Patrick's Musings #4

1) Like many things in Haiti, our cell phones don’t work too well. Kim’s phone completely tanked yesterday so we made a trip to Digicel, the telecommunications giant of Hispaniola. After entering the store, Kim masterfully explained in Creole to the woman working behind the desk that her phone didn’t work. “Li pa travay,” Kim told her (It doesn’t work). The woman looked the phone over and then proceeded to remove the battery and lick it like a tootsie pop. She then grabbed two wires coming out of the ground, both of which had exposed endings, and she licked them as well before sticking the wires into the battery. While managing to avoid a premature death, the Digicel woman was not able to resuscitate the phone battery. However, instead of merely having the battery replaced with a new one and riding into the sunset with a problem quickly fixed, we instead were told that we needed some random papers that we had been given at the time of our purchase in order to get a new battery. So Kim and I drove back to our current residence, found the papers, and then quickly returned to the store, which is only two minutes away. In what can only be described as a “Haiti moment” we walked to the Digicel entrance to find that it had closed for the day. Of course it had. It was 3:12pm after all.

2) Currently I am weighing in at 155 lbs. This is 15 lbs less than my pre-Haiti fighting weight of 170 lb due to a drawn-out bout with the Haitian plague. Couple my weight loss with a few hungry mosquitoes that managed to sneak inside my shirt at night, and I am presently looking an awful lot like an 11 year-old with chicken pox. Who said you can’t relive your childhood?

3) Today I saw a tap-tap sporting a “Dole-Kemp” bumper sticker. What a dream team. Many of you are aware of my affinity for Bob Dole. Even though he is a Republican, there is something about him that I’ve always found charming. Perhaps it is because of his courage in advocating for the wonder drug Viagra? Maybe it’s the way he speaks in the third person, “If Bob Dole were President, Bob Dole would cut taxes because that’s what Bob Dole believes in.” Perhaps it is because he is from Kansas, a state that is near and dear to my heart not only because it invented the tooth brush, but also because my wife comes from there. Regardless, thank you tap-tap driver for keeping the dream of a Dole-Kemp White House alive and well in Haiti.

4) While teaching English to a group of teenagers the other day, I was asked the question that has been weighing on the minds of many people around the world: Why did America make Michael Jackson become white? I quickly went into a rant about how no one made the moon walking icon change his appearance, but instead that he had internalized racism to such a degree that he consciously or unconsciously was trying to become white. I explained to the attentive teenagers that believing that one is inferior because of their race is sometimes a product of racism, but that they should be proud to be black and from Haiti. They were very excited about this and they cheered loudly in a moment of Haitian pride. Later I would learn that Michael Jackson has a skin disease and that my diagnosis was probably inaccurate. It was still a good teaching moment.

5) The random t-shirt of the day goes to a man who was proudly wearing a Guilford College t-shirt today. Guilford College is a small Quaker liberal arts school located in Greensboro, North Carolina. I once made an overnight trip to Guilford when I was looking at schools to transfer to after my year working with the homeless in Washington, D.C. Ultimately I decided to finish up school in Chicago at Elmhurst College, but I thought very highly of Guilford. So here’s to the Quakers and their commitment to peace and justice. Here’s to Guilford College and our random t-shirt of the day.

6) I gave my first sermon in Haiti this past Sunday. It was difficult to gage how well it was received. There were plenty of “Amens” and a few nods of the head. However, due to my poor Kreyol, I was unable to engage in much post-sermon conversation with the congregation. I preached on Isaiah 49:13-16 and John 10: 7-10. My message from Isaiah was that God is present at all times, including during times of suffering (v 13 “For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.”) God remembers Her children like a mother remembers her nursing child (v. 15) and God has the names of all of Her children “inscribed on the palms of my hands” (v. 16). These passages from Isaiah were written about the Babylonian conquest when Jerusalem had been destroyed and many Israelites had been taken from their homeland and forced to live as slaves in Babylon. It was a time when the people cried out to God and asked if God had forgotten them (v. 14). I tried to very sensitively make comparisons between the questioning, suffering Israelites and the people of Haiti today. I just wanted to affirm that God is present and always loving His children even amidst the hardships and suffering that exist in places like Haiti. From the Gospel of John I focused specifically on John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.” I asserted that Jesus came not only for our eternal life, which is the primary message of most Protestant theology in Haiti, including the Pentecostal church I preached in, but also so that we may have a good life on earth. He taught us how to love, to give, and how to be in community. The God Jesus revealed is a God of life that desires fullness of life for all people. The people of Haiti have all too often been denied access to an abundant life and I wanted them to know that I didn’t believe this was God’s will. My guess is that most of them disagreed with this statement because the conservative Christianity of Haiti teaches that everything is God’s will, even the abject poverty that most Haitians live in. Regardless, I told them that I believed that we could make the love of God even more present if we looked out for one another and tried to help those around us like Jesus did in his time. I am not sharing this message because I think it is incredibly brilliant or because I believe that you should all ponder how profound it is. Instead, I want to dialogue not just with the people of Haiti, but with my friends and family back in the States as well. I find the task of doing theology with and to the people of Haiti very humbling and I feel a little overwhelmed at times. So consider this an invitation to comment, critique, and engage in anything theological as pertains to Haiti. With that the quote of the day comes from my personal hero, the martyred Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero. “Let us not be disheartened, even when the horizon of history grows dim and closes in, as though human realities made impossible the accomplishment of God’s plans. God makes use even of human errors, even of human sins, so as to make rise over the darkness what Isaiah spoke about. One day the prophets will sing not only the return from Babylon but our full liberation. ‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They walk in lands of shadows, but a light has shined forth.’”