing world, ‘3seams’ can put a small dent in the global poverty crisis as well as give families here in North America the platform to discuss poverty and other global issues with their children!  

When I first got here, I struggled with changing my mindset from the job I left in Georgia to this job here. I forgot that these people are not able to jump in their cars after work, grab take out on the way home, and enter inside a comfortable air conditioned house with all the amenities.  It took me a while (probably up until the babies death) to realize how much more of a blessing this job is because of who we are employing. These people live in tents, struggle with so many issues daily, walk far to work, and have been through so much. Seeing the pain and hurt of this country makes me want to be here more. There is so much and I want to do what I can to help them out. 
I would love to see Haiti without all the pain and hurt they experience so often, but this, I know is unattainable. These things will always be present. Minimizing the problems is definitely a goal of mine, but the issue is how. I believe that there is no one answer for this problem because each and every person is a unique individual and there is no such thing as a one answer fits all. There are actually a lot of Haitians who go to church, but they still rely on witch doctors. Satan is alive and well in this country more so than in the states. I want to be able to show these Haitians who God really is and the vast amount of love he has for his creation through my daily interaction with them. I would love to see them run to Him first when their child is sick or they have a problem, rather than running straight to a witch doctor. I want to love on these people with the love God has given me so they can see something different in me. Once I know enough Creole, I plan to start a Bible Study with our seamstresses so we can grow together in God’s word. I hate that there is so many negative things that go on in this country and I believe the more that Haitians allow God to be involved in their lives the less these things will happen. I know it will not go away, but I want Satan to be terrified of this country rather than winning like he is now. 

Job creation will also help this country a lot. ‘3seams’ employs four Haitians right now, but we are hoping to bring more people on board as ‘3seams’ expands. Having a job where they get paid per piece, allows them to work as much or as little as they want or can and still get paid for what they do. They get a fair wage (based on Haiti’s economy), often they earn more than four times what a minimum wage factory seamstress earns. This allows them to be able to keep their children, send them to school, feed their families, and hopefully get out of living in tents. It allows them to help themselves and feel like they are real people. The majority of children in orphanages are not orphans at all, but their parents brought them there because they knew they would get fed and educated. Without an income, parents cannot afford to feed their children, so naturally they take their children where they will be fed and leave them, no matter how hard that may be. 
I want to see Haiti have a love for God, for other people, for themselves, and for the resources around them.  I met some people who seems to have a genuine desire to have a deep relationship with God and help people, but too often falls back into how they were raised; picking fights on the street, cussing up a storm, stealing, and causing problems. It would be so cool to have an opportunity to mentor these people to bridge that gap and show them how to rely on God and ask Him for wisdom, guidance, and strength. The more Creole I learn, the more I am able to do this and this only encourages me to take the time to learn more. The love for other people is already evident, typically. These people who do not have a lot of money to begin with will give away what little they have and then not eat for several days in a row until they are able to find food or get paid. Coming from America, I make sure I have what I need to survive before I help others. Seeing these people do this, it makes me think of the story of the widow in the Bible who gave everything she had. These people have taught me to give without regret (I’m still learning, it’s a process) but I still have to be careful how much I give so I don’t let people become dependent on me. Maybe they give so much because they don’t have a love for themselves, I’m not sure why. Maybe by increasing their self esteem by encouraging them, I can help them learn to love themselves so they can love more often and more genuinely. Trash lines the streets everywhere and it seems as if no one cares about the world around them.  I’m not sure the best way to do this, I sure do not have all the answers. I know this whole thing will be a learning process, I have learned so much already from people who have been living here a long time and I know I will continue to learn the rest of the time I am here.
I really just want to help people help themselves. I want to instill values and morals from God in their lives and encourage them in their daily walk with God. I want them to be able to grow and learn skills so they can be successful even if they were no longer employed by ‘3seams.’ I would love to see this done for all of Haiti, but I can start with a little group of seamstresses.