Today is the anniversary of the
death of one Haiti’s founders: Toussaint L’Ouverture. Leader of the revolution against the French
slaveholders and Napoleon’s army, L’Ouverture was betrayed to the French during
the revolution. L’Ouverture was taken to
the harshest and coldest prison the French could find and basically left to die
of exposure. He died on this date in 1803,
just a few months short of the Haitians’ victory over their enslavers. As I said a few days ago, Haiti clings to its
national existence with a tenacity born of a centuries-long struggle just to
maintain it. If I were Haitian, I, too,
would remember the date of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s passing with a sense of
dignity.
Dignity came to be an important
theme in what we took away from today’s Haiti Connection conference, on macro
and micro levels. First, the macro: Much of what we heard today advocated flattening the top-down, vertical model of mission that many of our
congregations have been pursuing in places like Haiti, nearly always
unintentionally. When two parties come
to the table, one with great needs and the other with great resources, the
temptation to create dependency has been nearly irresistible. In any given moment, those needs cry out – in
this case, both the Haitians’ need for resources and the Northerners’ needs to
follow Jesus and help the poor. But when
we meet those needs reflexively, we foster a relationship that really isn’t a
relationship – at least not what we want that word to mean. The Haitians come to see us as providers with
fathomless pockets, and we come to see the Haitians as recipients who should
both appreciate our benevolence and understand why we want to dictate its
terms. All that we’ve heard, and hoped,
and dreamed here is about changing the model to one of mutuality – one in which
both parties have value to contribute, benefits to reap, and responsibilities
to fulfill. We can offer money to buy
food, pay teachers, and build buildings; they can offer a model of evangelistic
fervor (and results), Scriptural depth, and abiding trust in God regardless of
the moment’s outcomes. Can we say which
“side” has more to offer?
So, the micro examples of these
truths might look like this in St. Andrew’s relationship with St. Augustin’s
Church and School in Maniche. We’ve glimpsed
these truths in past visits, but (for me, at least) they’ve come into relief in
this one:
·
We need to be in relationship with people on the
ground – even more “on the ground” than the priest who visits the school every
couple of months, the superintendent who also oversees five other schools, and
the headmaster who lives near Cayes and commutes up and down the mountain on
his motorcycle every day. We’ve been
trying to meet with St. Augustin’s vestry when we visit, but that’s been only
intermittently successful. And it’s hard
to build a relationship with an annual meeting.
In this day when some rural Haitian 7th graders have cell
phones, surely we can find a Maniche vestry member who’s on Facebook (the
principal is; he and I are friends). And
by developing a relationship on Facebook, God willing, we can figure out how to
broaden the network supporting the school to include a board made up of Maniche
community leaders and parents, as well as church people.
·
We need to work with that board to create small
profit centers involving the school so that some of its support can come from
Maniche, not Kansas City. At this
conference, we’ve heard examples of churches starting small businesses that
plow some portion of profits into ministries like schools.
·
We should change our funding model away from
paying all the bills and toward providing scholarships (nearly total, at first)
to defray educational costs for which the community bears ultimate
responsibility. That doesn’t mean
cutting people off; it means reversing the expectation over time such that the
community receiving the benefit bears ultimate responsibility for ensuring that
benefit is provided.
·
With responsibility reversed, we must give up
control of the process for achieving results.
We and they agree on the desired outcomes; as the headmaster said, the
school should be the best in the region, bar none. But we need to leave it to the people who
live and breathe the context to figure out how to achieve our common goal in that
context. We need to stop telling people
what to do, live in what will be awkward silence for a while, and learn
to listen to what our partners have to say
All that builds dignity, the most
highly valued resource in Haitian culture and, by the way, a core value of what
it means to be a Christian in the Episcopal tradition (we promise at each
baptism to strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human
being). Here’s a final micro example of
dignity’s value here. Dr. Stan Shaffer
is with us but actually convening a different gathering; he’s working on
building an international network of birthing centers like Haiti’s Maison de
Naissance. The idea is to share best
practices among birthing centers, collaboratively solve problems, establish criteria
for high-quality care, and award a designation as a “Good Birthing Center”
according to those standards. Here’s the
question that came from the Haitian nurse-midwives at MN at the end of those
discussions: Can we get a literal stamp
of approval? Can there be a certificate
of award? Can we document, in an outward
and visible way, that we have, indeed, achieved a standard of international
excellence?
That’s a longing for dignity incarnate.
So much give and take, blessing and being blessed, listening and learning - both ways, by all people.
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