What I think about the Theology of the Thing

Easter in Haiti: Alleluia!

April 4, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Dear Beloved in Christ:

Easter in Haiti

Easter services here were incredibly powerful today. To be able to proclaim, “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!” in a place that is still filled with death almost defies description.

Hearing the angel proclaim “He is not here” in Luke’s Gospel brought tears to my eyes, for there are so many — perhaps as many as 300,000 — who are not here with us now. At the English service, I read Bishop Duracin’s Easter message to the congregation. (In Haiti, the Bishop is the preacher in all of our parishes.) In his message, Bishop spoke of how we remember “a relative, a friend, one who was close to us, all of whom, in most cases, were denied funeral ceremonies where we could say goodbye with human dignity. Thus,” he wrote, “crossing the desert has been and still is long and extremely difficult.” Although I had read the message in advance, I still found myself almost unable to continue. I know I was not the only one thinking of friends and family, and seeing again the awful devastation which still remains with us, or the bodies that are still being found.

But Bishop Duracin also told us: “The devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, does not stop us from singing in joy and gladness, ‘Alleluia, He is risen.’ … We can no longer continue to look for Jesus among the dead, we can no longer remain in tears because of our dead, because, if during their earthly life, they knew love, their place is in the Kingdom with the Lord to reign with Him in His eternal glory.”

His message, and that of the Gospel, reminded us that we have much to celebrate here even in the midst of death, because “God is a God of life, a life that flows from his love for humanity, a love that is embodied in his Son Jesus Christ.”

I drew strength from that message, and from the celebration of the Eucharist, my first Easter Eucharist in this country. At the fraction, I found myself so caught up in the joy of the moment that I repeated the Easter acclamation, a slip of the tongue that brought smiles to all of us. By the end of the service, the joy of the Resurrection was so powerful that I repeated that acclamation again, with great gusto, and with equal gusto, the congregation replied, nearly shouting, “The Lord is risen indeed! ALLELUIA!”

Yes, we are surrounded by death in Haiti. But we are also surrounded by new life, by the new creation that God proclaims. Which is why, especially here, we are proclaiming “Alleluia!” with all our beings.

Bishop Duracin and all of Haiti bids all of you, “Joyeuses Paques!” Happy Easter!

Your servant in Christ,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles, Featured Story, Haiti, Mission, Personal Writings, World Mission Tagged With: Alleluia, Easter, Joy

Waiting for resurrection

April 3, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Holy Saturday in Haiti:

Dear Beloved in Christ:

On this Holy Saturday, the sun has set here and technically, we can make our proclamation of the Risen Lord. Technically. But we don’t do that in Haiti. Our tradition is that we wait until Easter morning to shout with joy. So we are, like so many around the world, still waiting.

That’s what Holy Saturday is all about anyway — waiting. The women were waiting for the Sabbath to end so they could go to Jesus’ grave. All of creation was waiting to discover what God would do next.

And that’s what we’re doing here in Haiti as well. We’re waiting.

People who need medical care wait for hours to be seen. People wanting food stand in line for even longer. Those living in the Tent Cities are waiting for more information from the government, to find out where they can go next, where they might be able to find a place to live. Students are waiting for schools to reopen. My friends on the streets wait for someone to come along to buy something, so that they might have enough money to feed their children for one more day, or pay a school fee when those eventually come due.

It’s not that Haiti has come to a standstill, with all this waiting going on. There’s so much happening here, day and night, as people try to remake their lives, that it seems the country never rests. In the area where I live, up in Petion Ville, above Port au Prince, the main road right outside the church is always busy. What wakes me up at night is not the sound of trucks grinding gears as they climb up or down the mountain, but any absence of sound. That’s when I find myself waiting, trying to figure out what’s going on, why the traffic has stopped, whether something is wrong.

We held our Easter Vigil tonight at St. James the Just. Before the service, we were waiting to see if we could find a new Paschal Candle … we had been searching for many days, but so far no luck. In the end, when we had waited long enough, we got out last year’s candle, with “2009” clearly stamped on it, dusted it off and put it to good use again. While singing the Exsultet, I had to wait a few times while a man out on the street struggled to start his car, his engine grinding so loudly that I couldn’t be heard. As the darkness fell and became complete, it surely felt like the time had come to end the waiting. But because of the traditions in this place, we have to wait just a few more hours.

Haitians are patient people. They know how to wait. But I think the time has come to end all this waiting. I am as anxious to end Haiti’s waiting as I am to proclaim the Risen Lord.

Just one more night, Lord.

Then we can greet you anew, with great vigor and joy, shouting at the top of our lungs, “The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia!”

Would that Haiti’s wait for new life would be as short, and that it ends with the same joy.

Blessings and peace,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Easter, Holy Saturday, Resurrection, Waiting

Walking in death to life

April 2, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Maundy Thursday in Haiti:

Dear Friends in Christ:

In Haiti’s epicenter, anywhere you walk, you are walking in death.

Everywhere you step in earthquake-devastated epicenter of Port au Prince and Leogane and the surrounding areas, your feet get dirty. There are few open spaces left, and what once was open is now filled with tents and tent cities. There is little sanitation. Garbage is picked up some days, but piles up most others. The rains sweep everything down the streets and sidewalks: raw sewage, mud from the crumbled buildings, the decaying remains of those who died and who have still not been found, still not been uncovered in the rubble.

If any one group of people need their feet washed, especially on Maundy Thursday, it is the Haitians, for they walk in death every single day.

But foot-washing — a part of the Christian tradition that comes from the Evangelist John’s description of the Last Supper, in which Jesus washed the feet of his disciples — is not a tradition in the Episcopal Church here. I’m not certain why it isn’t, I simply know that when I asked, “Do we wash the people’s feet here?” I was told, “No.”

I wish that were not so, because right now, Haitians need that foot-washing.

Not just because they are walking in death.

But because I think that most Haitians – those living in tents and tent cities, and those who are in their own homes – need the rest of the world to bathe them in the same love in which Jesus bathed his disciples’ feet.

The standard explanation of the foot-washing scene in John’s Gospel is that Jesus wanted to show how far he was willing to go to be a servant to his disciples, to set an example for them, so that they in turn might be servants as well.

But I have always believed that there is so much more to the story than simply example-setting. I believe that Jesus got on his knees and washed his disciples dirty, smelly, probably ugly feet — that terribly despised portion of the body that most people really don’t want to have washed in public — I believe Jesus did this as an act of pure love. I believe Jesus took each foot and caressed it, rubbed it, washed it clean, and gently rubbed it dry out of pure love.

And if anyone needs to experience that kind of gentle love, it is the Haitians. They have suffered so much for so long, and then have been torn asunder physically, emotionally and psychologically by this earthquake. Now, the very ground on which they walk is filled with death. What would it be like, I asked the small congregation gathered for Maundy Thursday services at St. James the Just, if we were to have OUR feet washed, and then were to go across the street to the Tent City where approximately 6,000 people are encamped, and wash THEIR feet? What would happen if we were to show to all those in such great need the same absolute, tender love that Jesus showed to his disciples?

We don’t do foot-washing in Haiti — at least, not yet. Pere David Cesar and I talked about possibly introducing the service next year.

But right now, I said, I think it’s something that Haiti desperately needs: Gentle, tender, pure love. Each of us, I said, needs to take the love of Christ that we feel — however big or small — and share it, gently and tenderly — with those who need it so much more.

When Jesus got down on his knees, I said, he did it out of love. And that very act alone changed the world.

We, too, I said, can do this. We can get on OUR knees, figuratively and literally, and in doing so change not just Haiti, but the world.

I don’t want to walk in death any more. The Haitians don’t want to walk in death any more. What they want — what they NEED, right now — is to walk in love.

What better way to show that love than to have our dirty, smelly, ugly feet washed, and then to wash the dirty, smelly, ugly feet of others?

That kind of love, that kind of willingness to lessen ourselves so that others may be loved and may find life — THAT kind of love changed the world once, and it can change the world again.

I really wanted to wash some feet tonight, and I wanted my own feet washed, in the pure, tender, gentle love of Jesus. We did so figuratively. Hopefully soon, we’ll do so literally as well.

Blessings and peace in this Holy Week,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Foot-washing, Haiti, Holy Week, Love, Maundy Thursday, Walk in love

Silence and belief

April 2, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Good Friday in Haiti:

Dear Beloved in Christ on this Good Friday in Haiti:

I have been ordained for 13 years, and for 13 years, I have read the Gospel on Good Friday. Whenever we get to the words, “and he breathed his last,” every single time, my heart catches in my throat and I always am glad for the rubric that mandates silence at this point, because I simply cannot go on. In that silence, every single time, my soul cries out, “I believe! I believe!”

Today in Haiti, I needed that silence even more. This has been a hard Lent here. We are surrounded by death, an assault on the soul; by devastation and ruins, an assault on the eyes; by the stench of death and unclean bodies and raw sewage, an assault on the nose; by the uncertainty of the future we face, an assault on our psyches.

So many times since Jan. 12, every Haitian and everyone who loves Haiti has been tempted to crumple under the weight of this awfulness, moments when all we have wanted to do is simply curl up in a ball and pretend the earthquake never happened. There have been times when the fear and uncertainty were so overwhelming that many of us have wanted, for just a moment, to be like Peter and deny the truth that is before our eyes.

That moment of silence in the Gospel, that moment when we heard again that Jesus had breathed his last, today was filled with heartache for all those who 11 weeks ago breathed their last as well. At the open-air worship space that now serves as Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port au Prince, with the ruins of our beloved Cathedral facing us, we could not escape those deaths or the death of our old way of life. We had to face that death square on. The darkness that descended on Jerusalem 2,000 years ago seemed to descend on Haiti again, just as it did on Jan. 12. In that moment, I think, all of us had our hearts in our throats, and all of us were glad for that moment of silence, so that we could swallow hard and concentrate on the promise of the resurrection, on the promise of new life that we have in the Risen Lord.

And then, when the choir sang, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord,” the tears formed in my eyes and my heart came back into my throat. When the choir sang, “Were you there when they nailed him to the tree,” I know that many of us thought of those who were caught in the ruins on that terrible day, and for so many days afterwards, praying to be rescued. When the choir sang, “Were you there when they laid him in the tomb,” I know that all of us thought of the hundreds of thousands who have been buried here, of the many are still entombed in the ruins. By that point, I had to stop singing, I had to swallow my heart again, I had to wipe away those tears.

This Good Friday in this place was almost overwhelming. Even though I always feel the pain of the day personally, even though I always feel deep grief, today was the most intense Good Friday I have ever experienced. It was more real, more concrete, more visible, more heart-wrenching, than ever before. I think Good Friday for me will never be the same.

With blessings and prayers,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Belief, Death, Good Friday, Haiti, Lent, Silence

We are remembered

April 1, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Wednesday in Holy Week in Haiti:

Dear Beloved in Christ:

On Palm Sunday at St. James the Just, during Communion at the English service, I introduced the congrgation to Taize music. “Do you know ‘Jesus, Remember Me?'” I asked. Most shook their heads no, so I sang that beautiful and haunting piece, the quotation from the thief who was crucified next to Jesus, one time through.

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

By the second time through, the congregation, many of them first-time visitors, mostly aid and relief workers, had picked up the hymn. By the third time through, as Pere David Cesar, the priest in charge, and I distributed the bread and wine, the congregation had figured out how to harmonize. They sang softly and beautifully as they recieved the body and blood of Christ, making that holy meal even holier.

Tonight, Pere David and I broke bread together again, this time at a local hotel. Pere David, who is director of the Holy Trinity Music School and the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, is a faith-filled man who glorifies God especially through his music. He is an accomplished musician, teacher, and priest. When the earthquake struck, he was in his office, and helped lead several people to safety as the building collapsed around, over and under them.

We talked about music throughout dinner, sharing stories. Me, I don’t know much about music. I can’t read it, don’t play an instrument, and am hopeless at counting. But I love to sing, and I truly love chant. Taize is part of my prayer life, and since the quake, I’ve had one Taize piece in particular running continuously through my soul: “Oh Lord, hear my prayer, oh Lord, hear my prayer, when I call answer me. Oh Lord, hear my prayer, oh Lord, hear my prayer, come and listen to me.”

I told Pere David about that chant, and showed him my Anglican rosary, which James, a new friend at Trinity Cathedral in Miami, gave me as a gift a few weeks ago. “I sing my prayer on this rosary,” I told Pere David. “It centers me in God.”

At some point, Pere David and I talked about using Taize again at our Maundy Thursday service tomorrow evening. He instantly translated the chant into French, and we decided to introduce Taize into other services as well.

Then, as I described the Taize community to my friend, and how it is a healing place for people from all over the world – and how I hope to go there one day – we began to dream of using a form of Taize to help Haiti heal from its wounds. We dreamed of building a labyrinth, with a garden and trees and the brilliant flora of Haiti, with a small waterfall, and of teaching people healing songs and chants at this new place of which we dreamed.

Haiti needs healing. It needs rebuilding. In the new creation that already is taking place here, we dreamed, for a few hours, of how to not only renew the land but renew the people.

The people here already are devoted to and dependent on God. God is alive and well and at the center of most people’s lives, especially in these dark hours. Music is an important aspect of their lives as well. Perhaps, we thought as we broke bread and shared dreams, we could take the most important part of people’s lives – God and music and prayer – and bring them together in a new way, to help us heal even more.

One thing we do not have to dream about: Jesus does remember us in Haiti.

Blessings and peace in this holiest of weeks,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Faith, Haiti, Holy Trinity Music School, Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, Holy Week, Music, Taize

Resurrection is coming

March 31, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Tuesday in Holy Week in Haiti:

Dear Beloved in Christ:

Tuesday in Holy Week in Haiti began with taking more Duduza Comfort Dolls to the children at the Little School at College St. Pierre in Port au Prince. Today was the last day of the school; the Tent City is being taken down, and the Internally Displaced Persons are being sent out into the countryside – or so the Haitian government hopes. All of the Tent Cities are hard places in which to live; there is little sanitation, not enough room, not enough water, and with the rains here, the situation is only getting worse. Where all the people will go, and whether the new camps will be ready for them, is a question none of us can answer.

pastedGraphic.pdf

So bringing the dolls – these came from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in New Hope, Pa. – and the soccer balls and basketballs and little bouncy rubber balls donated by my friend Rhonda Busch of Burke, Va. – to the children was yet another poignant act in this holy time. For three weeks, I’m told, the children have been asking: “When will Mere Lauren return? Will she bring us the dolls and balls she promised? When is she coming back?” When Jeanne Pocius, the musician who has been running the Petit L’ecole, and I arrived in the car this morning, the children swarmed around us, greeting me with gladness and shouts of joy, along with instant demands of “Puse! Puse!,” the thumb-wrestling game I taught them on my first visit. (To be honest and above-board, I instantly lost my first three matches. My friend, DeMarius, who is also named Ricardo, I discovered this morning, can beat me in two seconds flat – no lie.)

It took more than two hours to give each child a gift, and to get a picture of each one. Jeanne gave them cards pastedGraphic_1.pdf with her contact information on them, so that if they need anything, they know how to reach her. We put their names on the backs of the cards, too – “just in case,” Jeanne said. “It might help if something else happens, and someone needs to know who to contact.”

What a hard way to live: To know that at any moment, another disaster could strike, and these little ones could be left alone, with no one knowing who they are, or to whom they belong. It is not simply fear of another earthquake or aftershock that drives this fear; we had a 4.2 aftershock early on Sunday morning. It’s knowing that with so many buildings still crumpled but not completely fallen, with so many canted to one side or the other, with balconies overhanging streets without any support, that it not take much to create another disaster. And never mind the disease that already is being seen in Haiti; more rain brings more illness, and despite all the aid flowing into the country, there is still not enough medicine, or medical care, and an almost total lack of decent housing.

Yet despite this fear that hangs over everything, the Haitians continue to show incredible strength. They work together, they help each other, they hold revivals, they pray, they sing songs of praise to God daily. For the past couple of nights, there has been a revival concert going on at the Tent City across from my church in Petion Ville. The shouts of “Allelulia!” ring late into the evening. Haitians are suffering, but they haven’t forsaken their faith in God. Or, as I keep telling them, they have confidence in God because they know that God has confidence in them.

pastedGraphic_2.pdf pastedGraphic_3.pdf

I also went over to College St. Pierre itself, to see what no longer was. Most of the grounds have been cleared; construction already has begun on a new school. It is a shock every time to see empty land where once a beloved landmark stood, almost as shocking as seeing the destruction. But the Haitians never stop. Yes, there was an earthquake. Yes, it was and remains horrible. But to paraphrase the Bishop and all the Haitians I know, no earthquake is going to stop the Haitians.

pastedGraphic_4.pdf

This afternoon, the clergy of the Diocese gathered at the open-air Cathedral on the grounds of the Holy Trinity complex. To renew my ordination vows here in Haiti at this time was indeed holy. Behind the open-air Cathedral stand the remains of the magnificent, world-renown cathedral. And all around us are empty grounds now. Holy Trinity Primary School, Holy Trinity Music School, Holy Trinity Trade School … all are gone, razed to the ground. It’s very disconcerting to drive down the street and be unable to find any landmarks. Thankfully, Pere David Cesar was driving and knew where to go; I would have driven right on by.

Bishop Duracin preached about the need for us to re-examine our vows and live into them more deeply, more fully, to exercise patience and pastoral care, to be strong so that we can lead the Church and the nation in this time of renewal. What he said today is what he has been saying from the beginning: We have our people; we have our faith. This IS our new creation, and we must make the most of it.

pastedGraphic_5.pdf

At the end of the service, Bishop Duracin anointed each one of us – 250 or more – with holy oil, pressing the cross of Christ onto our foreheads to further strengthen us as we go right back out into the world to do the work God has given us to do.

Looking around, seeing all the clergy, along with 200 laity who came to worship as well, is to see the strength of the people of Haiti. Life is difficult here. But no one is giving up. We are clearing rubble, burying our dead, praising God and moving on with life. Haiti will be resurrected.

And in this holiest of weeks, that is the message I and so many others especially need to hear.

Blessings and peace,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Children, Faith, Gifts, Haiti, Hope, Resurrection, Strength

‘No more of this!’

March 29, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

Palm Sunday in Haiti:

Coming back to Haiti once again, I can already see some of the changes that are taking place. More rubble is being removed, more streets are open, more people are out on those streets trying to reconstruct their lives.

But I can also see what is NOT changing: Collapsed buildings still predominate, some with the bodies of our people entombed forever. The Tent Cities are still here, and with the rains now upon us, and still very little sanitation, the risk for disease is increasing constantly. Our children are not yet back in school, because it’s too dangerous. There is still not enough food, or clean water. Lord knows people are trying — the churches, aid organizations, the government — but it’s not enough. And after a while, “not enough” is simply hard to understand, hard to see, hard to live with.

pastedGraphic.pdf

Our Palm Sunday services at St. James the Just were beautiful. We had many visitors at our English service this morning, from all over the world. Despite the lack of a bulletin — the printer isn’t working, alas — we still managed to do the service with holiness, especially when we sang together. Some of our first-timers have gorgeous voices, and the harmonies were marvelous. I preached, using a line from my friend Meredith’s sermon: “No more of this!” That’s what Jesus said when one of his disciples cut off a servant’s ear in a misguided effort to defend Jesus. I wasn’t slated to preach, and pastedGraphic_1.pdf found out only about two minutes before the service. But my friend’s sermon, especially that focus on “No more of this!” kept ringing in my head and heart. So I preached about what Bishop Duracin keeps saying: This is our new creation here in Haiti. No more of the old ways of doing things! No more going hungry because we don’t have enough food, or money to buy it. No more dirty water to drink, because the water system doesn’t work. No more premature deaths because of a lack of medicine! Jesus didn’t die to leave us in the same old life, I said. He died to give us new life — so no more of this! Since so many of our visitors are aid workers, who have moved far from their homes to come help Haiti, I told them that this was their new life, too: That that is the purpose of Holy Week and Good Friday and Easter itself. No more, I shouted!

And then some of the same old life crept right back in. This afternoon, at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church up the mountain, the Ste. Trinite Philharmonic Orchestra gave a Requiem Concert for the members of the Music School and Orchestra, and friends of both, who died in the earthquake. pastedGraphic_2.pdf One of my colleagues, the Rev. Randall Chabot-Stahls, who helps lead the English service at Ste. Trinite, was sitting next to me when he discovered the name of one of his friends who had died on Jan. 12. Randall had been trying to reach his friend, but hadn’t gotten through. His tears lent a special poignancy to an already poignant service. I, too, discovered the name of one more person whom I had not seen, but for whom I held out hope.

Such is life in Haiti now. You keep hoping that people from whom you have not heard have simply lost their phones and don’t know your number. You keep hoping to hear good news. But then the same old kicks in, and you find out the bad news, and you have to figure out how to go forward, how to mourn, how to tell your story and then live with it. It is only the hope we have in the Resurrection that keeps people going here … there’s nothing else but that hope.

And that’s what the concert gave so many of us today, hope. Hundreds attended, and all of us drew strength from the beautiful music, from hearing the Orchestra perform and the Petits Chanteurs sing. We listened to Faure and Bach, to De Lalande and Mozart, to Dickens Princivil’s soaring “Transitions.” We listened and wept and smiled and applauded and in the end realized: No more of the old ways! We have new life, and that new life will sustain us, despite all the difficulties that we still face in Haiti.

As we move through Holy Week in this hard place, we are holding on to the hope that we have in Christ, the hope of the new life that we face, and that we have. As long as we keep that hope in front of us, we can say, with all the power of our lives, No more!

I ask your continued prayers for the people of this place, so that we can draw strength from your strength.

Blessings and peace,

Lauren

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: God, Haiti, Holy Week, Les Petits Chanteurs, New creation, No more!, Palm Sunday

Traveling with gifts

March 25, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

On Saturday, 27 March, I return to Haiti for a two-week stay. I know how blessed I am to have this opportunity – to spend Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter with my sisters and brothers in Christ there. There will be more joyful reunions, more tears spilled over the latest bits of news of deaths just being told me, more frustration with the slow pace of traffic and recovery, more wonderment at the joy one finds in Haitians, all of whom tell me they have been saved by God for a reason: To rebuild Haiti, to care for those in need.

Even though I am the one traveling afar, I am not going alone. So many people have reached out, so many have prayed, so many have blessed the people of Haiti and asked me to carry those prayers and blessings with me on their behalf, and I have promised to do just that: To tell the Haitians they have not been forgotten, they are loved, and by their incredible faith, they are strengthening us in our faith.

Another way in which I am not going alone is through the many gifts that have been made or purchased to send to the people of Haiti. Granted, I can only take so much luggage, and not every Haitian will benefit, but the gifts I am bringing, shown below, are tangible signs of the outpouring of love from Americans to Haitians.

There are medical supplies from the ECW and their friends at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., long-time friends and supporters. There are more Duduza Comfort Dolls (for the pattern to make these, go here, from Jane King and her friends at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in New Hope, Pa. There are other comfort dolls from Sue Clary and her friends at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Sequim, Wash. And once again, my friend Rhonda Busch, administrator at The Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke, Va., has sent gifts, this time basketballs, soccer balls, hand pumps, and hard rubber balls. (Remember, in February, she purchased a new alb and cincture for Bishop Duracin.)

I never travel alone; I always go with many blessings and prayers for me and for the people we all serve. On this particular trip, in this holiest of times, the blessings have been multiplied through your love and support.

Thank you and many blessings to all of you in return.

– Lauren

pastedGraphic.pdf

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Duduza Comfort dolls, Gifts, Haiti

Love and comfort in knitted dolls

March 11, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

From my visit to Haiti 28 Feb-5 March:

Scene One, Act One:

The Episcopal Church Women of St. Paul’s and St. Timothy’s Episcopal Churches in Winston-Salem, N.C., spent untold hours creating Duduza Comfort Dolls, small, knitted dolls, each individualized, some boys, some girls, some with long hair, some with short. The women’s goal: To provide comfort to the children of Haiti, so many of whom lost so much, if not everything, in the Jan. 12 earthquake.

By Jan. 25, they had 168 dolls ready for me.

Scene One, Act Two:

The dolls are taken to Sherwood Forest Elementary School in Winston-Salem, to the third-grade class of Ms. Kelly Ballard, where the children write a personal note on a heart-shaped piece of paper for each doll. With love, from a friend in America, they typically say. Some dolls get BIG hearts. Others get small ones. Either way, the message of love is clear. I tear up when I see them.

Scene One, Act Three:

I attend the meeting of the St. Anne’s Circle of the St. Paul’s ECW. There were more than 100 people present for this meeting, women and men, all of whom wanted to know more about Haiti and the aftermath of the quake, all of whom are deeply committed to helping those most in need around the world.

There, I am presented with all the dolls, from both parishes. Some of the dolls, it seems, have not yet been blessed. Would I do the honors? I say yes, but when the time comes, I am not able to complete the prayer. The love, the power of it, overwhelms me. I signal for another priest to come forward to finish the prayer for me. The emotions are still so raw, and this outpouring of love and care is more than I can handle at the moment.

Scene Two, Act One:

I arrive in Haiti with a duffel bag full of the dolls. My dear friend, Michelet, whom I have not seen or heard from directly since the earthquake, greets me at the door to the church compound. We go upstairs and I immediately begin to unpack so I can get something out just for Michelet.

He sees the dolls and asks about them; I take them out and explain, and from the expression on his face, I KNOW that he has to have one. So I find a boy doll, with a big paper heart expression, and present it to him, telling him that women in North Carolina made the doll, and children there made the note. I tell him these are messages of love.

His grin never leaves his face.

Scene Two, Act Two:

My friend Frantzy, the artist from whom I commission individual pieces, picks me up on his motorcycle one afternoon. It is a joyous and raucous reunion – we have not been in contact since the earthquake, despite repeated tries.

He and his wife and three children are living on the street, sleeping on the ground under a single tarp that does not keep off the rain. I tell him to come with me: Soon he has a new, small tent; a ground cloth; sheets; and a sleeping pad.

I show him the dolls, and give him three for his children. He is overjoyed at this final gift, because now his children will have something of their own. The messages of love cause his eyes to fill with tears. Mine do as well.

Scene Two, Act Three:

Finally, I am able to arrange to get down to Port au Prince from where I work in Petion Ville. It’s only 7 kilometers, but between the awful traffic and the heavy work-load in the office, it seemed I wasn’t going to make it there. pastedGraphic.pdf

Jeanne Pocius, a master musician and teacher

and inspiration, who survived the earthquake by

crawling and stumbling her way out of the Holy

Trinity Music School, has been running an informal

school for the children of the Tent City at College

St. Pierre. She’s been a God-send since long before

the quake: teaching music, beginning an

international nongovernmental organization for

music and teaching, living in Haiti and the U.S. for years and years, inspiring all with her faith and commitment. After the quake, she cared for more than 300 patients, despite being injured herself. Now, she’s working to care for those in need, and to help rebuild Haiti.

Jeanne organizes the children to come meet with me about 5 p.m. There will be about 100, she says. That’s what they average per day at the school.

But more than 100 children show up. In fact, more than 164 – the total number of dolls I have left – show up. It is nearly a riot, the children are so excited! They each want a doll; they swap them back and forth, to make sure each has the right boy or girl doll. The girls especially like the ones with the braided hair. The boys like the ones with the hats. ALL love the messages; I have to explain that some dolls have large heart messages and some have small ones, but ALL have the same message: We love you and are praying for you.

The children demand more dolls … those who didn’t get any want one. Can I come back? Can I bring more? I promise them: In three weeks, I will return, and I WILL bring more.

Please, I pray to myself, let there be more folks out there who can knit! Fast!

pastedGraphic_1.pdf

pastedGraphic_2.pdf

Scene Two, Act Four:

Just because we ran out of dolls doesn’t mean we didn’t keep playing. In Sudan, I taught kids everywhere to play “Thumbs,” the thumb warfare game. There, we called it “Suba,” the Sudanese Arabic term for “thumb.” It brought great joy.

At College St. Pierre, I introduced the same game with its French name: “Pouce.” All of the kids wanted to play. One in particular, Demarius, was excellent. In fact, he beat me all but one time. I think his “pouce” is double-jointed.

I promised to return and play this game as well.

Scene Two, Act Five:

I return to College St. Pierre the next day with the Archbishop of Cape Town, The Most Rev. Thabo Makgoba; the Bishop of Haiti, The Rt. Rev. Jean Zaché Duracin; and the Bishop Suffragan of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon. We want the visiting bishops to see the devastation, to visit the Tent City, to learn first-hand what has happened and is happening in Haiti.

Jeanne calls; the children have gifts for ME! In class that morning, she had the kids make thank-you notes with drawings. She teaches them art therapy part of the day, to help them emotionally through the trauma. The drawings are simple but powerful and cause me to cry again.

I will send the drawings to the women and children in North Carolina, who did all the work and sent all the love.

I am merely the messenger of that love.

Some days, it is good to be a messenger.

X X X

For those of you who might be interested in creating Duduza Comfort Dolls to send to the children in Haiti, see the following web site:

http://www.creativestitchonline.com/pattern.html.

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: College St. Pierre, Duduza Comfort dolls, ECW, Gifts, Haiti, Holy Trinity Music School, NC, Sherwood Forest Elementary School, St. Anne's Circle, St. Paul's, St. Timothy's, Winston-Salem

Visitors learning the story

March 11, 2010 by Lauren Stanley

From my time in Haiti 28 Feb-5 March:

Last week, the Archbishop of Cape Town, The Most Rev. Thabo Cecil Makgoba, and the Bishop Suffragan of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, arrived in Port au Prince for a four-day visit. The Archbishop was accompanied by the Provincial Executive Officer, the Rev. Canon Robert Butterworth. The South African trip was arranged by Dr. Imitiaz Sooliman, chair and founder of Gift of the Givers, the largest disaster relief organization of African origin on the African continent.

They had come to see for themselves, to offer help, and to report back to the world. They had come to offer support for Bishop Duracin and the people of Haiti. They had

pastedGraphic.pdf come so that they could return to their respective homes to tell the story, to rally support for the people of Haiti, to make sure that Haiti does not slip off the front pages of people’s hearts and minds.

I only spent Thursday with the Archbishop, bishops, and Canon Robert; I had to fly back to the States on Friday. But those brief hours together were powerful. For the first time, these bishops were seeing – and smelling – life and death in Haiti. They arrived seven weeks and two days after the earthquake. They found our people still digging through the rubble for the victims. They walked in the muck that now is ever-present in Haiti, since the rains have begun and there is little to no sanitation in the Tent Cities. They stood next to the ruins of College St. Pierre and saw how three stories had collapsed into one.

The visitors received a personal tour of the College St. Pierre Tent City, where the inhabitants have organized themselves, setting up small committees to oversee life there daily. They met children who attend the impromptu school. They saw tarps that do not keep out the rain. They stepped in mud between the tents. They dodged the ropes that hold up shelters. They averted their eyes when people stepped outside to bathe in public.

Over and over again, they heard the story of the faithful people who have lost everything and yet share everything, who are working to take care of each other, so that together, the Kingdom can be rebuilt in Haiti.

The visitors stayed in Haiti for four days, seeing all that they could in that short t pastedGraphic_2.pdf ime, participating in the blessing of Hôpital St. Croix in Leogane, seeing the almost total devastation in that area. They stayed in Montrouis, with the children of St. Vincent’s who have been moved there.

On Sunday, Bishop Pierre preached at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port au Prince, at the outdoor cathedral that has replaced the ruined historic landmark. He will be releasing his sermon in English soon.

Our visitors will be telling their own stories soon, and we look forward to hearing from them. It is critical that the story of the Haitian people be told, not just now but in the future as well. Our jobs, as we continue to live and move and have our being in Haiti and with the Haitians, is to never stop telling the story of the faith of the people, of the work of God among God’s beloved children.

Share this:

Filed Under: Blog Articles Tagged With: Archbishop of Cape Town, Bishop Duracin, Bishop of American Churches in Europe, Haiti, Support

Easter in Haiti: Alleluia!

Waiting for resurrection

Walking in death to life

Silence and belief

We are remembered

Resurrection is coming

‘No more of this!’

Traveling with gifts

Love and comfort in knitted dolls

Visitors learning the story

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley

Where in the world …?

Recent Posts

Things I’ve mused on.

Categories

GoIntoTheWorld

Other sites to watch