The complex nature of change

We arrived safely in Port-au-Prince at around noon and our two teams have gone our separate ways.  One team of 5 is going to Jacmel, the health care team of 10 are staying near Port-au-Prince.  We both hope to post daily.

We (the health care team) are in the good hands of our hosts.  These two amazing physicians, married to each other, first started at World Relief and then came to Port-au-Prince to start a clinic.  They expanded this to a hospital.  Then they decided to add on an orphanage that also provided education through hired teachers.  Parents in the neighborhood began to bring their kids to try to get them into the orphanage.  So, as if what they had already done was not enough, they opened a secondary boarding school to better meet the needs of the community.

When we arrived in April, they had asked, "Where are your tents?"  We had scrambled for a while deciding whether to sleep on the concrete roof or in the halls of the hospital before God provided us a room with cots.  The beds, linens, private rooms, and three home-cooked meals a day we will have here in our hosts' beautiful home are quite a far cry from the experiences of April and also from the daily lives of the vast majority of Haitians here.

This evening we heard our hosts relate fascinating, insightful, and tragic stories about the history of this country and their experiences in it.  The same feeling strikes me as it did before - Haiti is not easily summarized by corruption or oppression or geography.  To say it is complex is an understatement.  The past is not necessarily bad; the present is not necessarily progress.  Nevertheless, at least to my untrained eyes, there has been improvement, in the form of areas where the rubble is cleared, more vibrant commerce, and a few signs of rebuilding.  So perhaps there is hope.  Where the Lord is, there is always hope.