Missions of Love

My name is Patt Bristow and I want to share some reflections on a recent trip to Haiti. In the summer of 2010 (July 4, to be exact, the heat of the summer), I took a much-anticipated “mission trip” to visit Haiti. I was with a group of about twenty others from my church in San Jose, California, and in the weeks leading up to our departure we had team meetings both to become acquainted and to gain some grace for meshing with a foreign culture. Our destination: Pignon, wherever that was. (Real maps of Haiti can be hard to come by). Near Pignon was the mission work supported by our church and overseen by JeanJean and Kristie Mompremier. Haiti was unlike anything I’d experienced in almost six decades of American life.

I hadn’t known that people could live a whole lifetime with almost no material possessions. I wasn’t used to seeing day long backbreaking labor performed without complaint. And I still don’t understand how young women can carry five gallon buckets of water balanced on their heads, uphill and down, every day.  Life was much simpler even if children were being malnourished, education was hard to come by, and even routine medical care was scarce. The two week duration of the trip was so short, I was barely beginning to form impressions of the culture and landscapes around me. But, we had come as a group and had to leave as a group. I asked God, Please, make a way for me to come back. He did! Through a circuitous route I could not have imagined, I was put in contact with Dr. Asa Talbot and his wife, Jean. I was delighted that Asa and Jean did not greet me with an arduous list of qualifications. Rather, Jean said to me, “Patt, we’ve learned over the years that we aren’t really doing the recruiting for this mission. If God brings someone to us, we figure He’s given his approval and means them to go”.

As the trip came together, our departure date was set for October of 2011 (I’m thinking, the cooler fall months this time). Another woman from Washington was included, and the four of us would rendezvous in Miami.

Clearly God had drawn this little group together; we got along marvelously. To my delight, Donah loved adventure as much as I did, so we made the six hour drive to Missions of Love perched on the luggage in the back of a pickup. This second trip was also of two week duration, but I was able to visit/view a much broader swath of life in Haiti. We spent hours crossing through cities and towns on our way to Jolivert. The sights, sounds, and smells of places like Gonaives and Bassin Bleu gave a compelling picture of a nation that is seriously failing. With little or no infrastructure, no government support, and an educational system (for those fortunate enough to attend) that is authoritarian and heavily dependent on rote memory, most citizens, ! observed, seemed resigned to the way of life they’d inherited, with no hope for change. My heart went out to those so caught in hardship yet unable to effect a different path. What could I possibly contribute? Jean and Asa suggested I read a book that had been making the rounds of their colleagues, When Helping Hurts. In this work the authors took a long, hard look at numerous Christian efforts all around the world to alleviate poverty. Reexamined, a lot of “helping” theories are seen for what they really are – giving out meals of seafood instead of helping build sustainable fishing skills.