"I Love We"

Within the first two weeks after our arrival in Haiti, a young man named Johnny started hanging out in the grassy area in front of our house with Caleb, offering to swap Creole lessons for English lessons.  Caleb gladly accepted the arrangement.

A few days later, another young man was hanging around the yard - and then later around Cowman as we were busily making preparations in our classrooms for school to start.  He introduced himself as Ruysdael and, honest to goodness, one of the first things he said to me was "You are like a second father to me"!

I have to admit, I was more than a bit suspicious of motives and kept my distance at first.  But along the way I decided that maybe this was one of those divine appointments that pop into one's life from time to time. I didn't encourage the friendship, but I didn't discourage it either.

This was the day before school started and, in typical Haitian style, Ruysdael refused to smile for the camera.

So I made faces and blew raspberries until he cracked a smile.

It turns out that Johnny and Ruysdael are both around 15 and the best of friends as well as longtime next door neighbors in a neighborhood up the hillside a fair way from the mission grounds.  They have a number of things in common: both are lanky, friendly and fairly proficient in English.  They also both lack fathers. 

Over the past month, as I have gotten to know Johnny, Ruysdael and now Ruysdael's cousin Miken, I like them more and more with each visit.  Ruysdael, in particular, has started calling me "Daddy Steve".  So how could I refuse them when they invited us to come visit their homes last weekend.  On the contrary, I was eager to make the hike.  So last Saturday afternoon, Caleb and I walked out the mission gates with our three new friends, trotted along the main road for a little ways and then turned onto a dirt road heading up the mountain.

At one point, they took us off the beaten path and we started squeezing around various cinder block buildings and through metal sheeting corridors.  By the time we reemerged into the open, we were quite a ways up the hillside - where motorcycles were the only vehicles able to navigate the steep incline of the roads and the deep ruts cutting this way and that. 

First stop: Johnny's house, where several young people were enjoying a spot of shade along the outside wall.  We were surprised to find that Johnny has a twin brother ... named John.  And a little brother ... named Johnson.  I'm not kidding.  They offered Caleb and me a couple of chairs and we got all the introductions and even listened to John play a bit of music on the guitar.  Their mother wasn't home but Johnny showed us a colored pencil portrait of her created by John, an excellent artist.  (The drawing is leaning against the house in the pic below.)

A few steps further up the hill took us to Ruysdael's house.  His mother was home and sitting on a bed, looking like the heat was sapping her energy.  We met Ruysdael's siblings too, and I may have the spelling off a bit but I am not making this up: there was his brother, Ruysdaelin, and his sister, Ruysdaeline. 

I'm getting Ruysdael trained to smile for the camera!  This corner of the house was his bed which he shares with his brother.  I noted the TV sitting to the left of his bed and asked its purpose - in a house with no electricity - and he told me that sometimes they have use of a generator.  His mom has a refrigerator in her room, but I guess that it serves to keep food out of the reach of varmints rather than to keep it cool. 

A bit further up the hillside the three boys wanted to show us a shallow stream which provides water for washing, but not for drinking.  Drinking water has to be brought up from town, they said.  There was a huge round boulder up there that made me think of the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I kept my eye on it.

The guys willingly posed for some silhouette pictures with Caleb before we headed back down the hillside.  I was glad they were willing to show us the way back to our house, even though it meant another hike for them.  I was lost. They took us by a different route on the way home, past a historic church building, now in ruins. 

As well as a more modern church building...

Which is not likely to weather time quite as well.

Once we arrived back at our house, Melissa greeted the guys with chocolate chip cookies and some ice water before they headed back again to their own neighborhood. 

The next day the guys weren't ever out in our yard, but Johnny texted me with a message that evening: "Jesus said to him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. say your wife that, and say hello with your children. its johnny good night." I texted back a "thank you" and said that I had missed seeing them that day.

His reply choked me up a bit: "me too. i love we." 

 I didn't know how to respond.

It's starting to feel like maybe it really is Jesus who brought us all together - who else could tie a middle-aged Hoosier and his family together with three teenage Haitian boys?

And I think I'm beginning to love we too.