New Life

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(This post is a few days old because WordPress was having problems that prevented me from accessing my blog.)

The rain is rolling its fingernails on the roof, and I am tired. Last night was unusually long, but it brought new life to Bayonnais, and I was blessed to participate in the delivery of a friend’s second child, a healthy baby boy. Unfortunately, labor pains were not the only pains touching Bayonnais last night, as Actionnel struggled through his body’s response to an ankle broken in a motorcycle accident; I hear he will be bed-ridden for one month. Orange is the color these days as mangoes begin to ripen and fall, bidden or unbidden by expectant creatures below. Given the evangelistic “crusade,” moved outdoors to the soccer field to accommodate its numerous participants, Alleluia is the word of the week; it’s best shouted with at least one hand waving in the air.

BIRTH IN BAYONNAIS
Some of you commented upon a powerful photograph from a recent slide show with the same title. It showed my friend, Gasmy’s very pregnant wife laying on the dirt floor of a bedroom lit by a kerosene lamp. I must confess the title is misleading, for that evening ended up being a false alarm, as did the night before last when some of the water broke and the midwife arrived, deciding to send her to the hospital in Gonaives around four o’clock in the morning. It was an emotional moment for Gasmy, who had fallen on his motorcycle while searching for a tap tap and was unable to accompany her; he followed later after we cleaned and bandaged his knee. She returned to Bayonnais and legitimate contractions began last night while I was receiving medical advice from my dad via Skype. My backpack filled with medical goodies, I entered EMT mode, navigating around a few barking dogs on my way up to the house. Fortunately, just as I was about to start an IV, the midwife (trained in Port-au-Prince) with his 25 yrs experience came through the door. It was fascinating, and scary, to see a birth all the way through in Haiti: fascinating to witness a miracle of life, to watch a seemingly physical contradiction as the baby’s head emerged through such a small opening, to see his tiny eyes open and blink for the first time–I will never forget that; scary because the mother was very weak, and for a while passionate prayers lifted the tin roof as we waited and hoped that she would have enough strength. In a small mud-walled house in Bayonnais, on a dusty dirt floor padded with a ragged straw mat, in a modest room filled with too many people, there are no caesarian sections and Gonaives is a long way away.

CRUSADE
While the Church had its priorities backwards in 1099, many churches in Bayonnais are showing theirs to be otherwise as they assemble to worship God during a weeklong “crusade,” characterized by much singing and enthusiastic preaching for two or more hours every night. It’s quite a spectacle. (Unfortunately, a mission team had to cancel their trip to OFCB this week due to the rioting and security concerns. My security has in no way been threatened or compromised in Bayonnais, and readers should know that schools are open again even in Port-au-Prince.)

RIGHT BEFORE GOD
I’d like to share an exchange with two neighbors the other day. I was on my way to the river, which is my favorite place to sit and think, read, and create art; I’m preaching in less than two weeks on the subject of human suffering and God’s will, so I had a lot to think about. Passing by Yvolene and Dasemise’s house, I decided to visit their next-door neighbors; they gave me grief once about always visiting the Sylvestre household but never their own. Little did I know how meaningful our conversation would be. I know these men to be worn down from working their fields on low fuel. Their bodies are muscular but have no fat whatsoever, and though the light touching their skin fascinates me as an artist, the injustice hurts. They talk of Clorox and battery acid and not having eaten since the day before yesterday, but their smiles are far from absent. They talk of hunger with a levity that makes me uncomfortable, but I’ve come to see beneath that with time; to a foreign eye, the positive spirit of the people here often overshadows the gravity of the daily realities they face. However, one of the men corrects himself, “No, it is not Clorox. . . I wouldn’t be right with God if I were to call it Clorox. The real Clorox is up there.” He pointed up a mountain. “At least here our children can climb that tree and find some mangoes, or go down to the river and catch a crab. . . and here you could sell the crab. Someone would buy it for cooking. . .” He continued talking, but I couldn’t stop thinking of what he had just said. A man who hadn’t eaten for two days had just corrected himself for verbally stepping on the toes of his neighbors up the mountain. . . Awareness. . . Awareness and compassion. . .

How often has the busyness of my life eclipsed my awareness of what has really been going on around me? How radically has my awareness been changed over the last several months in Bayonnais? How could the rest of my life not grow out of this awareness and the responsibility it entails? . . . Do we sometimes fight back awareness for this very responsibility, the yoke that often seems too much to handle? How often have I averted my gaze from the longing eyes of some poor soul, afraid to recognize myself therein as my brother’s keeper?

Too many times, my friends. . . Too many times. . .

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