(Editor’s note: Norman Jameson returned Aug. 30 from a week in Haiti to report on the work of North Carolina Baptist groups working in the aftermath of that nation’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. This is the fifth and final of several daily impressions from his week there. His previous dispatch is available here.)
By Norman Jameson
It had to happen, I suppose.
After a week of mass numbers, gross results and overwhelming needs assaulting every sense — 230,000 killed in 30 seconds; 1,300 refugee camps; 3,000 helping agencies at work among victims; 80 percent unemployment; 50 percent literacy; only 40 percent with access to clean water — I thought I’d grown heart calluses hard enough to deflect any emotional tugs while I worked with a mission team in Haiti.
I had a handle on this death, destruction, poverty and disaster-relief situation. I’ve learned to resolutely shake my head to, “Hey you, gizme dolla.” But just when I thought I was insulated, a little guy snuck through my artificial wrap and stole my heart.
Who would have thought a dirty dervish in a muddy, isolated, stone-shack farming village would be named Peterson? Such a name belongs to my Scandinavian school buddy Duane Peterson; the guy who poured his potato soup into his shirt pocket because teachers made us eat everything on our plates and Duane hated potato soup.
But Peterson and I played hot hands until we were sweaty. He slapped my hands with a vengeance and took special glee when he smacked me hard enough to make me wince.
And I adored him.
He refrained from the constant chorus sung by his friends begging me for food and money; or my watch or hand sanitizer or bandanna or anything on my person or that might be in my pocket.
After we wore each other out while the medical team checked 180 of the residents of his village of Topia, Peterson demonstrated some tricky soccer moves with a tennis ball.
Peterson, aged 10 to 12, was dressed only in an oversized polo shirt nearly transparent from wear. That is, ONLY a shirt. We’d brought a soccer ball that a previous team had left at the compound and I was waiting for the appropriate time and circumstance to give it to someone. This was that moment.
I had Peterson get his father and through our translator, Mr. Innocent, we told Peterson’s dad that he was a fine young man and he wished for a soccer ball. Because we are friends of Jesus and because Jesus loves Peterson and the people of Topia, He sent our team from North Carolina to help and to show them Jesus’ love. And just like God wants the best for his children, we had a soccer ball for Peterson.
Peterson is to be in charge of the ball, but it is for the community, I said. Then I told Peterson the happiest day of my life will be when he becomes a friend of Jesus, too. Then I tossed the ball high to Peterson and he headed it back perfectly to me — to the cheers of the villagers gathered to watch outside the clinic tent.
Massive numbers elicit response in the immediate aftermath of disasters. After a few weeks we have to be touched by individual stories if we are to be moved at all. I don’t know Peterson’s story. We hardly shared a word of common language, but we shared a world of common humanity.
And now we share a heart. I pray he treats the part of mine I left behind with great kindness.
It was our team’s last day in Haiti, and as he often does, coordinator Scott Daughtry took us on a windshield tour of Port-au-Prince to see “remnants” of the Jan. 12 earthquake damage. At the current rate of clean up, “remnant” is likely not an appropriate description. The living organism that is the city has grown new veins around the tumors of collapsed buildings, under which bodies still lie. There was no large machinery at work, no earth-movers, cranes or backhoes. No trucks hauling debris and the hum and hubris of the city moved and flowed around the destruction as if it were no more than a Kodak moment tourist attraction.
“I take no pleasure in seeing poverty, in seeing people struggle and seeing where people have died,” said Jimmy Suggs, of the North Carolina church that organized the team, during the closing devotional tonight. “Remember, the crumbled buildings represent places where people have lost their lives and there is nothing pleasurable about that.
“It has opened our eyes, at least. We tend to forget, God has not forgotten these people. God was not wringing his hands when the earthquake came. We can’t understand it but this was filtered through his sovereign hand.”
Then Suggs reminded the team they have been part of God’s redeeming work in a tragedy none of us understand. Then he dismissed us to return home tomorrow — forever changed.