22 September 2005

Dear Friend,

It is warm but breezy where I am staying at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Port au Prince. St. Joseph’s is a project that helps young boys living on the street find permanent homes and also serves as a bed and breakfast for international visitors. My “office” today is a balcony overlooking the valley separating the capital from the Matheux Mountains—one of two sets of mountains we cross when we travel from the capital to Hinche (pronounced "Ensh") in the Central Plateau–about 70 miles to the northeast. From where I sit I can see the sky over the Matheux chain covered by cumulus clouds, the kind that seem to promise rain. But rain in Port and in the Central Plateau has been scarce.

Due to the lack of rain farmers near Hinche are in for a hard time this year. The growing season here usually consists of two cropping periods, the first from April to July and the second from August to November. This year the rainy season started late, around the beginning of May, came to a sudden halt the first week of July, and didn't begin again until the second week of September. This greatly reduced or destroyed harvests from the first season. The latest dry spell will probably hurt or destroy harvests for many people during the second planting season. Rains have been heavy when they come, but their unreliability makes them inadequate for most crops, which need constant consistent rainfall, particularly in fields with soils that are overworked and eroded and contain little organic matter.

When I asked what those verses meant for them, people replied simply, “When we plant, we cry, because we never know whether we will harvest or not.” I asked whether they thought God wanted them to have bountiful harvests. Some people said “yes,” but others talked about sin—that God punishes people by holding back the rain.

The group also talked about the effects of deforestation on rainfall and the responsibility that farmers have to protect the forests in order to help insure adequate rainfall. I talked about greenhouse gases and the effects of global warming on weather patterns. I reminded the group that the level of fossil fuel consumption in developed countries affects the droughts and resulting hunger in countries such as Haiti and Nicaragua, and is also partly responsible for the ferocity and frequency of the storms causing such devastation on the Gulf Coast this year.

We also showed them how to set up an area for raising redworms—often sold for bait in the States—that convert manure and other organic material into nutrient-rich humus. We demonstrated techniques for preparing top-notch garden beds that can be protected from animals. And we shared information about the usefulness of the moringa tree and how to make moringa leaf powder, a highly nutritious supplement that has proven effective in reducing malnutrition in a number of projects in West Africa and Haiti.

The real work of any workshop is in the follow-up—reminding participants of the energy they felt and the interest they had in actually trying out the new techniques, and then working with them to set concrete goals. Still, these three days were good. People were interested and active; they didn't just absorb what we said, but shared their own ideas and techniques, their own perspectives. It sometimes felt like we were teaching each other—surely a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Michael Geilenfeld, the founder and mentor for St. Joseph’s Home for Boys left a book by Anne LaMott in the kitchen this morning, which I snagged and was reading until he came looking for it again. LaMott writes, “Holiness has most often been revealed to me in the exquisite pun of the first syllable, in holes—in not enough help, in brokenness, mess. High holy places, with ethereal sounds and stained glass, can massage my illusion of holiness, but in holes and lostness I can pick up the light of small ordinary progress, newly made moments flecked like pepper into the slog and the disruptions” ( from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith). Praise God for the moments of holiness last week. May you find such moments in the work you do each day. Pray, if you would, that the Holy Spirit finds me often, if not always, ready to accept God’s vision and follow God’s lead, wherever the journey takes me.

In Christ.

Mark

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 50