1999, The First Visit

(from Living Orthodoxy, #115, later edited for relevance)

When we think of "mission", most often we think of those who are already well grounded in the Faith going off into some situation where there are large numbers of "heathen" whom one hopes will be converted. To a great extent, in our modern pluralist society, we have become rather uncomfortable with the concept. Far too often, one hears such sentiments as "if God means for them to be converted, He will lead them to the Church."

Such thinking is in glaring contradiction to the Gospel, which instructs us in no uncertain terms: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt 28:20). Our responsibility for such mission directs us not only to the unfaithful neighbor next door (whom we must never forget), but with equal insistence to "all nations".

Sometimes, however, the mission goes in more than one direction. Sometimes it is those afar who call out for help, that they may be converted. Such, of course, was the background of the conversion of Russia. And, indeed, something very similar has occurred in the formation of the Haitian Orthodox Mission.

To be sure, in Haiti as in many other places, most of the population is already "Christian" — the Roman Catholicism of the French slaveholders remained even after the colonialists had been expelled, and a century of domination by the United States has brought its legacy of hundreds of Protestant denominational missions. There has also been, for quite some time, a presence of modernist Orthodoxy — the kind of "Orthodoxy" which interchanges itself without much difficulty with certain forms of Protestantism.

But the Lord, in His wisdom, prepared ground for His Word in this all but forgotten country. Certainly, no "mission" had ever been sent to Haiti from any of our established parishes in North or South America. Indeed, this would have been a serious challenge: the people of Haiti speak their own native Creole; those who have been to school speak French; very few speak any other language. Such a challenge, however, didn't stop St. Innocent from not only speaking with but even writing for the Aleut peoples in their own languages.

Rather than Orthodox missionaries going to Haiti, it was a handful of native Haitians, seeking the true apostolic Faith, who sought out the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia... in an era when communications between Haiti and the United States were all but impossible. A single hieromonk (since gone into apostasy) and his flock were accepted into the Church in 1994. In the following year Fr. Jean-Chénier Dumais spent several months at Holy Trinity Monastery preparing for his ordination to the holy priesthood, and in January 1996 Archbishop Hilarion spent several days visiting the fledgling mission (a missionary trip reported by Orthodox Life, vol. 46 #1, Jan-Feb 1996). Regrettably, a period of lack of communication and confusion followed, which created a great deal of uncertainty amongst the faithful in the United States... an uncertainty exacerbated by a slander campaign conducted by a modernist priest.

Fortunately, good contact was re-established with the surviving priest in Haiti, Fr. Jean, who in 1998 was able twice to travel to the United States for Southern Deanery clergy conferences. Those of us who were privileged to come to know him (even many who could communicate only through an interpreter) were impressed by his fervor and his sincerity. But we had only a shadowy idea of the reality.

In the interest of laying to rest the demons of rumor, and securing a much more concrete understanding of the conditions in Haiti and, more especially, our Church's mission there. His Grace, Bishop Gabriel, asked me last fall to begin making plans for an extended visit.

As I began preparation in earnest in January, I was at once struck by the difficulty of obtaining useful information concerning Haiti. I was not surprised to find that there is no tourist guidebook— but I was surprised to find that the country is not even mentioned in most Caribbean guidebooks. I was (misinformed) upon inquiry, that there was no such information available for Haiti — in fact, there is a quite extensive and excellent section on Haiti in the Footprint guide to the Caribbean. I searched for useful reading material... and found one book only, quite appropriately titled Best Nightmare on Earth: A Life in Haiti (Herbert Gold, Touchstone, New York 1991, ISBN 0-671-75516-1). I talked with the two people whom I knew to have visited the country (Archbishop Hilarion and a local Protestant lay missionary), and prepared as best I was able (not least, by intense reading in French!).

I knew, from previous attempts to communicate with Fr. Jean in Port-au-Prince, that it was entirely possible I would arrive unexpected: we had no telephone communication, and postal service is completely unpredictable. I had no idea where or under what conditions I would be living, except for the certainty that I would not be staying in one of the few $100+ a night hotels for international wheeler-dealers. So, with Vladyka's blessing, I boarded a plane early in February, burdened with the maximum allowable load (and then a bit): full scale camping gear for myself for tropical conditions, and a hefty load of donated goods for the mission — vestments, candles, incense, icons, wine, and an altar Gospel and Apostolos (in French, of course), as well as some personal items.

After a very enjoyable overnight stop with Fr. Daniel McKenzie and his family in Miami (which added somewhat to the volume of material traveling with me!), I arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport, and felt as if I had traveled back in time as much as across the water. The "Warning: Inadequate Security" signs I had seen in Nashville and Miami made sense. Where else can you walk down the mobile stairway from a giant jetliner to cross the open tarmac, all directly under the eyes of a huge crowd of watchers on the observation deck above? I hadn't seen one of those in years. The trip through customs held a pleasant surprise: the officer wasn't the least bit interested in what might be in those three heavy bags, but just waved me through with a friendly smile and a few words of welcome... in French. In fact, only twice in my two weeks in Haiti did anyone begin speaking to me in English.

The language of the streets (still unintelligible to me) is Créole, common to the former French colonies of the Caribbean. Derived from French, it includes a healthy seasoning of words from numerous African languages, as well as noticeable amounts of Spanish and English. It is not, however, merely a degenerate French, but has a clearly defined spoken and written grammar and vocabulary of its own, which has been relatively stable for decades. However, even in the more remote regions of the country almost everyone, it seems, understands a bit when spoken to in French... but only a rather small portion of the people (15% is the figure commonly given, probably a gross overestimate) are able to speak French freely. A much smaller percentage read and write any language at a meaningful level (opinions concerning the literacy level vary dramatically, perhaps as a result of differing definitions of "literacy").

My careful inspection of the observation balcony while I waited on the tarmac to enter the customs shed (the word is apt... everywhere signs apologize for its sorry state, but there is no evidence that any work is being done to make it any better) led me to the conclusion that my letter to Fr. Jean had not reached him. Once through customs I was certain it hadn't. I was on my own.

Risking triteness, I can only describe what I found outside the barriers as a "swirling mass of humanity." I had no difficulty finding someone to help with my bags: at least a dozen people tried. One hefty fellow who spoke reasonable French won the argument. I had two immediate problems: to find some (safe!) way to leave the bags in one place while I figured out what to do next, and to procure some sort of map (my best efforts before departure had failed... not even the Haitian Consulate in New York could provide me with one) to aid navigation. I found no reasonable answer to either (I later learned that in Haiti you get a map from a car-rental agency), and so ultimately gambled on my hefty taxi-driver, loaded everything into his truck (many taxis in Haiti are trucks) and set out to find the Church of the Nativity of Our Lady, where I thought (wrongly) Fr. Jean & his family lived. (They had lived there the last time I had spoken with him, but no more.)

My limited information was sufficient to keep the taxi driver from taking me to another city altogether (he tried... it turns out there is a "Village Nerette" in Pétionville, but he knew nothing of the region by the same name within a half-mile of the airport). Within minutes of leaving the airport gates, dodging other wildly careening taxis, pedestrians, and a cow or two, we started up one of the worst roads I have ever traveled... and I live in the Tennessee mountains. The driver seemed determined to reach the end of the road (high up the hillside... Port-au-Prince is built on the slopes of a steep mountainous region which reaches down to the Gulf of Gonave with scarcely a pause except for the narrow coastal plain at the bottom) without seeking any kind of directions. Fortunately, Fr. Jean had told me that the church was very close to the airport... and had erected a sign on this “main road” pointing to the church school. The driver, however, was convinced that the church had to be high up on the mountain, and it took no small argument to convince him to stop. When he turned around, we were already far enough above the church for me to see the bright red Orthodox cross on its roof... and he began the tortuous navigation through areas which might equally well have been road, yard, playground or pasture — and served as all three — to bring us to its gate.

Upon later reflection, it became apparent why he was so hard to convince. The church is located in a "badly organized" area, a "terrain vague" — squatter land. The land lies low, is poorly drained, and has no public services. It was undoubtedly considered to have no value... until people began (for lack of anyplace better) to build on it. Suddenly it became valuable, and its owner expects to be paid well for the ground on which the houses (and the church) have been built. From the outside, no one would consider it a place in which to find either a church or a school (and to the best of my knowledge there is no other). It is a good place for both to be.

When we arrived at the church, school classes were in session, but I quickly learned that Fr. Jean no longer lived there. One of the teachers dismissed his class and piled into the taxi as our guide to take us to his home. Since he and the driver conversed in Créole, it was only when we were halfway across the city that I came to understand that he was Julbert, Fr. Jean's younger brother, who lived with him. The trip across the city was a good introduction to Port-au-Prince and its traffic... and quickly convinced me that I had no desire (even as a retired Chicago cabby) to drive in the city. Most vehicles resemble survivors of a demolition derby; if the other drivers don’t destroy a car, the conditions of the road certainly will.

The street on which Fr. Jean and his family live (temporarily) is so steep that the taxi driver was forced to let the truck down it a few feet at a time, coming to a complete stop each time. Needless to say, he expected to be richly rewarded for his labors, and demanded $50 US for the trip. One of my advance sources had said $20 was standard for a trip from the airport to the city... but he claimed this was really two trips (first to the church, all half-mile of it, then to the house). We finally settled for $32 (all the cash I had in my pocket) and a disgusted look. Do cabbies ever change?

One by one, I met the members of Fr. Jean's (extended) family: Julbert, his half-brother, in his twenties; Martin, his 10-year-old son; Dora, his 4-year- old daughter; 15-year old Mona and 10-year-old Iphonise, distantly related girls with nowhere else to live, who have been taken into the family; and Matushka Marie-Chantal. Each (remember, my coming was unannounced, although Fr. Jean and I had discussed a possible and hoped-for visit when he was in the US) was duly astonished and, it seemed, delighted. Fr. Jean himself was the last of all to return home in the evening. This family of seven live in a pleasant enough 4-room apartment — but it is theirs only until May or June, having been leased by a family who plan to go at that time to Haiti to assist for a year with the school. Previously, they had indeed been living at the church... in a 12x12' room now used as a classroom for the school. The combined income of Fr. Jean & Matushka from three teaching jobs would be insufficient to rent the apartment in which they are living, even if that were the only expense to be met.

The apartment is considered a good buy at $4000 per year. It is so inexpensive (!!) because it is in a portion of the city which, although it has plumbing in place, does not having any running water, and the apartment does not have any reservoir water distribution system. All water must be purchased by the bucketful from a water tanker and carried, four gallons at a time, up the hill — about 200 yards, my best guess, and very steep. Such conditions lead one to be very conservative in water usage. Despite the cost and labor involved, I was offered water for bathing every morning and evening... and everyone was surprised that I never wanted the water heated (try and find some cold water in Haiti!).

I was surprised (in view of Archbishop Hilarion's warning to be certain to take a flashlight & plenty of batteries) to discover working electricity at the time of my arrival: Julbert immediately put the video of the glorification services for St. John of San Francisco on the VCR (a gift from relatives in New York City), and watched it avidly for quite some time... until the power went off in the early evening, remaining off all night. In general, it seemed, in that sector of the city there was electricity for 5-6 hours each day, but only once or twice during my stay did this include any of the evening hours. It came and went without warning or apparent rhyme or reason. According to a newspaper article I came across, current generating facilities can provide only somewhat less than a third of the power demand for Port-au-Prince. It seems that some of the smaller cities in the country may be somewhat better off in this respect, but to all intents and purposes there is no electrical power outside the cities.

It is possible in Port-au-Prince, as in most major cities of the world, to pass in and out without ever touching or being touched by the real world outside. There are a few good hotels, catering to international businessmen, United Nations officials and high class missionaries, which maintain their own water supplies, electrical generators, swimming pools... and well-armed security guards. A traveler might pass from the airport to one of these by taxi, and back out, with only a glimpse of the seething and suffering city and country. For me, the first trip across the city, from airport to church to Fr. Jean's home, was too much, too quickly. I had only just begun to register the reality around me. I had seen the stick-buildings along the sides of the road (typically a few slender poles stuck in the ground with a tarp stretched across the top) — but had not yet realized that these were combination shop & home for whole families, perhaps six or eight people cooking, eating, sleeping and selling whatever they could get their hands on in a hundred square feet or so. The less fortunate had no tarps or poles. I had seen the piles of trash everywhere, but not yet realized that there was a reason they were not mountains (I saw one garbage truck at work in two weeks): if something thrown on the street could be eaten by anything, something would eat it; if it could be burned, somebody would burn it for fuel; if neither of these was possible, sooner or later somebody would use it for something, incorporating it into a fence if nothing else. Precious little stayed indefinitely... and that, it appears, works its way (sometimes with a little human help) slowly down the steep hillside streets toward the Gulf during the torrential rainstorms.

The first night, standing on the porch of Fr. Jean's apartment (value greatly enhanced by its "free air" position... one could look out over the rooftops of the city below to the Gulf), I could have fooled myself. I could have forgotten my first, limited vision of the city (limited not only by my own inability really to see, but also by the amount of energy required to keep my place in the jolting taxi and pray that no other driver tried to occupy the same space as we at the same moment) and thought myself in a very pleasant vacation spot (provided I didn't mind too much having neither electricity nor running water... a minor inconvenience, at least for me... as long as I didn't have to haul the water). I "knew" better, but the reality had not yet entered into me.

The real jolt came the next day, as I began (in company with Fr. Jean) to move around the city like "real people", deprived of the relative insulation of a "private taxi" or the safe haven of a friend's home. We began with a quick trip to the School of the Nativity of Our Lady, in session. Currently, the school must use various parts of the church for classes... one of them in the nave, another tucked into a tiny room (previously home for Fr. Jean's family) at the west end of the nave, the third into a storage area behind the altar. There were about 30 students that morning (there is an afternoon session for older students, of similar size), most of them residents of the area in which the church is located.

"Quick trip" refers only to the time we spent at the school. Getting there was another story. Travel in Port-au-Prince (unless one has lots of money) is accomplished partly on foot, partly in "camionettes" — typically, a Toyota pickup truck fitted with a topper and two benches in the back. Some have two additional seats welded on over the rear bumper... others have spikes on the bumper to discourage hangers-on. Alternatively, the vehicle is a badly banged-up van, usually with the side doors removed altogether. The camionettes (privately owned) operate over more or less fixed routes, but there is no source other than street lore for determining where they start, where they end, or by what route they pass. Normally, they leave their starting point only when crammed to capacity... or beyond. I once counted 18 of us in the Toyota variety, another time 24 in a van (and these are ordinary vans, not the giant variety). People get in and out every block or two, unavoidably trampling and squeezing one another in the process. Haiti is no place for anyone troubled by body contact! Travel by camionette is neither fast nor efficient (sometimes walking is faster, so bad is the traffic), but it is one of the very few "bargains" to be found in Haiti. The standard fare is 2 gourdes for a route (about 12 cents) regardless of the length of the trip; typically, a cross-town trip will require two or three different vehicles.

Needless to say, travel by camionette requires a great deal of walking as well, through streets crowded with vehicles, vendors, animals and refuse. Only rarely is it possible to walk on a sidewalk... most often, the way is obstructed by a vendor's stall (which may well be his home as well), a pile of refuse, or simply too many people to force a way through. More frequently, one walks in the street, constantly alert to vehicles coming from either direction. Nominally, one drives on the right, but this is more something to write in a rule book than a description of reality. In fact, drivers pass by whatever route is least obstructed and least likely to damage the vehicle. Pedestrians are not considered to be dangerous obstacles... and are expected to fend for themselves. The old tongue- in-cheek aphorism is applicable: "Land of the quick and the dead: if you aren't quick you'll be dead."

The starting point of this journey to the church and school was in a well-developed area of the city... paved streets (albeit badly broken up), water lines (never mind that they were devoid of water), sewage systems (the only thing which, amazingly, worked more or less as intended), sidewalks (even if impassable). The church and school, however, are located in quite a different kind of region. Even though it is within a mile of the airport, the area is chaotic and undeveloped... until now. It is a low- lying, poorly drained area, previously regarded as useless land... until the intense population pressure of the city and incredibly high land prices forced poorer people into the area — people who, however, at least had the "leisure" and the "spare" money to begin to stack concrete blocks to make a permanent home. In this area, apart from the one through road, there is no clear distinction between roads, foot-passages, "yards" and (as yet) unused ground. There is no water system, no sewage system, no (official or legal) electrical or telephone system. Many of the homes do not have roofs... the builders have not yet been able to afford enough blocks and time to reach roof height; in the meantime, a piece of tarp stretched in a corner serves as shelter from sun and rain. Random bits of wire stretched from corner to corner distribute (dangerously and badly) low-power electricity (enough for a couple of light bulbs, maybe a small fan) to some of the homes, taken from illegal taps into the power distribution lines at the edge of the area. Ironically, it is only these illegal electrical lines which function most of the time... there are no switches for turning them off.

It is indeed squatter territory... but the land-owner is now demanding payment for the previously valueless land. Only in Haiti would it be conceivable to build a church first, then worry about buying the land on which it stands (unless one considers what a mortgage really means!)... but that is the situation. It is indeed quite a building, the fruit of the donations of the faithful over the past 2-3 years and the tireless labor of Fr. Jean in designing and masterminding its construction. When I first saw photographs of our "church building" in Port-au-Prince, it was of an open pole structure with a palm- and banana-leaf roof. Later, I saw photos of concrete block walls, with the same kind of roof. I was rather surprised when I actually reached the church to find that it was a finished building (Haitian style). The roof of the first floor is designed to be the floor of the second (as in nearly all Haitian buildings under construction): it is composed of concrete blocks, cement and reinforcing steel laid over a temporary scaffold. Although it is quite invulnerable to hurricanes or fire, the thought of an earthquake (rare enough in Haiti that no one thinks about them) is frightening. Rebar protrudes from its roof, as it does from nearly all buildings which have reached that point, against the day when another story can be added. At first glance, the raw concrete block is very unsightly, and it was quite some time before I realized that this is only the first stage. To finish the building (very few in the area of the church are so finished) requires plaster-work inside and out, perhaps with the addition of some mosaic tile Once this is accomplished, these buildings can be quite attractive.

Building a home (or church) in such territory demands a lot of digging, and all over the region there are holes in various stages. Some of them are destined to become underground cisterns for water storage (the church has two — one for rainwater collected from the roof, a second for water purchased from a water-tanker), others to become septic holding tanks, which must be pumped out when full (the church has one, with a two-seater outhouse).

All these holes are dug by hand (fortunately, the soil is not terribly hard to dig) — in my two weeks in Haiti I never saw a backhoe or other power digging tool.

The church building is quite large, capable of holding perhaps 200 people (standing!). The altar is spacious. Two small rooms at the back are destined ultimately to serve, one as the baptistry, the other as a candle-stand (and book/gift shop?!). At present, they must be used as a classroom and the office for the school. The church is adorned with a number of icons, gifts from faithful around the world — but larger icons are needed in many places. The unusual number of chairs and benches is steadily dwindling — a remnant of the past history of the mission (once attached to a modernist Orthodox jurisdiction), many still needed for the schoolchildren who must use the nave as a classroom).

Such was my introduction to the church building and school-children... brief, hot, and astonishingly dusty. February is "winter" — which means that temperatures rarely climb above 90, one stops sweating most nights, and rain is scarce. Later in my visit I was to experience one of those rare rains... and its effect on the powdery soil, entirely nude of pavement of any kind, in the area of the church. It makes me shudder to think of the result when it really rains.

After walking back to the airport, we began our journey (again by camionette) to the center-city, to visit the Roman Catholic school at which both Fr. Jean and Matushka teach (at least until the end of this term — we sincerely hope to raise enough pledges for a living salary for the family, so that they may be free to devote their energies to our own school and to the parish). Part-way there, traffic was completely stalled, so we took to the pavement, making the last couple of miles on foot. "Crowded" took on a new meaning for me. For most of the distance, I doubt that I was ever more than a few inches from the nearest person, and I never passed more than a few seconds without direct physical contact with someone. For me, this was not troubling — but it was exhausting, and I was relieved to move into the less-crowded streets near the school. As we walked, I became accustomed not only to close-up friendly greetings... but also, a bit farther off, to shouts of "Papa Nicholas!"— an alternative greeting/observation to "blanc—white!"

In fact, white people are so rare in Port-au-Prince that after leaving the airport upon my arrival I didn't see another white face until we visited the (charmingly quaint) Oloffson Hotel for dinner on Friday evening; neither did I hear another word of English until that time. The shouts on the street seem to be neither particularly friendly, nor are they hostile — rather, an exclamatory reaction to an unusual event. There are, of course, many whites in Haiti... but they are largely confined to the immediate area of foreign diplomatic or religious missions, or UN centers.

Entering into the yard of the Roman Catholic school where Fr. Jean & Matushka teach, I was immediately surrounded by a small knot of little fellows (6-10 year olds, I would say) eager to hold my hand. It was only a matter of moments before somebody shouted "Papa Nicholas", and before long I was surrounded by two or three dozen... and found myself being controlled by the crowd, rather than the other way around. I was certainly in no jeopardy, as there were several teachers close by (Fr. Jean was inside the building on some errand), but I became increasingly uncomfortable with the situation (amongst other things, there were a few anonymous hands probing the pockets of my cassock. .. I was pleased that they were very deep!). I worked myself back against a wall and began to tell the boys that the game had gone far enough, and they should let me be... but against the din of the "Papa Nicholas!" chorus I wasn't heard too well. One of the teachers got the message, and approached, stick in hand. The results were immediate, but only momentary. In the end, he and another teacher hustled me across the courtyard and out a large iron gate, which was opened only wide enough to permit one person through. It was a rather disconcerting experience, as I realized (once again... I had experienced something similar in a street demonstration during my radical political days a few lifetimes ago) how quickly a benign crowd can become a threatening mob... even when it is made up of children. Perhaps the perception is especially appropriate at the moment I write, just a week away from Palm Sunday.

As the day, and the days following, wore on, I became acutely aware of the extraordinary expenditure of energy needed for the accomplishment of the slightest task, and the astonishing patience required for survival. From the eyes of a north American, some of this seems entirely needless, and the impulse to get in there and "fix it" is strong. Yet, from within the reality of Haiti, it begins to take on a sense of inevitability.

There are very few working "stores" in Port-au-Prince... most of the commerce is on the streets. At first, this is a bit puzzling. Every block consists primarily of closed-up buildings, with the side-walks in front crowded with vendors. The occasional open store, with rare exceptions, has a locked door tended by an armed guard... not infrequently with the police equivalent of a sawed-off shotgun prominently displayed. After some days, it suddenly dawned on me that, under the urban conditions of Port-au-Prince, stores as we know them could only be operated if they had their own power supplies and their own security; otherwise, most of the time they would be blacked-out holes in the wall. My forays into such stores (mostly bookstores) were an instruction in themselves. First, in order to find anything, it was necessary to call upon the services of one of the shopkeepers. Once ready to purchase, it was necessary to go to another to have the sale written up. A third was required in order to pay for the sale (in one instance this required an extended visit while yet another went to another store where the phone was working to call in for authorization on the charge card). Finally, the shopper has to pass muster with the security guard in order to exit. Result? — a simple purchase can require an hour or more, without accounting for the considerable time required to reach the store in the first place.

Tasks which we would expect to require "just a minute" can stretch on for a large part of a day. More than once in the two weeks I spent in Haiti a half-day or so was spent in what proved to be totally useless (except for the experience of traveling through the city, valuable in itself for me) coming and going, attempting to accomplish some task which could not be completed... time which could have been "saved" had there been a reliably working telephone system or other means of communication. Currently, there is no telephone at the church (and can't be), none at Fr. Jean's home (though there is one a couple of houses away which he can use when it works), and none at Fr. Deacon Gregory's home. Consequently, no kind of planning or decision-making can be accomplished without risking several hours of travel in the hope that one will find the person or supplies needed.

I got several samples of this, but in some ways the most instructive occurred on Saturday. We left Fr. Jean's home shortly after noon, with two objectives to be accomplished before going to the church for Vespers. Fortunately, both were in the same place. The first was to inspect a house which is being offered for a three-year lease, which would make an excellent rectory and guesthouse... not least because it is across the street from Deacon Gregory's home. The second purpose was to visit Fr. Gregory, if possible... he did not yet even know I was in the country. The visit to the house, which belongs to a doctor who is coming to the United States for further training, was pre-arranged... she does have a telephone, and Fr. Jean had arranged the appointment the previous day from the school where he teaches. The visit to Fr. Gregory was not, and in the event, neither he nor Matushka were at home. Had our sole purpose been to visit them, the entire trip would have been in vain.

The trip from Fr. Jean's home to the house and thence to the church took the entire afternoon — over four hours of travel in all. I arrived at the church already thoroughly exhausted, and realized that it had taken far more energy just to get to church than we, under more "normal" circumstances, are accustomed to investing in an entire Vigil. The service was my first introduction to the congregation of Fr. Jean's parish... and I was rather surprised to find that the little folk I had met a couple of days earlier at the school predominated.

Unlike many of the other parishioners, they live within a short distance of the church, and so could walk to Vespers. Unfortunately, under present conditions a Vigil is not ordinarily possible: the area is not secure, remaining after dark is ill advised, and the intense heat makes it almost unthinkable to begin a long service at its worst in mid-afternoon (and I was there in the middle of winter!). We scurried out of the area as twilight fell, returning home long after dark (to the accompaniment of roving pre-Carnival bands of singer/dancers).

Sunday Liturgy (the first of two I had the privilege to serve with Fr. Jean during my stay) was a spiritually and emotionally overwhelming experience. Filled with sad awareness of the incredible difficulty and poverty of the people around me, and painfully aware of the relative ease and luxury in which even the poorest of our own poor lived, the words of the Beatitudes struck me afresh, as if heard for the first time. Indeed, the forced concentration required for serving in a language which I understood perfectly well but nevertheless was far from "second nature" for me, many of the words of the Liturgy came to me that way. By God's providence, the two Sundays I served with these "least of our brethren" to the south were the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, and the Sunday of the Last Judgment. Needless to say, the words of the Gospel in both cases penetrated more deeply than ever.

The power of the Holy Spirit indeed overshadowed us in that Liturgy, so much so that I reached the end of giving Holy Communion (Fr. Jean had insisted that I serve as principal celebrant) only with great difficulty. There were perhaps 60 or 65 present for Divine Liturgy each Sunday, of whom certainly more than half received the Holy Mysteries. Each Sunday, Fr. Jean preached after the Gospel, predominantly in Creole, evidently with much power, judging from the people's intent concentration. Each time, he insisted that I preach again at the end of the Liturgy (in French, of course)... an experience which I faced the first time with much trepidation. I need not have feared — the words were indeed given, inadequate as I was to the task, and were warmly received (to my astonishment, with a round of applause the first Sunday... not a custom we would care to encourage, I think!).

Most evenings during my visit some time was spent discussing liturgical and pastoral questions. Often these arose in the course of casual conversation as we traveled around the city... but my command of the language was not adequate to carrying on serious discussion over the hubbub of the traffic and crowds. Often I was asked to spend some time helping members of the family with English studies, which must be encouraged. Although "linguistic imperialism" is not the least desirable, there is little realistic hope for much contact between these, our brethren in the Faith, and their only near neighbors (the faithful of the United States) without some language studies on both sides. Unfortunately, I have more hope that some of our Haitian brethren will learn English tolerably well, than that very many of the faithful here will invest the necessary energy to learn French or Creole. I would be delighted to be proven wrong!

After my return home, I spoke with one of my brother priests about my disappointment in realizing how inadequate were my words and the photographs with which I returned, for my desire somehow to convey to the faithful here what I had encountered. His response was very much to the point — no, just words and pictures won't do it; you would have to be able to bring back the sound and the smell and the physical contact, all of it. Of course, that really can't be done. The wholeness of that reality was so overwhelming that after only a few days I had been "filled up" to the bursting point. The mere words "culture shock" took on a very concrete meaning for me, and I knew that I had been wise from the outset in planning for an "interlude" of a few days during the second week of my visit to spend some time alone (at least, away from the city) either in the mountains or at the seashore. The latter proved to be the more practical. Accordingly, I hired a driver and vehicle (an out of service camionette... a 10-year old Toyota pickup with about 110,000 miles on it which its owner would very much like to sell for the bargain price of $10,000 US) for an excursion beyond the city, with the objective of finding and settling in a seaside hotel somewhere for three or four days. In principle, this should have been fairly simple... I even had the name and location of a highly recommended hotel at a distance of about 30 miles from the city.

But nothing is simple in Haiti. For starters, the truck was parked in the courtyard of the building in which Fr. Jean and his family live... blocked into place by two other vehicles which belong to the owner of the building. He had urgent errands, but promised to return "shortly" to move them. Our planned 7AM start was delayed for quite some time as we first waited for him to return, then got tired of waiting and decided that if enough muscle were applied we could reposition a pile of sand and the two other trucks (by sliding them sideways) sufficiently to extricate our own. It worked... but took well over an hour. Another two hours passed before we emerged from the west side of Port-au-Prince into the long string of small towns which line the west-bound "highway". This road deteriorated rapidly as we worked our way through towns, potholes, live- stock and crowds of people toward the town we thought to be our objective. After several false leads, we finally obtained what seemed to be definitive information: the hotel in question was no more, and no one knew of any possible place such as that for which I was looking on that part of the coast.

So we pushed on to the west, as far as Mirogoane, about 60 miles west of Port-au-Prince. It felt like at least 200, given the travel conditions. I had never felt threatened in Port-au-Prince, but Mirogoane made me distinctly uneasy. Only recently, long after my return, did I discover that it is renowned as a smuggling center.

Beyond Mirogoane, the road is said to deteriorate rapidly, so much so that most "bus" service has been discontinued. My driver, Sergiou, was reluctant to continue, so we determined to return almost to Port-au-Prince and cross the mountains to Jacmel, on the south coast, where he said there were several nice hotels... a possibility also hinted at by the little information I had been able to glean from a business traveler's guide I had seen, and the Haiti information site on the Web. To my astonishment, the road over the mountains was an excellently built highway. I was never able to determine exactly how it came about, but it was apparently built by a French consortium three years ago. The trip was a bit hair-raising (no self-respecting Haitian driver, even the very best, would consider taking a blind curve any other way than in the middle of the road with the horn blaring), but by contrast quite rapid and smooth. The drop into the tropical lushness of Jacmel was in stark contrast to the barren mountainsides through which we had been traveling.

After a couple of false starts, with the help of another (paid) guide, I found myself in what seemed another Haiti. I speak of it here only because I think it is important for us to realize the extent to which beauty and squalidness, material poverty and spiritual richness, economic desperation and personal hopefulness are intermingled in Haiti. Although beyond the means of all but the most affluent Haitians, the seaside villa hotel to which we were guided was nevertheless an outpost of hope. It provided me with the emotional refuge I needed... and obviously served the same purpose for many others. As a beautiful vacation spot I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who could tolerate the extraordinary effort required to reach it. In fact, however, so far as I know there were no "ordinary vacationers" there. There were staff members from the United Nations mission in Jacmel who lived there full-time, doctors from Peoria, Illinois, who were staffing a part-time clinic a few houses down the coast, a few Haitians, a pleasant English couple who had come to visit their daughter who is engaged in UN human rights observation in the central highlands... and me. With them, I spoke English, for the first time since arriving in Haiti (the hotel staff speak little or no English, however). Although they declared themselves to be atheists, they took a lively interest in my presence and work and hopes, and continue (by email) to maintain contact and interest and support for the Mission.

Almost every source of information concerning Haiti (including Fr. Jean) insists upon the lively religious interest of the people. I had no reason to question this... but at Jacmel I got a stunning demonstration. Repeatedly, as Fr. Jean & I traveled around the city, he was questioned by fellow "waiters" (for a camionette) or passengers, but I had had little part in these discussions, as they were almost always entirely in Creole. (Even those Haitians who are perfectly fluent in French slide quickly into Creole if they get a bit excited.) But at Jacmel I was alone... or so I thought. One day, taking a break from normal routine (which included a lot of work on the English Octoechos, of which publication is currently underway), I started out for a walk along a shoreside path running eastward from the hotel, about which George and Jean, my English friends, had told me. I had not gone 50 yards before I had one companion (a boy of about l0), and within a quarter-mile I had three. Soon the questions began to pour out, and within a half-mile I had to give up the idea of walking (the going was pretty rough) and concentrate on answering the boys (who also wanted instruction in English, mixed in with everything else). Within minutes, the conversation turned to religion (at their initiative), and I found myself faced with the daunting task of explaining to these youngsters (the other two were sixteen and eighteen) why and how the Orthodox Church was neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, and how all this had come about... in French. No sooner had I "finished" than we were joined by a third young man, Ernstceau, who was sixteen... who insisted on hearing it all over again.

He came back the next day for more, joining me on another expedition (out onto the headlands to take a photograph of the hotel and cove from the sea side). Again, the questions were persistent... including a desire to know how old I was. When I told him I was 58, he thought I was making a joke. No one is that old, he said, except for a rare grandfather who can barely get around. I finally did convince him I was telling the truth. Two days ago, I discovered that the average life expectancy for a Haitian male today is under 48 years. Those "old" people I saw here and there were in their forties, maybe fifties; anyone older is a rare phenomenon.

I returned to Port-au-Prince at the end of the week with a renewed hope and eagerness. Haiti is a country which is vibrantly alive despite a crushing poverty beyond our imagination. Everywhere, there are young people struggling, above all else, to learn. Ernstceau was no exception... every day he walks 5 miles each way to and from school; the bicycle he once had is broken beyond repair, and he cannot afford the 12¢ camionette fare each way. He does it eagerly... and dressed far more neatly than most of the schoolchildren around us. He uses books which have already seen many years of use, but his are in better condition than many. I saw children working with books all but obliterated from years of handling. But everywhere I saw evidence of the oft-repeated refrain: Haitians are a proud people.

I saw it in the schools on almost every street corner... almost all of them operated by churches, as the government has little to offer. I saw it in the astonishingly neat and clean dress of these people who have to make their way from home to school or work over and through piles of refuse. They can't do anything about the refuse... but they can do something about their clothes. I saw it in the warm smiles which were everywhere. I saw it in the eagerness to learn, to help... and the expressed determination to do something to help their own brothers and sisters.

In such a spirit I celebrated the Sunday of the Last Judgment with our brothers and sisters to the south. We shared a festal meal after the Liturgy, at Fr. Jean's insistence (he didn't ask me, he told me it was going to happen). I was troubled by the probable expense, for I had long since realized that nothing is cheap in Haiti. Almost everything costs at least as much as it would in the United States but the annual per capita income in Haiti is less than $300. The minimum wage was recently raised to $2.75/day, which to all intents and purposes put an end to the sweatshop "transformation industries" (fly in a planeload of parts from somewhere else, pay slave wages to have them assembled in a warehouse close to the airport, and fly them back out as finished gizmos of one or another sort — there is cheaper labor to be had elsewhere in the Caribbean). So I insisted that I be allowed to pay for this feast. It was a nice meal, but far from lavish: a piece or two of chicken or goat, some nicely cooked vegetables, dessert, and a soft drink. We served about 60 people, at a cost of $150 for the food, $50 for the caterer who prepared it while we were all at Liturgy, and $20 for the truck and driver to bring it to the church.

A very little quick figuring and brainpower suffice to make one realize why most Haitians are seriously undernourished. One international source puts 3/4 of the people below the "absolute minimum" nutritional level required for reasonable health. Extreme starvation (death from acute dehydration & dysentery in most cases) is relatively rare, but one of my doctor friends in Jacmel assured me that a very large proportion of the population suffers from mild to acute protein starvation.

Can we do anything about it? For the country as a whole, certainly not... except to pray fervently, and, whenever we get a chance, to urge a massive humane response from this "big brother" to the north in place of the destructive militarism we have visited upon the Haitians in the past. But on a smaller scale, we most certainly can do something... and we must, if we dare to look ourselves in the face and call ourselves Christians.

We can do something significant and important, not only for our Orthodox brethren in Haiti, but for all those whom they may touch. We can help to build a Church community which is capable, not only of living and worshipping in an Orthodox fashion (important as that is), but of actively proclaiming the Gospel to those around them... in word and in deed. To do so, the Mission needs help to do better what has already been begun, even in the midst of terrible temptations.

The support which has already been given to the Mission has been well used: there is an alive and active parish, with a respectable building in which to worship; there is a functioning school, providing education (at almost no cost... few of the students are able to pay even the nominal fee the school asks) to children who otherwise would have no school. There can be much more. The three-grade school should become, at minimum, a full eight-year primary school, both for small children and for adolescents and adults. There should be a clinic. A distribution center for clothing and food assistance is essential - emergency food for those truly in desperation, and guidance and a source of supply for improved nutrition for those who can afford to buy food, but have neither the knowledge nor the sources from which to acquire adequate food at low cost. The list could go on and on.

If such a firm foundation is built, there is every reason to hope that in time the Mission could become largely self-supporting. There is reason to hope that within the foreseeable future it might have not just one, but numerous parishes, both in Port-au-Prince and in the countryside. It can happen, and it might happen even without our financial support. But we need to give that support just as much as the Mission needs to receive it.

We need to make it possible for the Mission to provide vital services to those around the church... this requires space other than the church building proper. We need to make it possible for Fr. Jean and his family to have a secure home at least for the next few years, not fearing that in a month or two or three they will be forced back into completely inadequate housing or onto the street. We need to provide for guest facilities, so that interested visitors might be able to stay within the Church community, and so share in the life of the real Haiti. We need to provide for the travel required for Mission personnel and others of the parish, that readers and catechists and deacons and priests may be trained. All this is possible.

What is needed in the immediate future would not buy one "entry-level" house in an American subdivision. We are perfectly able to raise large amounts of money for the building of our own churches, for the repair of historic churches in other parts of the world... and these are good and worthy things to do. But the Lord God may not look kindly upon us if we do not also give freely to those of our brethren who are so poor that a single low income subsidy in this country would "provide" for a dozen families amongst them.

The Lord loves a cheerful giver. May He smile upon each one who reads this and responds appropriately!