Like many American Christians these days, I’ve been on a number of short term mission trips and consequently have seen a lot of poverty. But two mission trips stand out in my mind mainly because they took place within a year of each other and because they clearly illustrate two very different kinds of poverty – and wealth.
The first mission trip I’m thinking of was to Cap-Haitien on the northern coast of Haiti. It took place about twenty-five years ago, so it was before the catastrophic earthquake that struck the country in January of 2010. But even then the vast majority of people in Cap-Hatien lived in grinding poverty.
We flew into Cap-Haitien International Airport on a rickety old DC-3. It had been owned by JFK’s father, our host missionary told us. (A few years later I read that it crashed while on another mission trip to Haiti.) Cap-Haitien International Airport was even ricketier than the plane. The terminal was actually a veranda that might pass for a patio overhang in the States.
On the way to the mission compound from the airport, I was assigned to ride spreadeagled on top of the baggage in the back of the truck. My job was to ward off thieves when we stopped at red lights. After a harrowing ride, we arrived at the gate of the compound. It was guarded by a Haitian who had risked his life saving our missionary host from a mob during the latest rebellion. “I gave him a raise after that,” the missionary told us.
The compound itself had a tall brick wall surrounding it. The wall encompassed a soccer field, the missionary’s home, a dorm for housing short term missionaries like us, and a few outhouses. At night, we would sleep in the dorm. But while we were away during the day, the dorm also served as a clinic for local Haitians. It was surrounded by a large covered porch and since medical treatment was in short supply, Haitians in need of care began lining up on that porch at two in the morning. The problem was the windows along the porch were comprised of bricks with large holes in them for circulating air. That meant we had to sleep with dozens of locals watching us through windows all night.
I could go on and on about the poverty in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. But in one sense, Cap-Haitien was extremely wealthy and I didn’t realize it until the first Sunday morning I was there.
We were on our way to the church we would be ministering in and I began to notice how many churches we were passing. “Cap-Haitien has a lot of churches!” I thought to myself. And then I noticed something else. All the churches we passed were packed with worshipers. In fact, they were so full that people were standing outside at the open windows and doors of these churches and listening intently. This wasn’t just one church. It was church after church after church.
When we got to our particular church, which was also packed, I noticed something else: there were families everywhere. Lots and lots of families. And these people were happy. Here they were, dirt poor, but they had intact families and they were happy.
So that is a thumbnail sketch of my trip to Cap-Haitien, Haiti: physical poverty, but spiritual and social wealth. The next year, I went on another mission trip and it was very, very different.
This mission trip was to a small remote town of Native Americans in northern Alberta, Canada. (Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the name of the town.) There were no roads leading into the town. Instead, after flying into Edmonton, we had to make another two hour flight in a small bush plane to get there.
The history of this town is fascinating. It’s completely populated by a group of Indians who grew tired of living off welfare on a reservation. So they decided to leave the reservation and strike out to the north and live off the land, just like in old times. They were fairly successful until the government decided to build a dam on the large lake they had settled by. As a result, the dam raised the level of the lake, melting the permafrost. The melting permafrost collapsed into the lake, contaminating it with silt. The silt drove off the wildlife in the area and made it impossible for the Indians to continue their lifestyle.
The government “solved” the problem by settling these native Americans in the town we were visiting and by providing absolutely everything they needed: housing, medial care, food and fresh water. It even built a massive hockey rink to keep the kids in the community occupied.
So here we were in a situation that was exactly the opposite of the one we saw in Haiti. Instead of massive poverty, we were in a community that, while definitely not rich, had all their basic needs provided for them.
What, then, was the result?
The result can be summarized with one word: depressing. Very, very depressing. The town had one church and that church had perhaps two dozen people attending it. A huge percentage of the population were alcoholics, the family structure in the community was almost non-existent, and the suicide rate was sky high.
After going on these two mission trips and comparing what I saw, I asked myself where I would rather live, Cap-Haitien, Haiti, with its terrible poverty, or the Indian town in Alberta, Canada, where I could have all my physical needs met. Hands down I decided it would be Cap-Haitien, Haiti. And I still feel that way.
Now I don’t want to glamorize poverty. Hunger, malnourishment, disease, lack of access to education and all the rest are terrible things. But there is a poverty of the soul and spirit that can rob a people of any purpose for living. And there is a wealth of the soul and spirit that can give a people courage to face even the most dreadful conditions.
And that wealth comes from Jesus Christ.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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