Published originally in Not So Far Afield Volume 22 Number 1
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In the days leading up to a trip to Haiti, I felt like I
really should not be going. With a busy life
at work and home, and with my wife being pregnant, it just seemed like a crazy
a thing to be doing. But I went anyway…
Getting off of the plane in Port-au-Prince and working my
way through customs and baggage claim was an overwhelming experience. I quickly
instructed others in my group to simply say “No, mési,” (“No, thank you) to men
offering to “help” with our bags, and they followed my lead. In the days
leading up to this visit to Haiti, I felt like I really should not be going. Soon,
we were in a van riding through the streets of Port-au-Prince, which swelled
with the over three million Haitians that populate the city. As the sights and
sounds of the city enveloped us – people buying and selling goods, intense
traffic, Red Cross vehicles, UN trucks mounted with machine guns – I suddenly
felt that God was calling me to be there.
As a mission promoter for the Maryknoll Society, my role was
to provide a spiritual component on this parish immersion experience. I hoped
to help the group place their experiences in the larger context of God’s
mission. As part of this task, each night I led prayer and reflection on one of
the Beatitudes, a strategy that I had learned from Matt Rousso, a veteran
Maryknoll promoter. On the third day of our journey, we visited a feeding
program in Port-au-Prince. A local woman, Madame Samson, approached a non-profit
twenty years ago with a proposition: if they provided the funds, she would
prepare a hot meal six days a week for the neighborhood children. For many,
this would be the only full meal that they would receive each day. Now in her
eighties, she still fulfills this duty for 75 local kids.
When we visited, we met a young woman named Gloria, 17. She
spoke impeccable English, which she had largely taught herself by watching television
shows from the US. She was helping out with feeding the kids, so I asked her
how long she had helped out in this program. It was the wrong question! She
explained that she had been receiving meals there since she was a little girl.
Sure enough, after the others were fed, she, too, sat down to eat. We also met
Mackenson, 19. He had graduated high school and now needed work. (Haiti has a
70% unemployment rate.) He asked members of our group if they could get him a
job. When he learned that one of us was a priest, he asked that he pray for
him.
That evening, I led the group in reflection. Our Beatitude,
fittingly enough, was “Blessed are the Meek…” I explained that the meek are sometimes
described as those who “hunger for bread and thirst for dignity.” And here we
had just witnessed this in raw form: the young people like Gloria that rely on
Madame Samson for their daily beans and rice; people like Mackenson who thirst
for the dignity of work and opportunity. On the last night of our immersion in
Haiti, members of the group thanked me warmly for the reflections that I led,
and commented on how much they looked forward to them each night.
I have come to appreciate more and more the role of
Maryknoll in accompanying people towards a deeper experience of faith. The
presence of Christ in the poor and vulnerable is so central to our faith that
if we do not choose to encounter it directly, we are denying ourselves a deeper
relationship with God. As a mission promoter, I am privileged to play some
small part in helping people make sense of these experiences. Needless to say,
I no longer doubt why I went to Haiti!
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| Mackenson and Gloria with a member or our immersion group |
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