The Bigger Picture

To my friends and to the random stranger who may have happened upon this blog, welcome and thank you for clicking! I am writing today to address some of the passions that have developed in my soul over the past three years of our adoption journey. In fact, I can say that currently, nothing stirs up more of a fire in me than the topics I’m about to cover. Please understand that although this may seem like my opinion, it is based strictly on what I have seen, read, and experienced first-hand. I, too had a very different perspective on this years ago. An ignorant perspective. One in which I probably would have easily dismissed such arguments and thought that I was different. But my eyes have since been opened and I feel like I can’t keep it to myself.

Lately, you may have noticed a lot of information regarding research done on the impact of short term mission trips and volunteering in other countries. Or maybe that’s just me since I’ve been diving into the recently published reports! You should know that the only country I’m referring to in this post is Haiti since that is where my experiences have been and where I feel I have the most knowledge to share. I am also speaking solely to Faith-Based Organizations, so take that into consideration as you proceed. I apologize in advance for the length… It’s worth it, so get comfortable J

I would like to start with a few disclaimers that you may want to come back and reference as you make your way through the post. It may help you refocus if something strikes a nerve (don’t let that keep you from reading further!)

1)     Not all volunteer groups do damage, but not all groups are created equal, either.

2)     Not all orphanages are poorly run, but many are considered a business that support the Director’s livelihood. No kids=no money. Remember, too, that kids are easily trafficked, both within orphanages and without. The (complex, long-term investment) solution is keeping families together by creating good, sustainable jobs.

3)     Orphanage Directors aren’t all bad but there are many who are out to maintain the business of running an orphanage, particularly by targeting struggling families and offering a “better life” for their child(ren). Do your research. There’s no excuse for “not knowing”. And don’t blame the orphanage program for your ignorance. They’re technically much smarter than you because they’re capitalizing on your lack of knowledge and understanding.

4)     Yes, it’s true…some families may truly not be able to keep their children because of special needs or they may just choose to abandon them out of mental health issues or selfishness, OR they truly don’t have any living family. But those cases are so rare that it can’t even be a factor you consider as you weigh the pro’s and con’s. There are many organizations and small group homes in Haiti that address these issues. And if you have a heart for those kiddos, find a reputable group (such as The Vertile House) and work within their guidelines to support these children!

5)     You’re probably thinking, “But if I don’t support the orphanage, what will happen to the kids already there?” That’s a valid point, no doubt. But perhaps the best way to approach that is to find organizations, such as Lumos, that are working to reunite children with their biological families and support them moving forward with job skills training, employment opportunities and education. Another option is seeking out a family-model similar to our foster system where children are kept in a family unit or, at the very least, a small group home where their individual needs and development issues can be closely monitored and improved. It’s a double-edged sword and I want it to be very clear that I’m FULLY aware of that. We’re adopting, but with our eyes wide open to the bigger picture. Please know that we struggle with the thought of our adoption supporting the business of an orphanage. Early on in the process, we even looked into reuniting our kids with their biological family and financially supporting them from afar. Sadly, that wasn’t an option as parental rights had already been terminated. Addressing the root of the problem RIGHT NOW is the only way it will get better in the future. Don’t just treat the symptoms that are glaringly obvious and call it good. Dig deeper.

6)     Again, I’m only addressing Haiti. If you work elsewhere and feel that your work is better/different/more impactful/helpful, that’s great. But you should still be asking questions and doing your research. Anytime someone points out that there CAN BE harm done to children by something as simple as holding them and then leaving within the hour, a good human, let alone a Christian, should be given pause to stop and consider all the factors including culture, stigmas, special needs, quality of care, length of time invested, monetary accountability, etc. Educate yourself and put the actual, legitimate needs of these children far before your own.

7)     You should also know that I tend to be very sarcastic. That may rub some people the wrong way and for that, I apologize. But for most of the people in my circles, they speak in sarcasm, too!

I’d like to begin with you envisioning a scenario. I’d tell you to close your eyes, but then you couldn’t read…so, don’t do that. Instead, imagine this: It’s just a normal day at your child’s daycare. Luckily, you got off work early and you’re on your way to surprise them and pick them up early. As you sneak in the door to see their reaction to your early arrival, you see a group of 10 complete strangers playing with the children. They’re not staff. They’re not community helpers. You’ve never seen these people before in your life. Your child is sitting on some stranger's lap as he/she sucks on a lollipop while posing for selfies, completely surrounded by others doing the exact same.

Did you just get chills as your blood began to boil? Because that’s what happens to me every time. Creepy much? And how about that lawsuit? If it isn’t something that we would do here in the United States, or Europe, or any other first-world country, what in the world makes it seem acceptable elsewhere?

We have experienced nearly-this-scenario three times now in only a total of 26 days visiting our kids. My mama bear comes out full-force in these moments. I don’t see Christians spreading the love of Jesus; I see strangers that feel so appreciated and loved by these “poor” kids who have nothing. “Look, he fell asleep on me! Oh my gosh, that’s so sweet!”. “Did you see that? She just ran up to me and climbed in my lap and put her head on my shoulder! It’s so sad…breaks my heart. These babies just need attention.”

And you’re right…they do need attention. From someone that has more than an hour to spare. Someone that doesn’t just pop in, give hugs and toys and 40 minutes later, pops right back out that gate. These kids need to build trust with adults. They need to learn that not all adults leave. They need to realize that someone can meet their basic needs every. single. day. They need people who help them learn to be kids again. They need someone to invest time, energy, unconditional love, and endless amounts of patience into catching them up on the development that has been so badly damaged by trauma. And I know some of you are placing the blame on the orphanage or the nannies. Most of the nannies I know do their very best but they are simply outnumbered. Our kiddos’ nanny is amazing, but she is ONE amazing woman with 20-30 hungry and needy kids under her care. She’s incredible but she can only do so much. This post is not about blame…it’s about preventing even further damage than what’s already been done. We shouldn’t be contributing to the problem or looking backwards for something to blame. That research has already been done, folks. How about we choose to look ahead, remove ourselves as part of the problem and see how we can actually IMPROVE the situation?

What we experienced in Haiti these past two visits has only set fire to my passion for seeing Faith-Based Organizations, in particular, dig deep, do some research and truly re-evaluate their “mission” when they send teams to Haiti. Let me just lay out the three different scenarios that we’ve encountered:

1)     On our first return visit to see our kids (so, post-two-week bonding trip) we flew through Miami, as usual, and the first thing that struck us was the number of white people getting on the plane to Haiti, not to mention their matching shirts. We seriously thought we were at the wrong gate. Our previous trips to Haiti have had about 95% Haitians on-board. Anyways, we arrived in Port au Prince in the morning hours and went straight to the crèche. The kids looked a little stunned to see us but they were happy, nevertheless. We picked them up, fed them some hardboiled eggs and fell right back into the “normal” routine we created on our last two-week trip. Shortly after eating, they both, simultaneously, wanted to go outside. Now, many of you know that this isn’t usually the case with kids. Typically, one wants to stay inside while the other wants to play outside. Pretty normal. But this time they were in agreement so we happily obliged to playing outside as a family. Much to our surprise (but not the kids’) we walked out to a group of about 10 “blans” (foreigners) surrounded by all the orphanage kids. We had already learned that blans typically represent Santa Claus to these kids which is why we avoided bringing toys when we first met our kids.  We wanted interaction and relationship to be the precedent for our first several days together; not toys and stuff. Our approach of bringing activities and things we could do together seems to have worked so far. But to witness the “why” and “how” these mentalities have been developed in these children made me sad and angry. Especially because my brothers and sisters in Christ continue to teach them that their value is worth so little. 

      For those of you that know me, you know that I don’t hide my emotions well, particularly when I am angry or frustrated. As you can imagine, in these moments, my anger was very evident. Forget my sleeve, it was all over my face. Our son tried to walk off with one of the women and I quickly squashed that. But what probably struck me the most was that these kiddos have been programmed time after time, week after week, Summer after Summer. They know the drill: hold the blan’s hand, sit on their lap, sing their songs and dance their dance, listen to a story and finally get what you’ve been waiting for. It’s like behaving all year so you get what you want for Christmas…except you probably only have to wait a few days and there are countless Santas.

      Not only was the story completely un-relatable to children who live in an institution without a single item to their name, it was full of a privileged person’s comparison of health-trials (having a stroke as a very overweight Westerner) to the struggles of these kids. I don’t know how many times I had to turn my head away from their fellow t-shirt-wearer with the video camera to roll my eyes and compose myself. I was embarrassed. For Christians everywhere. This is what we have reduced Christ’s love to? I will say that their analogy of ‘God being like the air in “this” balloon…we can’t see Him but He makes us strong when He lives inside us’ was good. They could have…should have…just left it at that. But once she started crying about her health issues, the kids began to fidget with confusion, looking around at each other and wondering why the white lady was crying. “Are balloons sad? Maybe I don’t want a balloon anymore!?”

      Needless to say, the kids waited out the 15-minute sob-story and were rewarded for their good behavior. Each kid (including the little one and two-year-old’s) were given a long, skinny, balloon-art balloon. Within seconds, it was an orchestra of balloon pops and tears as kids fought and teased each other until there were no balloons left. But then came the bubbles and the jump ropes. Mind you, I ended up taking over the disbursement of these because the kids were swarming, fighting, and screaming over who wanted what. Instead of learning some Kreyol and being able to clearly communicate, it turned into quite hilarious squeals of “Stop that!” “Back up!” “Don’t push!” “Just wait your turn!” and “You already got one!” Once those were passed out and sufficiently destroyed in a matter of minutes, the blans left as quickly as they had arrived…

      I’m just going to throw in here that to make matters even worse and to rile up my mama bear even more, we discovered two days later that our daughter had the nipple of one of those balloons lodged in her nose. She’s 3.5 and everything goes in her mouth…apparently that applies to her nose, too.

2)     Our next visit had fewer white people headed to PAP out of Miami. We chalk that up to redeyes and early morning flights not being easy or convenient for mission trip groups. But I digress…We spent Sunday at the crèche with the kids, again, arriving straight from the airport. Then we ventured to the pool on Monday for a fun, family day away from the hot, mosquito-ridden crèche. On Tuesday, we decided to stay at the crèche again because we hadn’t seen the Director to get her permission for another pool day. As the morning turned hotter, we were again asked by the kids to go outside. This time, we were accompanied by another family on their two- week bonding trip who also happened to have an important meeting for their adoption process that day at the crèche. Sure enough, we walk outside to about 15-20 blans already scooping up babies. Imagine a petting zoo: They are carrying young ones on their shoulders, grinning ear-to-ear for the cameras of their teammates as they document their good deeds of caring for orphans.

I will say that at least one of them was fairly fluent in Kreyol and others did attempt to learn/use some. That was refreshing. But we, again, noticed the same patterns. One of the women tried to grab my sons hand, and I quickly pulled him away, to which he gave a sharp, dirty look over his shoulder. Sorry, not sorry, buddy. I then told him that they’re not his friends, which he didn’t take too well, either. Oh well…such is life and parenting, right? Next came songs and dancing. Most of the older kids were ignored and they sat on the sidelines watching all the babies get the attention, waiting for their chance at a toy.

As opposed to our last encounter, this time I was able to somewhat-kindly express to one of the women who asked if we are always at the crèche that these are our children and that most of these children have families that are just waiting to take them home. She was completely floored by that and also seemed surprised to know that most of them had living parents in Haiti as well. Drew even asked one of the ladies if they were aware of the difference between an orphanage and a crèche and which ones they were visiting. She had no idea.

Not only did I see how disengaged our kids became with us when there were other new and “more interesting” white people around, but we saw how difficult it was for the other family to even walk away from the crowd of blans without their kids losing it. They needed to step away for their important meeting but the fact that their kiddos would miss out on a toy sent them into a spiral. My heart was breaking for them. They navigated it so well and it all worked out in the end. But the Santa Clause invaders hadn’t the slightest clue that they were creating an issue for a family who was attempting to create a healthy attachment with their new children.

3)     Same trip, different day and at the pool, we had another encounter. This time they were just guests at the hotel where we go to swim, but our kids were immediately infatuated with them. I would guess there were maybe 20 or so and our kids just kept staring at them. It’s as if they were waiting for them to break into song and dance and juggle the toys that they MUST carry with them everywhere they go. One of them even started a game of ping pong with my son as I stood RIGHT THERE. As soon as the ball hit the ground, that was the end of that and we walked away.

My children are not souvenirs. They are not alive to contribute to the pleasure of your memories made in Haiti. You don’t know them. You don’t know me. You don’t know their story. They are fragile and have been broken time and again. Please don’t undo what little we have managed to invest in our long-distance relationship as we await our chance to prove all their fears wrong and be a constant source of love, trust, affection, support and care. Research child trauma. There are very accessible resources on the effects of early trauma in children and research shows that the very things we are currently doing to “help” are only deteriorating their mental, emotional, and cognitive development. WHY would we, especially Christians, continue to do it in Jesus’ name?

Can I just say that I also find it a bit absurd that groups feel the need to sport the “Jesus Loves Me” bracelets and “Save Haiti” t-shirts. So, what you’re essentially telling these kids is that Jesus loves me so much that He told me to come here and tell you that He loves you, too. He also wanted me to carry you around, take your picture and make it my new profile photo after I give you some candy and toys. That’s how much He loves you! Never mind the fact that you probably don’t get enough to eat every day…and you’re terrified to attach to an adult because they’ll probably disappear one day, too. All the others have. Also please ignore that you don’t have a single toy or article of clothing to your name, well, except for the tiny bottle of Oriental Trading bubbles that I just handed you which will soon be ripped out of your hand and spilled on the ground. Lastly, it’s really not my concern if you’re the victim of abuse or that you’re developmentally delayed from the early childhood trauma you experienced when your family was most likely convinced that you’d be better off in an orphanage than with them. Those things aren’t why Jesus sent me here. I’m only here to tell you He loves you and sing about it with you. But I can’t stay long because there are so many other kids that I have to tell, too. (Note: Do you think Jesus walked around with a t-shirt that said “You’re Welcome. -Love, The Savior of the World”? I think not. And yet, I can’t think of anyone more deserving of those bragging rights. Still, He remained humble.)

I understand that many of us feel called to share the love of God. It’s part of who we are in our faith and I couldn’t agree more. But simply spending 60 minutes or less at dozens of orphanages over the span of a week and then returning to your comfy, cozy “norm” back home with stories and photos of cute babies doesn’t add up to Christ’s love. Jesus didn’t save us by bringing candy, cuddles and jump ropes so what makes us even believe for a second that the we are “Saving Haiti” by doing so? If your true desire is to share the love of Christ with the people of Haiti, you have to be ready and willing to dig-in for the long haul. The only organizations I have seen truly make a lasting impact are on the ground, investing in the communities they serve and exemplifying the love of Christ in their day to day actions. They create jobs. They provide support for families. They are on a first name basis with the people they serve and they work collaboratively to improve life for those in the community.

One rebuttal to digging deeper into why you should or shouldn’t support an orphanage goes like this: “Well, I support an orphanage because it’s better than being a restavek, starving, trafficked, etc.” My question is when did it become okay for Christians to settle for the “better than” mentality? Christ didn’t settle for that with us when He gave His life for ours. He stood to gain nothing and He still gave us His very best. Why shouldn’t we do the same? We don’t want to get our hands too dirty so we’d prefer to just throw money at a solution. And sometimes that is the ABSOLUTE BEST thing you can do…but only when it’s to a reputable and trustworthy cause. Sometimes it’s hard to identify those causes when you’re not familiar with the culture, country, or people. This is why humanitarian aid has all but destroyed Haiti’s economy. It’s all from well-meaning folks who have nothing but the best intentions. But those good intentions can’t keep the local rice farmer, the lady at the market selling water bottles, or the entire textile industry in business. No one can compete with free. Yes, aid is necessary, particularly after natural disasters. But creating dependency and destroying an entire economy is not. It can be prevented if well-meaning people operate intentionally, invest wisely and maximize their impact with a little research on how to effectively help.

All sarcasm aside, as Christians, we can do better. We should do better. WE MUST DO BETTER. If all I do is sit back and judge, I only contribute to the problem. Instead of getting defensive or presuming that you are the exception, I challenge you to do some research like I have. Watch Poverty Inc. with eyes wide open. Read “When Helping Hurts”. Follow blogs of individuals already working on the ground. Dig into the history of Haiti and learn how that still applies to this day and age. Research the effects of early trauma on children. Find reputable organizations that support keeping families together like Lumos or the Colorado Haiti Project. Buy Artisan goods from Papillon, Deux Mains, 2nd Story Goods (and many more) which support healthy family dynamics and create jobs while advocating for orphan prevention. Better yet, become a rep for Trades of Hope or something similar that supports multiple artisan groups around the world. Sign up to be a monthly donor for Espwa Berlancia where your funding helps severely malnourished children recover while their parents are given the support and training needed to keep their families strong and healthy in the future. Help fight human trafficking both here and abroad. Find your voice. Find your passion. Whatever you desire to see change, get behind it, get involved and do it with an open heart, a teachable spirit, and an eagerness to learn and improve yourself and those impacted by the work. Seek to work yourself out of a job.

We can do it. I KNOW WE CAN. One foot in front of the other. It’s not simple. There’s not a clear-cut, simple solution but we simply must do better by these people that God loves. Let’s erase the negative views that many (including myself) have developed of Christians and their “short-term missions” and replace it with an intentional, long-term investment in the least of these. We are called to share the love of Christ…let’s join hands with our brothers and sisters throughout the world and share it well.

Thank you for visiting and reading! In the comments, I would love to hear what you have seen work and what you have seen cause more harm. Share organizations you support or have a passion for as well as those you may feel cautious about. Tell us how this post has opened your eyes or helped you rethink intentions vs. impact. Also let us know some great resources that have impacted your take on international aid and development. I’m always looking to expand my horizons and learn from others!