Love breaks the rules
Since the beginning of my time in Haiti I have used any platform I can find to stand on to speak about how to give aid well - how to help without hurting. As a social worker in an impoverished area of a developing country, it's an ethical battle that I am faced with multiple times each day, and I have built my life and work here around the notion that we can give aid without further hurting or enabling a mentality of entitlement in those we serve. This looks like avoiding handouts, always finding a way for the person I'm serving to make an equal investment in their care (or their child's care), most often an investment of time. I trade formula and medical care for the most vulnerable, orphaned infants for the time investment of their caregiver each week to learn best practice methods for infant care. I trade therapeutic grade peanut butter to treat childhood malnutrition for one on one nutrition counseling wherein the caregiver has to learn and practice the skills to provide healthy, nutritious foods to their family. Even if I am coordinating medical treatment I find ways for the family to get themselves to appointments when my help is unnecessary.
My goal is to educate and empower, never enable. And I believe far more long-lasting good comes from teaching new ways of thinking, and demonstrating how to find resources and solutions, rather than simply providing them. As such I rarely if ever give a handout to someone without asking some sort of investment from them in return. I broke that rule this weekend, as I stood in what has been my living room for the past 4.5 years and handed the keys for the apartment to Leila, which I promised to continue renting for her and her family indefinitely.
Many of you have heard my story of returning to Haiti this time to find my apartment in total chaos. Many of my things were missing and those left were broken beyond repair. It was filthy; I guarantee it was filthier than what you are imagining as you read this. It motivated me to urgently move within my first week back, and to sort and clean out the apartment I have spent the past several years in.
What I didn't know yet was that recently my closest Haitian friend Leila had been forced to move with all of her children - 5 of her own and 2 she is caring for after their mother passed away - after her own father kicked her out of the home he owned. As we stood in my old living room on Saturday she described to me the day she learned she had to leave, in greater detail than before. She described to me how she had to get Woodenschly to therapy that day and she cried on the back of the Moto, hoping that he was far enough away on the front that he didn't see her, asking God where her children would live now, begging Him to make a path for her.
I didn't know this yet as I moved my things into my new apartment, when I first felt God's push to keep renting my old home for Leila. When her whole family came to meet me on my first day back in Haiti - and everyday after for the first week - and I noticed all the kids had serious coughs, even her infant. I didn't know yet it was because the 1 room home they had found to move into flooded every time it rained, and had 4 walls that were literally crumbling around them. In the few weeks since I have been home Leila has had typhoid and Angel, her 2nd youngest, is being tested for TB, because of the conditions they are now living in. Even the area they had to relocate to is a far step down, and that is a lot considering their last home was adjacent to the trash dump.
I could not shake the conviction to offer my old home to them. Against my usual methods of helping, it took several days for me to commit to what God was asking of me. It wasn't until they showed me photos of the home they had to move into the day after a big rain that I knew; my family couldn't stay there.
See, here is the difference. Leila, her children included, is not just a woman here that I serve and educate and work for. She is not someone who has come to me seeking help or whom I have found in crisis and offered resources. She is my family. Her kids are my family. Leila and I have been close friends for a few years now. She has taken care of me when I was sick. Through dengue and malaria she bought and made me food, wiped my head with cool cloths and sat next to me for comfort. After Woodenschly's operation they stayed in my home for a time because he couldn't risk infection, and we shared the responsibility of caring for Woodenschly so we could both continue working. In the evenings we would sit at my table sewing baby clothes together or putting together the mobiles she makes for 2nd Story Goods, talking about our childhoods and sharing our stories. At night when the medication she was on during pregnancy made her feel terribly sick I would make her tea and sit with Woodenschly while Jako laid with her on the floor, soothing to her back pain.
We worked together to get urgent inpatient care for her nephews, Stanley and Kiki, and we grieved and mourned the loss of Kiki together, and celebrated Stanley's incredible healing. I make her try tacos and she cooks me Lalo, which I don't like if anyone else makes it. We went through months of caring for Woodenschly together, and when I worked in the clinic her then youngest would come into my office everyday after school to tell me about her day and play until Leila called her home. Even when I was in America, as she birthed her youngest daughter Corinna, she labored then rested post partum with her daughter in my very bed.
We are family.
Family helps each other. Family takes care of each other. Family does not question if the appropriate strings are attached to avoid enabling when offering help. I have been blessed with people I have chosen to be as close as family in two countries. And at some point in relationship, you just know that this is a person you would do anything for. If any of my people in America close enough that I call family needed urgent help, I would reach my hand out without a second thought; it should be no different here. And it is never lost on me that I would not even be where I am today or able to live the life I do without the constant help and hand outs from others; from people who believe in me and the potential I hold.
I say often that I am continually learning as I live and work in Haiti, even after several years here my beliefs and perspectives are being shaped and remolded through experience. Though I am still a fervent believer that to truly assist someone and love them well we must provide education, and empower those we serve to create their own solutions, here is what I have relearned this week. No mindset or perspective on how best to give aid is 100% correct. We can educate ourselves responsibly and follow the guidelines set before us imploring us to use wisdom before giving. To form relationships before handing out. To know the person first, and more intimately, than the need. And to use the discernment we have been given to know when God is asking us to forget when we think we know and help the person in front of us.
Because at the end of the day that's all we're doing - loving the person in front of us. And within the boundaries of healthy relationship, sometimes that looks like giving a hand up to a friend when they have nothing to offer in return, and are in desperate need of some Jesus like love without strings attached. As I drove away from my old apartment, a home that I have grown and grieved and found God in during the past several years, I saw Leila sitting to make food with my old neighbors, and it filled me with joy. I heard the voice of my Father say "Thank you for helping your sister," and felt the overwhelming impression of a papa so proud to see his beloved daughters taking care of one another.
I have learned once again that sometimes love breaks the rules.
My goal is to educate and empower, never enable. And I believe far more long-lasting good comes from teaching new ways of thinking, and demonstrating how to find resources and solutions, rather than simply providing them. As such I rarely if ever give a handout to someone without asking some sort of investment from them in return. I broke that rule this weekend, as I stood in what has been my living room for the past 4.5 years and handed the keys for the apartment to Leila, which I promised to continue renting for her and her family indefinitely.
Many of you have heard my story of returning to Haiti this time to find my apartment in total chaos. Many of my things were missing and those left were broken beyond repair. It was filthy; I guarantee it was filthier than what you are imagining as you read this. It motivated me to urgently move within my first week back, and to sort and clean out the apartment I have spent the past several years in.
What I didn't know yet was that recently my closest Haitian friend Leila had been forced to move with all of her children - 5 of her own and 2 she is caring for after their mother passed away - after her own father kicked her out of the home he owned. As we stood in my old living room on Saturday she described to me the day she learned she had to leave, in greater detail than before. She described to me how she had to get Woodenschly to therapy that day and she cried on the back of the Moto, hoping that he was far enough away on the front that he didn't see her, asking God where her children would live now, begging Him to make a path for her.
I didn't know this yet as I moved my things into my new apartment, when I first felt God's push to keep renting my old home for Leila. When her whole family came to meet me on my first day back in Haiti - and everyday after for the first week - and I noticed all the kids had serious coughs, even her infant. I didn't know yet it was because the 1 room home they had found to move into flooded every time it rained, and had 4 walls that were literally crumbling around them. In the few weeks since I have been home Leila has had typhoid and Angel, her 2nd youngest, is being tested for TB, because of the conditions they are now living in. Even the area they had to relocate to is a far step down, and that is a lot considering their last home was adjacent to the trash dump.
I could not shake the conviction to offer my old home to them. Against my usual methods of helping, it took several days for me to commit to what God was asking of me. It wasn't until they showed me photos of the home they had to move into the day after a big rain that I knew; my family couldn't stay there.
See, here is the difference. Leila, her children included, is not just a woman here that I serve and educate and work for. She is not someone who has come to me seeking help or whom I have found in crisis and offered resources. She is my family. Her kids are my family. Leila and I have been close friends for a few years now. She has taken care of me when I was sick. Through dengue and malaria she bought and made me food, wiped my head with cool cloths and sat next to me for comfort. After Woodenschly's operation they stayed in my home for a time because he couldn't risk infection, and we shared the responsibility of caring for Woodenschly so we could both continue working. In the evenings we would sit at my table sewing baby clothes together or putting together the mobiles she makes for 2nd Story Goods, talking about our childhoods and sharing our stories. At night when the medication she was on during pregnancy made her feel terribly sick I would make her tea and sit with Woodenschly while Jako laid with her on the floor, soothing to her back pain.
We worked together to get urgent inpatient care for her nephews, Stanley and Kiki, and we grieved and mourned the loss of Kiki together, and celebrated Stanley's incredible healing. I make her try tacos and she cooks me Lalo, which I don't like if anyone else makes it. We went through months of caring for Woodenschly together, and when I worked in the clinic her then youngest would come into my office everyday after school to tell me about her day and play until Leila called her home. Even when I was in America, as she birthed her youngest daughter Corinna, she labored then rested post partum with her daughter in my very bed.
We are family.
I say often that I am continually learning as I live and work in Haiti, even after several years here my beliefs and perspectives are being shaped and remolded through experience. Though I am still a fervent believer that to truly assist someone and love them well we must provide education, and empower those we serve to create their own solutions, here is what I have relearned this week. No mindset or perspective on how best to give aid is 100% correct. We can educate ourselves responsibly and follow the guidelines set before us imploring us to use wisdom before giving. To form relationships before handing out. To know the person first, and more intimately, than the need. And to use the discernment we have been given to know when God is asking us to forget when we think we know and help the person in front of us.
Because at the end of the day that's all we're doing - loving the person in front of us. And within the boundaries of healthy relationship, sometimes that looks like giving a hand up to a friend when they have nothing to offer in return, and are in desperate need of some Jesus like love without strings attached. As I drove away from my old apartment, a home that I have grown and grieved and found God in during the past several years, I saw Leila sitting to make food with my old neighbors, and it filled me with joy. I heard the voice of my Father say "Thank you for helping your sister," and felt the overwhelming impression of a papa so proud to see his beloved daughters taking care of one another.
I have learned once again that sometimes love breaks the rules.
