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Hope for Haiti
Copyright © 2003 by Jeff Bjorck. All rights reserved. 
Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
Contents (Click on any link below.)

 I. Port au Prince
        The Vocational School
II. La Gonave
        The Mountain Village
        The Seaside Well
III. Cape Haitian
        Time Travel
        Hope and Fear
        Tomb of the Unknown Haitian
IV. Home

IV. Home

The alarm jars me forward into my final Haitian morning and I rise with a head and heart full of memories and images from the past 12 days. After breakfast, we load our gear into the pickup and head through town for Cape Haitian ’s airport. We board for Port au Prince on a forty-seat commercial plane which I hope has passed inspections recently.  There is no wall behind the pilots who are in full view from where I sit near the back. A third man stands cramped next to them, like someone on the front steps of an overfilled bus. Apparently, he is a pilot trainee receiving the Haitian brand of on-the-job training. After we take off, the couple in front of me decides to fasten their seatbelts.

As we rise above Cape Haitian , our plane passes the Citadel which shines with the sun’s early rays. I am somewhat concerned by how easy it is to see this structure, which is a direct result of the low altitudinal trajectory employed by the pilots.  We cross the mountain ridge with only several hundred feet to spare, a maneuver no doubt intended to save on fuel. I myself have flown at this height many times in my hang glider, but as a plane passenger, my knuckles whiten slightly until the ridge is well behind us. In hindsight, I would have gladly offered to pay extra for a flight with additional height clearance.

As the plane nears Port au Prince, I note a pillar of black smoke spiraling skyward from the downtown area. It seems that protests are in full swing this morning, and I pray that no one has decided to demonstrate at the airport.  Thankfully, we land and make our way from the domestic airport to the international one a mile away without incident. Soon thereafter, we embark on our short flight to Miami , Florida en route to Los Angeles . Fourteen hours after getting out of bed, I am once again home safe with my wife in our modest 1700 square foot home in the suburbs. Somehow, this house now seems palatial and I pause to realize how wonderful it is to drink water from the tap.

I am glad to be home but find it difficult to watch television, particularly given that the December shopping season is in full swing. As the teenage actress tells me that clothing at a certain store helps her to express her true self, I cannot help but wonder how Haitian children are supposed to express themselves without clothes.  Indeed, each commercial is like a small jolt to my system. Two weeks later as the Rose Parade processes through nearby Pasadena , I have trouble ignoring the fact that the huge floats are covered with millions of dollars of food which will not be eaten. Logic tells me that I must divide the costs of such a parade across the millions of people who enjoy watching it, but my recent trip makes it impossible to ignore how wealthy my country is in contrast to others. 

Of course, I realize that prosperity in and of itself is not evil and poverty is not always the result of selfishness. Even Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7) Still, Haiti has helped me to be more grateful for my blessings, more careful with my expenditures, and more concerned for the one billion people in the world who struggle to live on less than a dollar a day. My appreciation for the ministry of Lifewater International has also grown greatly, and I am humbled to be a part of the team. I pray for a day when clean, safe water and Jesus’ Living Water are both readily available to anyone who is thirsty.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink .Whoever believes in me, as  the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit… 
John 7:37-39a

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