But, What if We “Lose Our Hope?”

Haitians live by proverbs… One proverb is “Espwa Fe Viv,” or “Hope Makes Us Live.”

Many of you know some of what is going on in Haiti, and if you do not, read the Miami Herald, or look up “Gangs in Haiti,” and you will see what is going on. In a nutshell, it started even before President Aristide was elected. The problems all started with “extreme greed” by the five big families who “own Haiti.” To make a long story short, they and “the powers in charge” control everything, and have had a lot of influence on the gangs, bringing in guns, and paying the gangs.

This has been going on for years, but getting worse as the young men, or teenagers now, have the same big weapons as the military uses – M-16’s and AK 47’s. For the majority of the poor, they have always had to “eek out a small living to survive” each day. But now, “going to the market to buy and sell” in order to buy a small can of rice, is not possible for most. They cannot “cross the gang lines.” School was supposed to start last month but it has not started yet in most areas. (It has started in Fond Parisien at our Love A Child School, because our area is safe.)

Haitians have been through many things… the overthrowing of “Baby Doc,” hurricanes, the 2010 earthquake, earthquake in South Haiti, floods, and much more. They are a “strong people,” and even after the 2010 earthquake hit, when CNN was doing a piece on the earthquake, behind the person on the camera, you could see Haitian women dressed in white, singing and praising and worshipping God… on CNN!

But what they are going through now is worse than the earthquakes, the floods, and the hurricanes... They have a Creole proverb, “Espwa Fe Viv.” It means, “Hope Makes Us Live.” But now, they feel they have “lost their hope,” because “no one is coming to Haiti to rescue us…” They keep looking up to see if helicopters are coming, or planes… but no one is coming. It is extremely sad. The poor are struggling each day to find food… and not even a lot. They were hungry before, but nothing to compare with what is happening now. They describe the hunger as “grangou Clorox,” or they would rather “drink Clorox than die of hunger.” They pray and keep on trusting that “things will get better,” but the look on their faces is “total despair.”

But now, they feel they are “losing their hope!” They have “hung their harps on the willow tree,” as Psalms 137:1-2 says. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion, (or when we remembered what Haiti used to be like); We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof…” But, we know it is “never too much with our Great God! He can still do a miracle!!!”

Bobby and I are not giving up on the Haitian poor… Our hands are “still on the plough…” We love the Haitian people and we love you.

Sherry