Haiti Time and Patience Mr

Haiti Time and Patience Mr. Deacon©

“Patience, patience, patience Mr. Deacon you need to remember to be patient. When you pray ask the Lord to please bless you with a lot or let you learn to be more patient. The people in our part of Haiti don’t get in a hurry; there is no need they are living only to try to exist. And remember it’s Haiti time you are dealing with. They don’t get in a rush like the people in the states do.” I knew when Ms. Ivy Salomon told me that I was being taught a lesson that I needed not forget. And I have asked the Lord many times for exactly what she suggested. Stopping to think maybe he has heard my prayers and blessed me with more patience, or at least the ones who care have told me I’ve show signs of it.

When Mrs. Ivy and I talk, we confuse people around us because of the similar lives we have lived. There are lots of things we don’t have to say during our conversation. We get many questions asking us to explain. I guess it is the things we already know about each other.

I’ve had many hours of conservation with Mrs. Ivy Salomon an 84 year old lady that is known affectionately in many circles here and abroad as The Mother Teresa of Haiti. Her work as a Nurse Practitioner, nursing hundreds of sick Haitians back to health and being the founder of a Christian School that has educated and helped thousands of Haiti’s Children. She is also the founder of our Calhoun pre-K school in Roi a small community near Ranquitte, Haiti. Mrs. Ivy is a very religious Lady of whom I have immense respect. She has lived through many years of Haiti’s troubled history and has suffered personally because of her beliefs and work at the hands of past Dictators of Haiti.

Mrs. Ivy in a loving way does not mix words. When she told me patience was not one of my better qualities and I needed to ask the Lord to Bless or help me learn some that advice came from years of experience.

To me this past year has seemed like an eternity, it has been that long since we learned of the little Pre-K School that became ours with all its needs and our community starting to work on them. We heard they needed a well, needed to be able to pay teachers, needed school supplies, and needed many other things. To find out exactly what was needed our Missionaries went to Haiti under the experienced leadership of long time Missionaries Brenda and Michael Cooper. Bill Childers, Michelle Balliew, and Tommy Pratt along with the Coopers came back with the information we needed to start a journey that God I know wants us to continue. Thanks to the Calhoun First Baptist, and The Calhoun First Methodist Churches our well is finished and in use. Now our students and their parents will not have to walk miles to get drinkable water. And thanks to the students of Tolbert Elementary School for the school supplies and the students of Calhoun Elementary school our little fellows have personal hygiene supplies. And thanks to the many people who are sponsoring one of our children we are now being able to help provide one meal a day for each of our Children. Thanks to Calhoun First United Methodist Church and a very special lady we are able to pay our teachers. We will on our next trip there start our planning for the long term which could possibly be continuing education for our own teachers.

The Group Inc. as we are now called in the beginning decided to start accepting psychically handicapped children that could retain an education into our school, one of the few in Haiti to do so and now have our first six little guys in school. We of course still have our 80 or so little pre school fellows that couldn’t afford the few cents to go to other schools.

I am going to share with you a portion of Mrs. Ivy’s and my conversation that was a shock and still troubles me when I think of our discussion about (Mrs. Ivy calls our retarded and crippled children), and again I say that lady doesn’t mix words. When I ask her how our school was doing and especially how much progress our six handicapped kids had accomplished, she told me the school had started in October and was doing fine, “But it will take time to see if there are any mental problems with our new students and especially our handicapped kids”.

I have spent half of my life working with, housing, caring, loving and being loved by mentally and physically challanged Children.

When Ivy began telling me about the handicapped childrens history in Haiti it floored me when she said, “Babies born with any kind of physical or mental problem hardly live past 3 or 5 years of age. When I ask her why she said, “They die of malnutrition.” “You mean they starve to death,” I ask. And a very caring lady said, “Yes!” Still in shock I ask, “How in the world would a parent or any one let a precious baby like them die or starve to death from malnutrition”. “Do you remember when I told you that most Haiti parent’s only reasons for existing are to exist day after day? Food is not always plentiful and when it is very scarce and there are two or more children in a family the ones that are the most demanding are kept from starving by getting more food. Many times when the weakened child gets sick from the many kinds of disease in Haiti it dies. Deacon the food program The Group in Calhoun started in our school is the reason some of those Babies will live and not be retarded. They will be getting one meal of protein a day five or six times a week”

I can’t get those little fellows out of my mind, I have never been hungry in my life except when I was on one of those many diets, even then when I got hungry to the point it caused a headache or something I cheated and would eat, those poor little guys can’t cheat. They just starve.

We here in our area can be the difference in a child living or dying. Ivy said, “They don’t know they are starving they were born hungry and are hungry all the time they don’t know anything else.”

The situation in all of Haiti is desperate with thousands of organizations helping millions. We have the chance to help a few if we keep focused on the ones we already have and don’t over extend our ability to help.

One of the facts Ivy had to drill in my head was the fact that all our kids will not be able to learn and retain the knowledge they need to be able to attend high school. We need to focus on trying to get a child to the point where they can read, that means getting a students through the sixth grade. Again I ask a question and got an answer that was a big surprise to me, “Why just teach them to read and why just the sixth grade?” “There are very few jobs in Haiti that require more that a 6^th grade education. We will know in four or five years if a child has the ability to go to high school and your Group can help them when we find out.” then Ivy said, “Deacon most people I’ve met in the States do not understand what a blessing it is for Haitians to learn to read. If you were as depressed with no chance for things to get better as most of the Haitians are wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a way out of your desperation and hopelessness. When they read their BIBLES they can find HOPE where there has been none, and a sure way out of their desperation.”

What a wonderful reason to continue with our Mission. The more I learn about their desperation the more I thank the Lord for mine and Michelle’s blessing of being asked to go there to help. And have a companion like Michelle with the experience and the God given ability to make a child care and believe enough to give their best. I see many successful little guys that will love and thank her for her caring.

Showing and being more patience I’m not to sure about. I keep thinking about those little fellows and their families down there and our ability to help them. If all the friends that supported us in the past will support us now we together can save handicapped kids lives.

I have been ask on occasions to explain in my opinions what it would be like to live there. To explain adequately how bad things are there will be hard to explain and I will not do it justice.

If I could come to your house, remove and then cart away every thing that uses electricity and running water. Then take out all of your stuffed furniture, your carpet, and your bed leaving a straw mat in its place. Now let me take the flooring, the cement pad it rest on leaving bare earth and a thatched roof. Now I’ll remove the windows, screens, doors, then removing all your grass leaving the dust, all you have left is just the shell. I think you began to get the picture. Now picture yourself with out most of your furniture except a couple of chairs a few pots and pans, without a car, or a bike or shoes for that matter. No job, no bank account, no credit cards, no money, no refrigerator, no ice and no food. You are hungry, and to make things worse, your children are hungry. On top of that they are sick, full of worms and usually naked. And this is the life of our Pre-school kid’s and their parents, Gods people just like us just born a little further south and east.

The leaders of the country have for the 200 years that since they gained their independence from France has had 87 rulers and over 50 having been driven out of office with thousands killed in the chaos that develops. Again Haiti is going through severe turbulence with now thousands of United Nation Peace keeping troops on the islands soil. At this time the country is in serious chaos.

We are planning with a group of Missionaries to go back to Haiti in April to visit our school we have several questions we need answered before we can start any long range planning. We know with what is happening there now we are not sure if we will be able to go.

We have been in touch with several other organizations that have Mission projects in and around our area there. Their experience and advice will be very useful when we decide to began other projects for our mission and school. We will be keeping our community informed about our pre- school’s progress and pray we can get the help we need to change lives there.

When I look at the pictures of our little guys and especially our handicapped ones I have a feeling I will be asking the Lord many times for what Ms. Ivy suggested, Patience have patience Mr. Deacon and remember Haiti time. And one thing for sure I will ask God as I have so many times in the past “Lord we are going to need a lot of help with this situation we have gotten our selves into.” Then I will began to wonder how has this happened to me having my usually bout of doubting, and how in the world am I going to be able to help those little fellows and their parents. Then it dawns on me the Lord has for the past three and a half decades provided the resources and the help our Volunteers always needed to accomplish his work and if we stayed focused and continued to rely on and ask for his directions our Children will be successful.

background music "Closer Walk Take My Hand Medley" by Don Carroll