Yes, a week CAN change a life (or several hundred)

30 Seconds is all it took

On Tuesday, January 12, a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti. As many as 300,000 people died. Another 300,000 were injured. One-Million Haitians were made homeless. Hundreds of thousands of buildings were collapsed or severely damaged.

On my way

Two days after the earthquake, I sat at my desk at work, staring at an image on CNN.com. Rubble lined a street in Haiti, a power pole was hanging diagonally across the street, and a lone woman was walking toward the camera. It was then that I told a co-worker, "I want to be there." Four months later, I was on a plane to Port-au-Prince.

I think it's safe to say that my teammates and I all arrived in Haiti ready to give, give, give. We wanted to provide food. We wanted to provide shelter. So when we heard that our mission for the first two days was to build relationships, we weren't quite sure what to think.

On our first full day we hopped into tap-taps and made our way to the tent community we had adopted. This community had not received one bit of aid since the earthquake. In Haiti, there are high, middle and low class tent cities. Below the low class tent cities there are actually tarp cities, where families do not have tents. That is what this community was. Except these families didn't even have tarps. They had bedsheets that had been up for nearly five months, and were torn and dangling from sticks.

People slowly came out from these homes of theirs one by one. And one by one, we met them, having no idea that a week later - we would be missing them with all our hearts.

The greatest gift of all

For the next two days, we did exactly what we were asked; build meaningful relationships. We heard their stories. We prayed for them. We shed tears. We held the children. We bonded. We did random acts of kindness; if we saw them washing clothes, we would help. If someone was pumping water from the well, we would help. Some of the men in our group helped dig holes for a group of Haitians trying to build a new home from the ground up.

Through this whole process, I also got to know the stories of our incredible translators. I first spoke with Ramses during a tap-tap ride. He asked me if I cried when I learned of the earthquake. I asked him if he thought the world had ended. Ramses had left his house for three minutes when the earthquake hit. He lost four family members including his father and a nephew.
His father died while eating pizza inside the house. Another translator said he was lucky that his house survived the quake. However, his family is too scared to go back in, so they sleep outside. One other translator must sleep outside in a tent with his father and brother. They only have one tent, so they take turns sleeping inside it every night.

It's amazing that for people who have NOTHING, these Haitians are so full of love. You see the bond between the parents and their children. You smile, and immediately get a dozen smiles in return. It's contagious, and warms your heart.

Finally, after building these relationships, it came time to help provide for the Haitians. We helped tarp homes for the neediest families; pregnant women or mothers with young children. It doesn't seem like much, but to them - it's priceless. It's a roof over their head. It's a shield from the rain. It's an object that represents hope and a brighter future. After we finished tarping a home, we knelt inside to bless it. And the smiles we got were priceless.

Inside the Devastation

On our last full day in Haiti, we drove into Port-au-Prince to see where the most damage from the earthquake was. During the 45 minute drive into the city, tent after tent stretched down the street just feet from the curb, and rubble lined the road. I asked our translator what was there before. He did not understand my question, so I tried to rephrase it. I asked him what buildings used to stand there, which were now rubble. He shook his head and explained to me that nothing was ever there; that rubble is from downtown Port-au-Prince. After the earthquake, the government had trucks haul it all out of the city and dump it in the streets. It amazed me that there was so much lining the streets, yet downtown - the rubble was still piled as tall as I am.

Eveywhere you looked, people were working.

They were trying to clean up so they can start the rebuilding process. One of my teammates said, "Not to be harsh, but the earthquake was five months ago. What have they been doing?" Yes, the earthquake WAS five months ago. And if the Haitians are working this hard daily and it looks as if the earthquake had just happened yesterday, you can only imagine how bad it was five months ago. We saw the Presidential Palace that was destroyed. The President got out fifteen minutes before the earthquake hit. We saw all of the finance and government buildings which were destroyed. The tax office was reduced to rubble. And finally, as we drove out of town - I saw the image that made me want to go to Haiti in the first place. I looked out the back of the tap-tap, and saw rubble lining the streets. I saw a power pole leaning over, hanging across the road. And instead of one single woman walking down the road, there were several. To me, that was a sign of progress.

On our final night in Haiti we gathered with all of our translators. There were piles of clothes and miscellanious items in the middle of the living room floor, and we told them to take anything that they would benefit from. They left with tents, water bottles, food, and clothes for their babies. It felt so good to be able to give something to the men who taught us everything that week. Without their help, we would never have been able to build relationships with the people in that community.

 

In the end, I learned so much more than I ever thought I would. I wound up receiving more than I gave. It was a week that I never want to forget.

Coming Back Home

On my way home, my flight from Miami was delayed for two hours. As we sat on the runway, I became frustrated. I was upset I would be missing my next connection. I was angry this was my fifth delay on American Airlines in a week. And I was annoyed that I wouldn't get home until later than expected, when I had to work the next morning. I felt myself slipping away and forgetting everything I had learned. In an effort to change that, I began listening to my iPod, and heard a song that put a smile on my face. Then I took out my camera and looked through every single picture I took in Haiti. I began crying, already missing all of the Haitians.

When I arrived back in Seattle, I learned the airline lost my luggage. I was frustrated once again, but tried not to be. When I got home, I emailed one of my teammates. His travels home didn't go smoothly either. In fact, his keys were still in Haiti. He pointed out that he thought God allowed these inconveniences for a reason. He wanted us to remember what the important things in life are, and to live simply.

It has been tough adjusting to life back at home in America. I had no time to process the previous week because I was at work just 8 hours after I got home. There was a big potluck that afternoon for a co-worker's birthday, and I felt guilty for just looking at all of the dishes people brought in. Since I gave my translator my water bottle, I went to REI to get a new one. I walked in and out in five minutes, and realized our translators had to wait five months for theirs.

Can you make a difference in one week?

Since I've been home, I've been asked quite a few times whether I felt like my one week in Haiti truly helped. My answer is yes. For the first time since the earthquake, the people in that tent community saw that they were loved by strangers, and that help is on the way. We helped renew their faith; they helped renew ours. The impact we left is far from just a physical impact. The $6,500 in rice and beans we dropped off is probably already gone. But their images of us will be etched in their hearts and in their minds. They will continue to smile and do everything in love. Their hope will pay off. Afterall, God doesn't give us more than we can handle.