Sex, Family, and Faith in Haiti

40 Days until the Big Move!

Family and Friends,

(parents...this post is not appropriate for children to read)

I've been thinking about sex a lot lately.  Okay, all the women reading this are saying, "Duh, you're a guy."  But it is not what you think...I'm talking about the problems associated with sex in Haiti...broken marriages and families, rampant molestation of children, sexually-transmitted diseases, and the lower status of women and the subsequent promiscuity associated with their socially-reinforced (and sometimes even Church-reinforced) inability to say "no."    These are issues that God seems to be asking me to think and pray about more and more lately.   Will you join me?  If so read on...

Everyone is affected by the sexually-charged atmosphere in Haiti...even missionaries.  Pam, our ministry director, knows many missionaries who have succumbed to these temptations and fallen into the same destructive patterns that are hurting so many Haitians.  Isn't it amazingly sad how Satan has a way of turning around God's greatest blessings and perverting them into our biggest problems?  Sex, family, and faith are all great gifts from God when enjoyed in the right context.  But when they become broken and distorted both individually and collectively they can destroy us, and that is happening in Haiti.

I've been thinking of two particular examples that came to light on the last trip to Haiti...

In the orphanage most of the kids have been taken out of very difficult situations.  I won't reveal the names of the two kids I am thinking about at this moment, but we recently became aware that they were sexually molested before coming to the orphanage.  One of the boys was even force to have sex with other children for the enjoyment of the adults who "cared" for him.  How sad.  Thinking this was normal, he asked the staff in the orphanage whether he could have sex with some of the other kids.  We had to explain to him that this is not appropriate and God has a better plan.  Poor kid.  Pam consulted a child-psychologist in Sioux Falls who assured her that these children will be able to recover from these tragedies in their lives if they are consistently taught the right way, raised in an atmosphere of apropriate love and affection, and not given the opportunities to act out what they were taught in the past.

Another example is a clinic we had a chance to visit near Les Cayes.  This clinic is run by a wonderful family of American missionaries, and they are doing great things down there on the beach where they live and work.  Specifically, there is a big festival in August where the party goes on for days and days.  Accross the street from their home is a nasty motel and in the next lot is an abandoned house.  Both of these establishments were full of dozens of prostitutes and hundreds of customers during the festival.  So the American missionaries opened up their doors and offered free health care to the prostitutes.  Many of these women had AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases.  Helping them medically and telling them about Jesus were both very challenging, and the whole experience opened up a lot of issues about how to best help people in those situations make deep, life-altering changes.

These both seem like extreme examples, but are they really?  It seems like these life situations are more the norm than the exception in Haiti.  Everywhere you look you see one-parent (or no-parent) homes, pregnant teens, neglected and abused children, and all of the other issues that come up when sex gets distorted.  And to make things worse, the church remains silent about social issues and tends to shame and ostricize the abused more than the abuser.

People will sometimes ask us, "What is the biggest problem in Haiti?  Is it the corrupt government?  Is it the lack of natural resources?  Is it the poor quality of education and healthcare?  Is it the lack of jobs and business opportunities?"  Well, it is all of those things working together to keep the vicious cycle going.  Is it possible to fix one without fixing them all?  For example, if you poured money into the country and the government was corrupt, would it do any good?  In the same way, if you set up a quality government, but there was no income to tax and keep programs going, would that strategy work?  Where do you start fixing things?

The same is true with sex, family, and faith in Haiti.  They are all very broken right now, and they work together to further distort one another.  The Church, the broken families, and the sexually-deviant culture have all created a destructive cycle of their own and it is hard to know where to start to fix things.  And I would go so far as to argue that this situation is hurting the people even  more than the corrupt government, the terrible economy, and the lack of natural resources.

But God always has a way of bringing hope to the situation.  For the past 15 years Mike and Pam has been investing in the lives of about 10 young men and women who are the core members of the youth group today, and they have been taught an exciting vision of becoming godly adults who become faithful and loving spouses and parents.  Now it is our privilege as a family to walk with them into their 20s and help them live this vision out and stay on the path of following God's plan for sex, family, and faith.  If they remain true and live out this calling, I truly believe it will inspire and impact the little village of Ti-Rivier in life-changing ways, and maybe several dozen younger teens will follow this core group of 20-somethings, and maybe hundreds of little kids watching all of them will catch the vision one day as well.

Join us in praying for such an amazing transformation in Haitian culture!  Join us in reclaiming God's wonderful gifts of sex, family, and faith for their proper use.  Please spend a little time thinking about sex today...and praying for the young men and women of Haiti!

MAY GOD BLESS YOU WITH AN ADVENTURE TODAY!

-The Grimms