TOYS

In recent weeks, instead of making laps around the mission grounds, I have been getting my exercise by jogging through local neighborhoods. It gets me outside the walls of the mission grounds and, now and then, a bit of practice in conversational Creole. I always have my phone along – in case of emergency, yes, but mostly for taking photos. For whatever reason, lately many of my favorite photo opportunities on these runs have involved homemade toys.Here’s a soccer goal just across the street from the mission. For perspective, you need to know that Haitian goals tend to be about a tenth of the size of American goals. This one is maybe two feet tall and a foot and a half deep. The “net” is an old t-shirt ripped open wide and anchored with a couple of rocks:

On this past New Year’s Day I came across this little guy and his kite made of a black plastic grocery bag stretched over a couple of sticks.

The kite photo reminds me of another I took on a walk up the hillside toward Johnny and Ruysdael’s neighborhood about a year ago, when I came across a little boy dragging a toy car on a string.Only the car wasn’t molded plastic mass-produced in China, it was an empty motor oil bottle with bottle cap wheels:

I don’t know what anyone else might see in this photo, but to me it is not an image of  the ugliness of Haiti’s poverty so much as it is an image of the beauty of human ingenuity and childlike imagination. I don’t feel pity for this little guy – I feel admiration.Likewise for the little boy or girl who sacrificed the waistband of a pair of Hanes underwear to make this slingshot:

“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for a man’s life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Then, Jesus proceeds to tell a parable of a rich man who kicks back in self-satisfaction after building bigger and better barns to contain his crops only to find it is his last night on earth. Jesus concludes, “this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (v 21). 

I’m not sure if it could be said of us first world Christians that we are “on our guard” against ANY kind of greed, much less ALL kinds. And it’s tough because American culture encourages all kinds of greed non-stop. Hour by hour, millions of radios, billboards, television sets and computer screens remind us of things we don’t currently have … but how we really, really need them. Immediately! As I finish writing this post, America is gearing up to watch the Super Bowl, famous for its multi-million dollar 30-second advertisements. Who would pay so much for such commercials if they weren’t effective?

(As a side note, I don’t think my family will be able to watch the Super Bowl here – except maybe the football parts without the commercials … and then what’s the point. I have long considered this to be one of the many blessings of raising our kids in Haiti – the relative scarcity of media choices. For example, if you want to see for yourself how utterly different and simply beautiful the Christmas season can be without commercials and all the extra glitter, schedule a trip to come visit us next December! Seriously.)

I asked if I could get a photo of their game, but what really stands out in this photo, to my eye, is the joy.

“He who has God and everything else has no more 

than he who has God only.”

– C. S. Lewis

* Please don’t misunderstand my point. I am very well aware there is a poverty that destroys lives, crushes hope and swallows individuals and whole families in great and persistent suffering: no money to put the kids in school, no money to see a doctor, no money to buy food for the table, and no money to provide safe shelter overhead. And no way to get that necessary money. The believer’s basic duty to live out a faith that combats both physical and spiritual poverty is what motivates our ministry here.