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Louize had just found out she was pregnant. Like most young women who find out they are going to be a new mom she was excited about her future, but that moment of joy was short-lived. On January 12, 2010 when the earthquake ransacked Haiti, her life changed in a way she never anticipated. As she sat in her home that day, her husband next to her, the earthquake shook their home so violently that it collapsed all around them. Her husband was killed. Louize, only a few weeks pregnant, survived. A few feet one way or the other separated life from death.

Because her parents also died in the earthquake Louize was now alone. She eventually found a tent and camped out in a person’s yard for the next several months. She weathered the rains and the food shortages and political upheaval and gave birth in late summer to a boy she named Ricky. In the truest sense of the term, Louize is a survivor.

Louize’s life started changing for the better a couple of months ago when World Concern built her and her newborn son a very simple house. She told me, “It was a way to re-start my life.” Once in her new home her life stabilized. She started to take pride in her home and before long she added a nice porcelain patio and inside put up curtains and a mosquito net. She very simply states, “I no longer am afraid. I no longer have sadness.” It’s a great story of hope…and therein lies the temptation.

The temptation is to say “problem solved,” but in reality we have only “solved” one segment – housing – of one person’s life. It is significant, but with over one million people in Haiti still living in tents and under tarps the problem is far from solved. What we have now is simply a proven place to begin.

My first blog entry was titled “Strangely Optimistic” which I wrote before leaving for Haiti because I just had a sense that I’d see some of the long needed signs of hope. I have seen them! In fact more than I imagined I would in things like a clear and systematized process through immigration, traffic that is still definitely third world and chaotic but slightly less so, a paved street outside the World Concern office, and a block of Port au Prince that I visited back in March which was purely rubble has now been cleared and replaced by about 11 sturdy and safe homes.

So this coming week I’ll be sharing stories on the radio about this trip. If you listen you’ll hear Louize tell her story, as well as others who I interviewed today. They are uplifting and encouraging stories, and as you hear them you may be tempted to think the job is done. It’s not. It’s really just begun.

The radio-thon season is upon us!  Between September and the end of the year i58:10 Media will facilitate numerous radio-thons for a variety of our clients.  We have already completed two such events in September and I wanted to pass along some of what we’ve learned.
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My most recent trip to Haiti is serving to further sharpen my emerging thoughts on the issues of poverty and how to effectively help anyone ensnared in it.  With our a wealth and knowledge (and by “our” I mean the US but it applies to all developed countries) how do we avoid creating dependency and instead empower a developing people?  How do we retain the dignity of the individual and not run roughshod over their culture?

Haiti has had a problem even before the earthquake.  In fact, this problem is common throughout the developing world because I have seen it in my trips to Africa as well.  The problem seems to be us – the ones, like me, who like quick fixes, and easy answers.  After the earthquake Haiti clearly needed short term help.  But what about now?  Our “help” needs to be much less about giving things to those who are poor and much more about empowering them.  All we do is create a dependency when we do for Haitians what they should be empowered to do for themselves.  We can become the problem – and there are those who say we have!
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