The Restavek Crisis

Picture this.

You are we were born in the countryside among a small rural community in the country of Haiti.

As a small child you remember that you had a large family of 8 to 13 siblings.

Your family was extremely poor and though your parents loved you they knew they could not take care of even your most basic needs.

A distant relative who lived in Port Au Prince, approached your parents and promised them that you would be well fed, educated, and clothed in their care.

So your parents agreed to release you to them, for hope of a future and better life for you...

You arrived at your new home as a small child of 3 or 4 years old and quickly realized that everything promised to your parents was a lie.

Your "caretakers" forced you to work from dawn to dusk around the house.

You cooked, you cleaned and you took care of the dirtiest chores even as a child when you could barely understand what was happening.

As other children who grew up in the same house went to school, you stayed home, and were never educated, and sometimes never fed.

Often, the people you lived with would abuse you both sexually and violently.

You worked hard throughout the day in fear of your host family beating you with a whip if you didn't complete your chores well enough.

You lived off of food scraps from the rest of the household, and you were kept under the family table at night to sleep.

Until you turned 15 you were kept as a slave, and at that age you legally must be paid for your labor, so the family that kept you throughout your childhood now must set you free on the street.

You were left in the city, on your own without any possessions.
Any education.
Any job.
Any connections to anybody...

Guess what?

There are an estimated 300,000 children in Haiti RIGHT NOW that are being raised like this. They are called restaveks. Child slaves who have no rights, and are often treated like animals or property. Once they finally escape their dark childhood they are then faced with an adulthood filled with no hope of a successful job or any escape from poverty due to never having been educated.

This is the reality of Haiti right now.. With the unemployment rate at such high levels across the country, families are forced to give up their kids to a richer family. However there are no laws which strictly enforce any kind of humane treatment to these kids. The government is ashamed of these cases, so it is shoved under the rug and never dealt with.

However there are organizations such as the Restavec Freedom Foundation, which are fighting this epidemic! Here is a link to their website: http://www.restavekfreedom.org/

..On Sunday the whole group of missionaries, Larry and Me all took the day off and visited Wahoo beach resort. While me and the missionary Lucian were sitting on the beach, we had the pleasure to meet a woman who was apart of one of these restavek relief organizations. I listened as she told us of her passion for these kids, and how big a crisis this has become for Haiti!

In conclusion, I just want to ask all of you again to step up. Please pray for these beautiful children who suffer far greater then most of us can imagine. For the next 10 days I would like to ask all of you to devote 15 minutes of your day, set aside from all distractions and noise, to completely devote your attention to praying for these kids.. As brothers and sisters in Christ we need to bring the light of Jesus into a dark world, so lets take action and cry out to the One who CAN change and heal Haiti.

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

Lots of love!


-Elijah-

A changing heart

Hey guys!

So the first half of today Me and Larry spent running errands around the City. First we picked up a load of bricks and brought them to the school for the hardworking group of Haitians to continue work on the school. After that, I am pretty sure God was just teaching Me and Larry a lesson in patience! Today was the second day this week that we have gone from hardware store, to hardware store looking to buy an air compressor.. Each place recommended another place which recommended another. I think air compressors may be as hard to find as white people in Haiti! ;)

After another failed attempt at that, we began work on the building across from our house. It is an International Child Care building, which handles sponsorships of the children in this country. We are going to be putting up horizontal support beams on either side of a wall which was damaged by the earthquake.

I have found myself extremely spiritually disturbed today.. I was not sure why I felt so uneasy in my spirit, so I spent a lot of time in prayer today, and read a lot of the word tonight.. I feel like God is moving in me a lot.

Changing me. A lot.

I have been reflecting on the person I was before this trip... I feel like so much of my focus before recently has been on fighting my "human" or "sinful" side. But now I feel like God is trying to change my focus to be more then that. Instead of simply trying not to do wrong, I feel like I should be striving ahead towards Christ and not accepting anything less then holiness. REAL holiness. I don't want to just be known as a good or kind person anymore. I want to be known as someone who contagiously overflows the love of Christ! I want to be someone, who doesn't need to explain where he stands, because all his actions scream exactly where he stands! I don't want to see and think about only the physical world anymore. I want to see beyond, into what truly matters, loving the souls and spirit of BOTH those who stand by me, AND those who oppose me.

I can feel my beautiful Savior taking me to the next step in our relationship..
I am humbled and amazed that the Creator of the universe would even give me the time of day to speak to my heart!

Here are some verses which have spoken to me lately.. I hope they impact you as well!


"Do not love the world, or ANYTHING in the world, if anyone loves the world, the love of our Father is not in him." 1John 2:15

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need and has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?" 1John 3:17

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope that we profess, for He who promised is FAITHFUL. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:23-24

"Avoid godless chatter, cause those who indulge in it become more and more ungodly. Their teachings will spread like gangrene." 2Timothy 2:16-17

"Above all else, love each other DEEPLY, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1Peter 4:7

"Finally brothers, whatever is TRUE, whatever is NOBLE, whatever is RIGHT, whatever is PURE, whatever is LOVELY, whatever is ADMIRABLE- if anything is EXCELLENT or PRAISEWORTHY- think about such things." Philippians 4:8


Once again thank you all for all your guys continued prayers! I am so excited for all the things God has yet to do while I am here in this country.

Lots of love!


-Elijah-

Beautiful Haiti.

Hello again everyone!

So today Me and Larry met up with Pastor Rick and his wife Cookie. They are missionaries that are permanently living in Haiti. All four of us went to Puits Blaine, the fastest growing Free Methodist church in Haiti this morning for service. Because Pastor Rick was preaching, we all sat next to the choir in front of possibly 900 Haitians... It was a little awkward at first! But eventually it seemed like everyone was staring at us less and it became more comfortable.. Pastor Rick spoke on forgiveness, and was translated by one of their church members.



Here is the church right after the service, from where we stood.



After church all four of us took a little road trip up the mountain by Port Au Prince to an extremely nice hotel/restaurant called The Lodge. It was so incredibly relaxing! The food was excellent and everyone there was very sophisticated and well spoken. Most of the food there was imported from outside the country.. Which is amazing since the Lodge is a very difficult place to get to from the city. Certainly it was a whole different side of Haiti. I almost felt guilty for having such a high quality meal, knowing people are starving just across the countryside from me.. But nonetheless, I gave thanks to God who for whatever reason has blessed me greatly!


Here is the front of the Lodge.


One of the things me and cookie talked about today was the tremendous contrast in Haiti.. There is the depressing destruction, and poverty side to Haiti, which I spoke of in my last post... And then another whole side of Haiti which is extremely rich, prosperous, and beautiful. There is not very many people in Haiti which are considered "middle class".

Here are some shots I took today while we drove up the mountain...



Almost ALL of the mountain sides are farmed somehow.. Even on insanely steep angles.



These pictures definitely don't do any justice to how amazing the view really WAS. But they at least give you all a taste!





I will continue to pray for you all! And I would like to thank all you guys that have stepped up to my last posts challenge.

Much love!


-Elijah-

Bondye ki gen bon kè (God is good)

Since I never got around to mentioning yesterdays events, I will try to cram the last two days together in this post as best as I can, though it would be impossible to talk about everything that has and is happening.

Yesterday morning we all woke up at 5:30Am to head down to the school that we have been working on. Because the sun rises much earlier here then in Michigan, it didn't seem very early at all! Anyways, I began by cutting re-bar for the windows, which are crosshatched instead of having brittle glass windows. After that I had the pleasure to talk to a very educated Haitian man by the name of Emery. He could speak 4 languages fairly fluently, which obviously includes English. He definitely impressed me with his knowledge of America, and American politics. He asked me questions such as what my thoughts were on President Obama, the War in Iraq, and why I agreed or disagreed with things happening in the government. We also spoke of racism, american rap music, soccer (or football), and the earthquake. He told me that he doesn't like to talk about the earthquake because it is something he will never forget, since he lost many friends. But he told me that he was in a school hallway when it struck, and that he was lucky that his parents survived.

After our long day of work we came back to relax. I spent some time and went out on the streets nearby where I am staying. I was able to take lots of pictures!

Today I woke at the same time, so we could go back and work another day at the school. I cut some more re-bar, and helped arc-weld the windows together. Also, a truckload of bricks arrived today to continue constructing the walls. I hauled them from the truck to where they were being stacked until I could no longer even grip the bricks. The heat today didn't seem as bad as yesterday (which was over 100)because there was a little breeze today.

It was also very strange, today while we were working, the city seemed overall quiet... But Suddenly, literally the entire town around us began to ROAR as people ran out from their tents. And I am certainly not embellishing when I say people were dancing down the roads. People cheered and yelled from everywhere around us. It sounded like a whooping cheer of a mighty army! I have never ever, ever, ever heard anything like it... Come to find out that it was because Argentina lost a game vs Germany in the world cup.. There is a great rivalry in Haiti. About 70 percent of the people here are MAJOR Brazil fans, while 30 percent are Argentina fans..

After we quit work around Noon today we came back here, and then headed out for a little sightseeing trip around Port Au Prince. I took almost 150 pictures.. So here are just a few of them...


This was the Presidential palace here in Port Au Prince



This was the biggest, and most beautiful cathedral in the city. It fell, but the cross still stands..



They were selling clothes, which they stacked in piles on the sidewalk.



This picture just doesn't do justice to how terrible the slums are here. The streets are lined with trash and feces. The people have constructed whole cities out of tin sheets and sticks and tarp.




One of the thousands of buildings in Haiti that still remain in rubble..




We drove to the top of the mountain overlooking Port Au Prince.. Amazing view! In the top left corner you can see the Caribbean sea.




Here is most of the team, minus Larry, with a few female soldiers from Nepal.. All standing in front of the amazing view of the city.