Cite Maya: A Tent City Ready for Transformation

Christina and I returned a few days ago from nearly 3 weeks in Haiti. Once again, Haiti amazed and challenged me. We went with a great team of 21 people from four nations. We were all significantly impacted.

Our Journey of Compassion took us to refugee camps in Jacmel, on the south shore of Haiti, and to remote mountain villages. Just getting to these resulted in numerous breakdowns of Jeeps, trucks and pickups. We drove through rivers, up roads so steep that sometimes the trucks could not make it, forcing us to get out and walk, and along high narrow tracks that were little more than footpaths. Everywhere we went, we saw people still struggling to recover from the devastation of the 2010 earthquake.

There are still over a million Haitians living in tent cities. The sense of despair in these camps is palpable. For most, there is no work available. There are no schools. Food is scarce. Tempers are short and frustration levels are very high. Life is dangerous, especially for the women after dark.

For four days, Impact Nations conducted medical clinics, preached the Gospel and prayed for the sick in two of the refugee camps. While the team worked in one camp, I went to the second tent city, Cite Maya, to meet the camp leader. Archille is a surprisingly young man, no more than 27 or 28. As we met, he made it clear that he and  his team were working hard to improve the environment for the residents. He showed me the model garden that they had set up; he was encouraging others to do the same. Archille asked very directly. “What are your intentions? Why are you here?” After explaining what Impact Nations was here to do, he told me the three things that Cite Maya most needed––most important of all was a church; the second need was some kind of schooling for the children; thirdly, the people needed opportunity to start earning money in order to feed their families. From the moment we entered Cite Maya, it felt different than the other tent cities we had been to. Now I knew why: it was led by a young man with a great sense of vision who was determined to lead the nearly 1,000 residents into a better life.

For the next 2 days, we treated over 500 people in our medical clinic, led hundreds of children in various activities, and held an outdoor concert where we shared the Gospel and prayed for the sick. Dr. Fui Mee Quek led our medical team. On the second day a mother came in with a terribly tiny and dehydrated infant. Fui Mee told me that in her opinion, without treatment, the baby was only a couple of hours from death. The baby was immediately treated, but there was a problem–the mother believed that her milk would harm the baby, so she had just been feeding it sugar water. No matter how much Fui Mee and some of the nurses tried to convince the mother of how this was killing her child, she would not be persuaded. What could be done? Fui Mee and the team gave the woman enough formula for 3-4 days and arranged to see the mother again. In the meantime, a pastor and his wife agreed to take in the baby and her mother  for 5 months, until the child was old enough to eat solid food. Several of the Impact team donated the money to cover the cost of food and other costs. The team prayed that the mother would come back to us on the agreed upon day. Almost certainly, the infant’s life hung in the balance. To our great joy, she came back with the baby and now the child is living in the safety of the pastor’s home.

We held an open-air gathering in the camp on our first night there. Attracted by the remarkable worship band that had travelled with us, about 400-500 people gathered. When the invitation to come to Christ was given, we were delighted to see about 250 people give their lives to Jesus. This was followed by a wonderful time of prayer where we saw the Lord heal perhaps 200 people. While preaching, I had told them that when the Kingdom of God comes, everything changes. Healing is just one of those things. Jesus came to bring a new joy and freedom to us; he came to change the possibilities. As the band played a very upbeat Haitian worship song, I began to dance and then reached out to a number of the people and invited them to join me. In just moments there were hundreds of joyful people dancing. Psalm 150 encourages us to praise the Lord with our dancing. Now these brand new believers’ first experience with the Lord was not religion, but rejoicing. Not rules but freedom. Not sickness but healing. It was the Apostle Paul who wrote that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Indeed.