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Our Schools Sponsorship Team Trips Newsletters Ed Lockett Get Involved Missionary Ventures Home |
Overall some things are beginning to improve. School's out for summer. LOTS of kids at the Happy House. How's Island doing? She's doing good. She spent a few weeks at the Happy House and we got her stocked up with clothes and shoes and food. I believe that she will be going to school when it starts again in September. There has been a lot that has happened over the last few weeks but I know one of the things you are really excited about is getting to make a couple of trips back into Cite Soleil. We have two schools and a food program there but we have been unable to go see them for about a year and a half. The gangs were using the whole city as a hostage camp and there were so many gang "bases" there. All of our contacts there were telling us not to go in. They were afraid for us and for themselves. It was not a good time to be walking around with a foreigner. Even if they didn't kidnap me, and they probably would have, they might come back later and kidnap anybody that I was seen with, based on the idea that they have a friend from the States that would hopefully be able to fetch a decent ransom. During the kidnapping craze, sometimes twenty a day, the vast majority of the hostages were being held in various locations in Cite Soleil. Who were they kidnapping? Anybody and everybody. Locals, foreigners, babies, missionaries, children, old people, vendors in the street, anybody. Ransoms ranged from the tens to the thousands. I thought you knew a lot of the gangs down there. I know/knew some of them. The thing is, even if a couple thousand people there knew who I was, that's a drop in the bucket of the over 300,000 people that live there. Also, the gangs had quite literally taken over the whole city. They took over school buildings and used them as bases to operate from. Also as places to store hostages. Any block buildings with an upper floor to shoot from. They also barricaded many of the roads going in and made them impassable for vehicles. The Haitian police were afraid to go in. The UN wasn't too keen on getting into heavy firefights with gangs in the massive maze of tin shacks and alleys that only the gangs knew. The population there pretty much ranged from stunned, to terrified, to numb. The city belonged to the gangs. How were the schools able to operate? They were interrupted at times, but fortunately our schools there are one story buildings and not what the gangs wanted for their operations. Most folks there are so poor, the gangs knew they wouldn't get any serious ransom money for their trouble. As long as the people kept their mouths shut and didn't cooperate with law enforcement, they were permitted to live. How did this affect the people there? They were all like hostages. There were also police involved in the mess as well. Who could you tell if you had the courage to talk? They told me of various buildings near one of our schools that were used for stashing hostages. They talked about going down daily and looking through the cracks in the walls at all the hostages blindfolded and bound. Curious to see who the new victims were. They were constantly moving folks in and out. Sometimes they heard torture. Sometimes they found bodies in the street. Again, you have to understand, the gangs had taken over the city. Not just a couple parts of the city. The WHOLE city. Crime was out in the open. Stolen cars were parked in rows. Guns were everywhere. Kids were walking around with AK-47s. It truly tears at my heart that any human would have to live through all that. But the children especially. And many of the old folks I talked to were still in shell shock as well. A lot of folks hardened, to survive. Like Cite Soleil isn't bad enough already. How do you see things now? Hopeful in a way, very overwhelmingly discouraging in a way. The place looks like a war zone. The UN finally went in with the muscle needed to uproot the gangs. Tanks, helicopters, the works. One particular fire fight, the UN reported over 20,000 rounds of ammo fired. Many buildings, especially second story buildings are full of bullet holes. I mean FULL. If I had nickel for every pockmark. You can tell some very serious fighting took place. The UN also bulldozed a few abandoned buildings that had been being used as bases. Cite Soleil has always been a shock to my senses, but to see so many, many, many bullet holes. The big concrete water tower at the main entrance of the city is full of pocks. Empty schools, once full of kids, now full of holes. Most people there live in tin shacks. They had to be losing it when these bullets were flying. I remember how I felt hearing a few shots behind our house one night. I can't imagine 20,000 shots. Babies screaming. Many folks were hit by bullets that pierced their tin shacks. The population had been instructed, to flee or get under their beds. Sounds brutal but this was really what it had come to. The gangs were getting unbearable. These battles went on for several days. You can see where some of the major fights took place. I was saddened at one of them where I saw that a church had taken several hits. Fortunately, to make a long story short, the gangs have taken a real beating. A few hundred have been arrested. Several have been killed in the fighting. One of the top guys they were after was killed in a shootout last week. The rest are hiding. It's not a good time to be in a gang. Now the UN has moved in and established bases and they make regular foot patrols and tank patrols throughout the city, This had emboldened the people now to be more helpful as well. Also the UN is doing a lot of building repair and setting up programs of various kinds. Were the people glad to see you guys? It was overwhelming. I mostly mean that in the real sense of the word. There was a lot of joy. There were lots of hugs and kisses. The kids in the school we went to on the second visit nearly crushed me. Some folks felt like it was a sign from God that we were there walking around again after their being isolated for so long. But...... But the needs were just so overwhelming. So many people literally pulling me in so many directions. A guy dying on his bed in a tin shack, babies with all manners of sickness and disease, need money to repair shack, money for food, money for school, shoes, offers to give us children, and on and on. I saw a few of the girls I had known there as youngsters. Many of them holding babies. Their babies. The never-ending cycle here of kids making kids. The gangs of tomorrow. All around you see babies naked, sitting in the dirt and garbage. If it was just two or three babies, maybe you could rescue them. But it's not 2 or 3, it's thousands. A little guy, eyes swollen and nose running. Naked in the dirt. He has a little voodoo charm hung around his waist to cure him. A little baby laying on a piece of carpet on the floor in a hot shack. His mom is in the hospital and he's being watched by an older sister, also a child. A sister that hasn't been to school because she has no shoes. Not even flip flops. A couple feet from the baby's hand, also on the floor, a razor blade. We found the baby alone. The sister had been following us around and left the baby untended. Another little girl we just met, whose face was severely burned and also lost all four fingers and thumb on her left hand. How can anyone be born into this inferno and have a chance at living a real life? This place is horrible, even on a good day. You had mentioned the word "hopeful." I think it's the way the Lord made me. I'm fairly cynical, and I try to be realistic, but for reasons that defy what I see, I am hopeful. I am hopeful because I see some glimmers, and by the grace of God we will do battle and turn those little glimmers into great light. I am excited that the door is open to go back down there. I praise God that the schools are going. That the food program in the first school is going. There are a LOT of kids there that even after all they have been through, are still thrilled to get a hug. I am very honored to be able to make them happy and to bring some joy into their hard little lives. The second school we went to has over 300 kids now. I sat down on a bench in one room and was immediately buried in kids. I started asking them their names. They were all so desperate for me to know who they were. They were all pushing and trying to get in front of me to tell me their name. Like a throng of little souls crying out for recognition. Mwe rele Darlene! Mwe rele Nelson! So many, many children. It's very intense. There is a real sense of desperation there and we are seen as hope. When it's all said and done. I know the Lord wouldn't have us there for nothing, and when I look into eyes open wide and full of the desire to be loved, I see some hope. There is a line in one of my personal theme songs, "Run To The Battle", that goes, "Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gates of Hell." Well, I had wanted to talk about Marchass, Ft Royal, Lakul, Mapou, the Happy House, Ti Goave, all the visitors you've had from the States, the other schools and food programs, etc, but I think it would be better to stop here for now and hopefully get together and send out another newsletter within the next couple weeks. Anything we can be praying for? Please pray that the door to Soleil stays open and that the Lord give us strength and wisdom in dealing with the situation there. Also school is out for summer and we are starting our summer feeding program in Ft Royal this week. About 80 kids already signed up. There are more coming. We'll be having a LOT of kids coming in from all over, to spend a few days at the Happy House. Safe travel for them. Pray for that. Also, we've had a LOT of Malaria lately. We've had several kids that have had to be treated lately. Also, I'm hoping to get a bunch of new pictures up on the website by Thursday. Anything else? I could go on but I'd rather just say thank you to the many folks that pray for and support the work here and are a big part of making all this possible. Bon Dieu beni nou! |