Church Actually

30th November 

So, today we found the decent roads, or stretches of them at least. I believe we got all the way up to 5th gear ! It's because we left the city and followed the coast line round to the Northern peninsular. Haiti really is a beautiful country, beneath the dust, the smell and the rubbish, but of course these are the reality- they do hide the beauty and somehow the hint of beauty add to the frustration of the situation that you see. 

We visited two more projects today. The first was to see a school that is being built by Compassion. It was something else. In a country where every building is scruffy if not tumble down, these are smart, proud buildings. And the difference doesn't stop with the appearance. The school we saw today was a class apart: the team overseeing the rebuild have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that this school is built to international seismic standards. They have even had to train people in this country how to make proper bricks to build with and fight with the factory to persuade them to make them because the brick makers know they won't be able to sell them to anyone else- no one else would pay the price. 

We saw this school which will be finished by January, behind it is the school that fell down 2 years ago and in-between; the makeshift school made of ply-wood that is keeping the kids educated now- it doesn't look like it would stand up to  much of a storm so it's good Haiti has had two years free of hurricanes. 

Afterwards, we visited another child survival program and here we met Krisna and her mum. Krisna is 2 yrs old, the youngest of 5 sisters. her family home collapsed in the earthquake and since then they have been living in a shack they share with their uncle. Krisna has been registered with the compassion project since before she was born. 

Compassion seeks out the most needy in the community and Krisna's mum was sick. Krisna wouldn't have made it into the world alive without intervention, but through the work of Compassion, her mum got medical care and she gave birth in a hospital : for the first time. Krisna is registered in the Child Survival Program whose aim is to get kids started off right. It supports mothers in pregnancy and childbirth, gives parenting  education and medical support to the babies. It's an incredible system. Each mother and toddler comes to the centre twice a week and gets visited at home once a fortnight by a health worker- that's better support than I had and invaluable. 

I talked to Krisna's mum and she explained that she had been taught how to purify the water which had benefitted her whole family, and shown how to prepare balanced meals with the litle that she has. One a month she is given a food package of basics to help support her family. It makes the world of difference. 

On top of that, when Krisna developed pneumonia at the age of 9 months it was Compassion staff who got her admitted to hospital where she stayed for two weeks. Compassion has saved Krisna twice and it will transform her future many times again. 

The Child support programme is run by an amazing woman called Melodia who was a sponsored child herself. Her enthusiasm for what she does is amazing and love for the women she serves shines out of her. She proudly showed me round the centre that they have - i was astonished, it exceeded all my expectations. In this church in the back of beyond, were mural coved Walls, dozens of toys and musical instruments,teaching posters, books, cots and brightly coloured mobiles hanging from the ceiling. It was an incredible room - with as much to stimulate the kids as any I've seen. 

And all this in the heart of the church. The church really is the hope of Haiti. On the drive to this project we had passed a tent city on the mountainside that houses half a  million people and we had seen the landfill site where 100,000 people were buried in a mass grave following the earthquake. Figures like that are almost impossible to comprehend. But in the midst of that kind of devastation, it is the church that is leading the way. 

In every community we have visited it is the churches that rebuilt first - not as some grandiose symbol of religion, but because they are the hub of everything that goes on. Here are the centres for the community, the place to come for food, school and medical help as well as spiritual support. 

Haiti is a disaster zone, there is no getting away from it, but there is hope wherever you look and it comes in the shape of the church. I find it awe inspiring that in this impoverished nation, this church full of financially poor people has risen to meet the incredible need. They have nothing and yet they give everything. It's humbling and it speaks volumes about what church actually is and it poses an incredible challenge to churches everywhere to be the hope in their community, to give everything and be the agent of change.