Lost Children of Haiti

Last night most of our Haiti team reunited to watch 60 Minutes on CBS. It was so good to reconnect with everyone. There is something about the bond you develop with people you serve like this with that is hard to explain unless you experience it. I love these people.

While we were working at the Good Samaritan Orphanage, the folks from 60 Minutes were there finishing up filming a project they had been working on for a few weeks. We had some good conversations with Solly Granatstein, the producer on this piece called "The Lost Children of Haiti." The point of the story was to talk about the kids who have been separated from their families and the enormous task of trying to reunite them or find homes for the ones who were orphaned by the quake. Global Orphan Project was chosen to spotlight as a ray of hope in a pretty dark world.

One of the children this piece profiles is a 13-year-old girl named Renise. I had plenty of opportunities to watch this child while we were there, because she was usually hanging around the perimeter of where most of the kids were, almost always by herself. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing her talk to other children, just adults.

I didn't realize that there was more tragedy to Renise's story than being 7 1/2 months pregnant at a time when girls should be day-dreaming about who will be their first kiss. I mentioned in one of my first blogs from Haiti that there was a child there whose tragedy clearly didn't begin with the earthquake. I was talking about Ranise, but I had no idea that the quake had actually bought her freedom.

As a small child, Ranise was sold by her family into domestic servitude, otherwise known as slavery. These child slaves are called restaveks and the practice is perfectly legal in Haiti.

Slavery plays a huge part in the history of this island nation. Shortly after Columbus "discovered" this part of the New World, the island was invaded by Europeans interested in exploiting its resources. The Taino Indians that lived there either died from disease, were forced into slave labor or were killed if they refused. Eventually, Spain and France fought over the territory and France ended up with the western third of the island. Over the majority of the 18th Century, 30,000 French immigrants moved to what is now called Haiti to establish a highly profitable colony centered around sugar, coffee and indigo. By 1790, there were thousands of enslaved Africans that had been imported to work the fields, and France had a very successful piece of the New World.

Not long after that, a great rebellion began, eventually leading to former slaves winning independence from France in 1804. Haiti is the only nation to be born from a slave revolt.

Despite that history, there are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of children living as domestic servants in Haiti today. Ranise's story is that of a modern day Cosette from Les Miserables. She was forced to sleep on the floor and do hard labor while the daughter of the family apparently did neither. Several months ago she was raped and became pregnant. When Global Orphan Project found her, she was wandering the streets. Thank God, they are the ones that found her.

While we were there, I never heard Ranise speak. Not once. None of us did. So to hear her voice on the TV last night was a powerful moment. I brought her a bottle of water one afternoon when the heat was so oppressive and I knew how uncomfortable she must be towards the end of her pregnancy. She just quietly took it from me and walked away. The sadness in her face is heart-wrenching. We were all kind of shocked to hear her story in her own words last night.

Clearly there is much in Haiti that needs to be trashed and rebuilt. This practice needs to be trashed and incinerated. What can we do about this? When we see problems of this great magnitude, it is so hard to do anything but just shake your head and wish things were different. But there has to be more to it than that, doesn't there?

Please continue to pray for Haiti, that this will be an open door to bring in a truly reformative government that can put policies into place that will begin to rebuild Haiti from within. Pray for a huge work of the Holy Spirit there. Only God can truly make things new.

If you have 12 minutes, please open your heart to The Lost Children of Haiti.

P.S. At 12:09, you will see a shot of kids sitting on bunk beds in their new orphanage with Pastor Moise. Those are the beds that Sweet Sleep provided and that this girl helped haul into that room. We also hauled a ton of rock around that orphan complex and painted the walls almost simultaneously with the concrete being poured. It was such a privilege to help put a home back together for 47 kids who God spared that day.

And here we are with Scott Pelley. Yes, he looks like he just stepped out of the Green Room. That's all I have to say about that. :)