The Problem

These problems are based on assessments from those involved directly with ministry in Haiti prior to the earthquake in January 2010.  These problems haven’t ended, in fact the earthquake has simply brought the world’s attentions to these needs.  These are not problems that simply beg for your awareness; these are problems that God can use you and the local church to help put to an end. In fact, these are problems that God is calling believers and the local church to solve.  It is time to put “awareness” aside and take up “action.”

1. Spiritual Depravity: Romans 9:3-18
9 For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Millions of Haitians sleep tonight in the midst of total spiritual darkness.  Their eyes have not seen the light of the one true gospel of Jesus Christ.  The primary problem is the same for Haitians as it is for all those apart from a relationship with Jesus, SIN.  Haiti cannot be redeemed apart from restoring to them the hope of salvation and relationship with the God of the Bible and through His Son, Jesus Christ.

It is comprehensible that Haitians have a distorted understanding of life and God when surrounded by illness, constant suffering, and death.  Many Haitians have never heard that they matter to God, that they are created in His image, purposed and valued.  They have no biblical understanding of what Jesus Christ has accomplished through His death.

2. Corrupt Leadership: 2Peter 2:18-22
8 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Honesty must be pursued if redemption is going to come to Haiti. Many in leadership from the government, relief agencies, and even churches have first served themselves, securing the money and the aid for their own benefit.  This type of corrupt leadership is the exact opposite of the leadership of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Many leaders simply do not have the heart, the integrity, the patience, the faithfulness, and the qualifications to handle leadership and authority.  For the gospel to flourish we must build up leaders with integrity.

3. Extreme Poverty: 2Corinthians 8:8-15
8 I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 10 And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. 11 So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. 12 For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. 13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness 14 your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 15 As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”

If Haiti had a tagline it would be: “the poorest country in the western hemisphere.”  This truth is overused to provoke sympathy that few have acted upon, most Haitians are extremely poor economically and little has or is changing.  Which brings up a larger question that many governments and mega relief agencies have been trying to solve for years: “How do you overcome such poverty?” The problem is not solved by throwing money and physical resources at it blindly.  The problem has to first be properly diagnosed.  REDEEM HAITI believes that the issue with extreme poverty is first a spiritual issue, not solved by charity; in fact charity may be contributing to the problem.  Rick Warren says it correctly, “The answer is not charity. When you give money away- when you give people things they could do for themselves- you don’t teach them to do it themselves.  You rob their dignity, and you create victims. You create dependency and a ‘what have you done for me lately’ attitude.  It actually removes initiative.”  Often charity simply procrastinates and propagates the problem, give something to someone until they need more, and the cycles continue.  So much of charity is one dimensional without any relationship or follow-up, no course of action for getting a person out of the cycle.  The Bible, however, is full of counsel and principles for redeeming and sustainability.

4. Disease/Preventable Illness: Mark 2:17
35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.

Many of the sick in Haiti have illnesses that are preventable, easily cured, and/or are treatable.  The fact that thousands upon thousands in Haiti alone suffer from physical illness that have long been remedied in the developed world is a reminder that our comfort and health and access to healthcare is itself a great blessing that many do not enjoy. According to USAID Haiti has the highest per capita tuberculosis (TB) burden in the Latin American/Caribbean region. After HIV/AIDS, TB is the country’s greatest infectious cause of mortality in both youth and adults (5,400 “reported” deaths in 2006). Haiti is among the eight priority countries identified by the Pan American Health Organization for TB control in the region. According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) 2008 Global Tuberculosis Control Report, Haiti had an estimated 28,290 new TB cases in 2006. Over half of Haitian children have never received vaccines against diseases like polio, measles, and rubella.

These facts are even more outrageous when you consider that Haiti is in the same time zone as Atlanta. A common objection to missions, specifically international missions goes something like this, “Why don’t we help those in our own backyard?” In the modern world, Haiti is in our backyard!   You can be in Haiti in approximately four hours from Atlanta, you can not even drive through the state of Georgia, north to south, in four hours, yet you could fly to Haiti in less time.  Yet they suffer with little interest from us.  Would we stand idle and watch fellow South Georgia citizens die from preventable disease that we could prevent and treat?  Why, then, do we sit idly by and watch Haitian children suffer? Jesus spent one third of his ministry effort on healing every disease and affliction, even when those he healed did not follow Him or believe in Him as the Messiah.  How much of our ministries do we concentrate on healing disease and affliction? REDEEM HAITI believes we should make this a priority in the redemption of Haiti.

5. Lack of Education: Mark 10:14
14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

Bob Corbett of The Haiti Project reports 90% of Haitians are illiterate in the cities, more in the rural areas. Only about 30% of Haitian children ever begin school, and of the 30%, only 2% stay in school beyond the 5th grade. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides these figures on Haiti in its report, “The State of the World’s Children 1999″, the agency’s wide-ranging examination of challenges to the right of all children to basic education. According to UNICEF, 58% percent of Haiti’s current educational facilities were not built originally to serve as schools. Many classrooms are so overcrowded that only one in four children has a place to sit. And almost two-thirds of all children abandon primary school before completing the six-year course. The vast majority of schools lack trained teachers and less than half the children have access to textbooks.

You can give Haiti food, clothes, buildings, books, computers, great technologies, etc.  But if you do not teach them to read and write you create unsustainable ministry, and perhaps do more harm than good.  Without transferring an education you not only limit sustainable ministry, you risk limiting the gospel and having them simply add it on to their existing beliefs.

There are many root and secondary reasons for why Haiti is poor, both financially and spiritually, and there is enough blame to pass around.  There are no easy solutions for Haiti.  Redemption always has a cost.  Our own comfort, ignorance, and apathy are not viable excuses, these may in fact contribute to Haiti’s problems. It’s time for honesty and it’s time for action.  That’s why REDEEM HAITI has been created, to look honestly at the problems and meet them with a holistic plan and prospectus that is driven by the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Knowing full well that sustainability is long term, perhaps longer than our own lives, but it’s a path worth taking.  Will you walk it with us?