NIGHTFALL IN CAP-HAITIEN

I remember the first time I was caught after dark in downtown Cap-Haitien, a sprawling Haitian city of a quarter million people. 

I was at a restaurant with my 3 Haitian sons – my treat – and when we came back to my truck, night had fallen. Mikken said to me, “You need to drive as fast as you can.” 

And why is that? 

“You don’t want someone to throw a Coke bottle through your windshield.” 

And why would someone throw a Coke bottle through my windshield? 

“To protest the fact that Cap-Haitien has no working street lights.” 

OK. How is throwing a bottle through MY windshield a protest against the lack of working streetlights? 

“People say, ‘If we had streetlights - if the streets were lit up at night - nobody would dare throw Coke bottles.’”

It kind of made sense to me as it sunk in. The poor of Cap-Haitien had no voice. So they were trying to get the attention of people who had voices - the rich. The fact that I had a truck to drive meant, in their eyes, I was rich. 

They figured I had a voice and some power that they could only tap into by lobbing Coke bottles at me.

I think when Peter, James, and John tell the Apostle Paul that they want him to "continue to remember the poor", it is a recognition that the poor can be forgotten. 

It can be easy to forget what is silent and invisible to us.