Haiti's Beautiful People

I promised yesterday to tell you about Vinnie and Calvin. I want to add one other, and I'll begin with her.

When I went to Haiti the first time, one of the first persons I met was my now much-loved friend, Maude Hyppolite. Maude is a lovely, well-educated tiny woman who is pastor of seven churches and District Superintendent of the Miragoane District. She is also the person into whose care all mission teams in the Petite Goave are entrusted. She, with a limited staff, manages the Mission House and takes extremely good care of all of us.

Pastor Maude, as most people call her, is about 15 years younger than I am, grew up and was educated in Port au Prince. For many years she was a teacher and headmistress of a school. During her time at the school, she began to sense God's call on her life. She left her school, moved to Jamaica, and went back to school for further graduate study--this time to Seminary. A few years later she was one of the only--possibly the only--woman serving as pastor of churches in the Haiti Methodist Church. Women seldom rise to such important roles in Haiti, and it was doubly surprising when she was made a District Superintendent.

She has one church that is near her home, but most of them are in distant rural places, often high on the top of some mountain range. Maude carefully attends to the needs of all those entrusted to her as their shepherd. I love going about the community with her, for people stop our car on the street to tell her about some person who is sick, or a baby born, or some other bit of news in one of her many churches. When she pulls our car over to the curb, blows the horn, someone always come out to answer her questions about some person for whom she has been praying.

I love to be with her when she prays. Her words are filled with respect as she speaks to her Lord, but they are also extremely personal. There is no question that she is talking to someone she knows. I have at times been embarrassed, feeling as if i were eavesdropping on a private conversation.

Maude has a decided limp, the result of a childhood illness that I assume was polio. But nothing slows her down. When a missionary from Texas was injured in the recent quake, she walked miles to get help from the nearest medical facility.

She loves to laugh, carries two phones with her at all times, can barely see over the steering wheel of her car, and seldom slows much during her busy day. She never married.

You have to know her in order to understand about the other two whom I have promised to introduce. Maude's sister found Vinnie somewhere in rural Haiti, and she brought her to the city to live with her and go to school (with, of course, Vinnie's parents approval). Vinnie was long past the usual six years for beginning school, but she started just the same, proving that she was as smart as her benefactor had expected. When Maude's sister came with her husband to the U.S., Vinnie would have had to go back to the country, but Maude took her to live with her in the Mission House.

Vinnie is a beautiful girl, twenty-five years old, who now has two more years of high school to earn her diploma. She has a wonderful smile, loves to dress up in genes and sling heel shoes. quickly and freely smiles. She works without complaint to make all missionaries comfortable, seeing that we have our much-needed coffee every morning early, cooking things that she recognizes we enjoy, and making every effort to make the table and the food presentation attractive with a very limited amount of options in both food and utensils.

Last year someone gave me some money to buy something for Vinnie, and we purchased a pair of goats to be sent to her father in the country to begin a small business for her. She was pleased with the gift, but being a typical girl, she is most excited when we bring her gifts such as costume jewelry, or a denim skirt, or a cute blouse.

I'm going to investigate the possibility of getting a visa for her to come to the U.S. for a visit with Maude this summer. That will not be easy because she is not Maude's child. She can get a passport easily but a visa is another problem.

Then there's Calvin, who also lives at the Mission House. Calvin is the son of a young woman who sometimes helps Maude at the house. His mother cannot care for him, and Maude wants him to be educated. He is a handsome ten year old boy, much lighter skin than most of the Haitians, huge brown eyes, and a smile that would melt any heart. He has beautiful manners, understands more English than he will admit, and is most appreciative of anything we take to him. I have watched him play, and he is imaginative, creating toys from twigs, socks, or whatever is at hand.

Maude is careful to see that Calvin is regularly in school, and he is progressing as expected according to his age. She also wants to be able to bring him to the U.S., but a visa for him will be as difficult to obtain as the one for Vinnie.

There are teachers and children at the school in Carrenage whom I know, love, and look forward to seeing each time I go. But these are the three who are most precious to me. These are three who show me what Haitians at their best are like. They are beautiful, giving, loving, unselfish people. They are my Haitian family in my Haitian home, the Mission House.

Please pray for Maude, Vinnie, and Calvin this spring and summer, that they will be safe when the storms come until we can get the house repaired for them to return to the safety of their home.