Meet Joab

I first met Joab in October of 2010 when I joined a small mission team from my home church for a week in Haiti.  Joab came along on one of our evangelistic, radio-sharing expeditions as a translator.  He's a sharp guy and that's how he picks up a few bucks now and then - he translates Creole to English and English to Creole. 

Joab, flanked by Todd and Steve, in October 2010.

I've kept in long distance contact with him - sporadically - with the help of Facebook.  When I see him next, I will have to ask him exactly how he accesses the internet.  I'm pretty sure we can rule out any mental image of Joab grabbing a mug of coffee before shuffling into the den in his house slippers and robe, sliding into a leather office chair and rolling up to a mahogany computer desk. 

It's a pretty safe bet that's not how it works.

The other day I initiated a chat with him on Facebook.  I hadn't seen him there for a while.  I asked him if he was back home and he replied that he had returned to Haiti in May.  About a year ago, Joab left for job training in Nicaragua.  A South Korean company was planning to build a clothing factory in Cap Haitien with the aid of finances from the U.S. government and other humanitarian sources.  Joab joined about 20 other Haitians who were promised lucrative jobs upon completion of the factory if they would first train at a similar facility in Nicaragua.

In Nicaragua, Joab was paid $100 a month, but he toughed it out in hopes of a good payoff back in Haiti.  Eight months!  Eight months of "training"...

So, of course, I asked, "Are you working now?"

"No."

"What happened?"

It's heartbreaking.  If you knew Joab - and what a sweet and joyful and intelligent man of God he is - the "rest of the story" would anger you ... stir you up.  That's what it did to me.

That lucrative factory job back in Haiti offered all of $300 a month. 

Please understand that $300 in Haiti will buy you much less there than it does in the U.S.  It seems counter intuitive, but Haiti is a very expensive place to live.  Very little food and virtually none of the manufactured goods are locally produced - most things are shipped in from the outside.  And that adds to the cost of most goods.  And $300 was to be the pay for a MONTH of work.

And that month?  It was made up of six day work weeks.  7 to 4 each day with an hour for lunch.  That's $1.50 per hour.

Transportation to and from the factory was going to cost Joab $2 a day.  I did the math - that would remove a full sixth of every paycheck.

Most of what was left of the paycheck would disappear to cover "taxes". 

So Joab's back to freelancing as a translator.  He translates documents between English and Creole, types up the translation, prints it off and sells the pages for $5 apiece.  I'm not sure how steady the work is.  He's 33 and has been dating a young lady for eight years now.  The marriage has been put on perpetual hold because of their lack of employment, but Joab told me they plan to finally tie the knot this October.  Their financial situation is still not secure, but I imagine they have gotten tired of waiting. 

At the end of our conversation, I told him I would be visiting Haiti again in just a couple of weeks (I'll tell you more about that soon) and I would be glad to bring anything he could use.  (He would have never asked for anything without my prompting.)  Here's his wish list ... and I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it with you.  I share it because I would love to have some help in making as much of it as possible a reality:

A new or used laptop.  (He mainly needs a word processing program for his translating work.)
Some shoes.
New shirts for church.
A suit to get married in. (!!)

I don't have his sizes yet, but I will advertise them when I do and see what I can round up before I leave Indiana on the 28th of August.

Oh... one last thing.  The clothing that this South Korean factory produces?  I asked Joab where it gets sold.  Any guesses?

Walmart. Target. Kohls.

All I can picture is all the clothing hanging in my closet - all the great deals - and I wonder how many were produced by folks like Joab...