Update on Konekte/Pinchinat

I went back to Pinchinat for the first time since being on furlough a few days ago. We've been out of diapers (but many more are coming next week!) and we also received a letter saying that another organization was now in charge of running all the programs in the camps so if we wanted to continue our program we had to go through them to get approval. But I was there for a reason unrelated to diaper distribution. And it hit me once again that there are still thousands of families in tents. In many cases, they've lived in the SAME tent (or 1/8th of a tent as is the case in Pinchinat) for over a year. Each family is partitioned off by a sheet or a tarp or whatever they have to separate them from their (very close) neighbors. Can you imagine your family sharing a tent with SEVEN OTHER FAMILIES for OVER A YEAR?! I can't. I mean I can imagine that it happens because I've seen it happening now for quite some time. But I can't imagine that I could make it in conditions like that.

Now, in Pinchinat, there are tents inside of tents. In a lot of the little spots that each family has been allocated you will see a small pop up tent INSIDE of the big army tent. The army tents are so old that they are ripped and no longer waterproof, so people have started trying to find tents once again to put inside the tents to keep dry. I remember being in the tents (just the army ones) last summer. It was so blisteringly hot that you felt like you couldn't breathe. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say it was at least 120F. No circulation. All the people covered in heat rash. I can't imagine the temperatures of the tents inside of tents. (This year I am going to bring a thermometer in to measure actual temperatures.) "They say" (whoever they is) that 250 more families are going to be moved into houses soon and that the remaining ones will get new tents.

I say, "We'll see."


I was reminded once again that the people living in Pinchinat were the reason that we started Konekte. Then, because the pregnant women and children mostly got moved to Bwa Vital, Konekte activities began focusing more on Bwa Vital because that's where there were the most babies. But since then more people have become pregnant and have babies in Pinchinat. And the need for help with the babies and children there (Pinchinat) is again more pressing and probably where we need to focus more since the sanitation/drainage/EVERYTHING! situation is so bad. Bwa Vital is like the Ritz compared to Pinchinat.

If you're the praying type, please be praying for a meeting I have on Monday morning with this group that oversees Jacmel camps. I don't know if diaper distribution in any of the camps will be permitted to continue. I want to be of service to these families. I see a gap and a way to help in a significant (though admittedly small compared to the need) way.

This last picture here really hit me. When I was there I didn't see it, but when I was looking at the pictures on my computer I saw the peach house in the background. I thought this was a good picture of the situation in Haiti. (Not just now, but throughout history.) There's this beautiful rich-person-house overlooking an IDP camp. Or more likely, before douz janvye, (January 12), a slum. Haiti is like that. You might have someone really, really rich living next to someone really, really poor. Or actually it's more likely a lot of really, really poor people.


I am not stupid. I know that I am one of the rich people here. This is not a judgment call on the rich people. Or maybe it is. I don't know. But if it is, I am included.

How, OH HOW, can we be more intentional about spreading around resources?

Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven...