Every Wednesday afternoon, the path leading to Karura Community Chapel is flanked by dozens of men, women, and children seated on the grass and on tree stumps, waiting for the church gates to unlock and swing open.  They are the same people who were here last week and the weeks before, and although we don’t speak the same language, I’ve come to know them.

Rain or shine, they walk from the nearby slums of Haruma and Githogoro for Karura’s Dorcas Ministry, an outreach program that provides pastoral care, clothing donations, and free unga (corn flour), the staple food of Kenya’s impoverished and disadvantaged.

Since my arrival in June, I’ve been volunteering my time to help greet people and distribute the small bags of food.  In an effort to get to know them better, and maybe put a smile on their faces, World Next Door director Barry Rodriguez, visiting photographer Jason Lavengood, and I offered to take their portraits after the service one Wednesday.  In return, we’d give them a copy to take home with them the following week.  People lined up, some of them more than once.

These are the faces of Karura’s Dorcas Ministry:

From March 28-April 2, 2011, I had the opportunity to spend time with Nehemiah Vision Ministries, WND’s partner organization in the village of Chambrun, Haiti.  My goal for the trip was simple: secure more sponsors for NVM’s amazing child-sponsorship program.

One of the most memorable moments of the trip was when I met my own sponsored child, six year old Chené Estrame, and gave him his very first Tonka truck.  Never before have I felt so sure that a financial investment would reap such incredible rewards in the life of another.

I also had the opportunity to catch up with our friends, the Elliotts (an American family living in Haiti for the year) and to spend time with baby Rosmelie, the once-malnourished child I met during my last trip to the country.

Samira Jean, one of the many children given an education because of NVM’s child-sponsorship program.

All in all, despite how short the trip was, it was an experience I won’t soon forget.

So read on!   And see how you can change the life of a child forever…

Back to Haiti!

It’s time to catch up with our friends and partners in Port-au-Prince!

Click here to read this travel journal…

Amazing Growth

The village of Chambrun is being transformed… and you and I can be a part of it!

Click here to read this article…

Jumping In

I have never seen such a small gift mean so much…

Click here to read this article…

Photo Gallery: The One Thing

Nehemiah Vision Ministries needs just one thing to break the cycle of poverty in Chambrun…

Click here to see this photo gallery…

World Next Door Uncut – Episode 9

In this episode, meet the sponsored child that completely stole my heart!

Click here to read this article…

Pushing Ahead

Although their first four months have been rough, God is using the Elliotts in some amazing ways!

Click here to read this travel journal…

Coming to Life

How did one baby’s story touch the life of an entire village?

Click here to read this article…

A Quick Fix?

When a popular TV show host visited Haiti, he learned a lesson that is valuable for us all…

Click here to read this article…

Well, my time in Haiti is over.  Although it was a very short trip, it was truly a fantastic one!  While I was there I got to dive deep into Nehemiah Vision Ministries’ child sponsorship program and spend a lot of time with the wonderful people of Chambrun.

I am thrilled to announce that, as of the writing of this article, we have helped to secure 15 new sponsors for NVM!  Because these 15 families, groups and individuals are willing to support children in Chambrun, the readers of World Next Door are playing a significant role in the transformation of that community.

Poverty is not something that can be fixed quickly!

Now, our goal remains 25 sponsors, and I will continue to push for new ones whenever I have a chance. But before we bring the articles for this trip to a close, I want to share with you one final perspective I found fascinating on this trip…

Good Intentions

Please take a moment to watch this clip from a TV show called No Reservations (if you are really strapped for time, watch only the second half).  In the show, Anthony Bordain, a chef and travel writer, visits post-earthquake Haiti to sample some of the country’s cuisine.

What he accidentally discovers through an act of good-will is just how complex and difficult aid and development can be.

First of all, props to Mr. Bourdain for being so honest about the results of his actions.  Many Westerners insist on believing that everything they do is helping, rather than hurting.  It took quite a bit of humility to admit that his plan backfired!

But what he learned in going for the “quick-fix” was an extremely important lesson… there is no easy way to bring about change in Haiti.

Long Haulers

Because of NVM, this child has a future…

This, my friends, is why I am so impressed with the work of Nehemiah Vision Ministries.

They are not working for a “quick fix.”  In fact, most of the things NVM is doing in the village of Chambrun won’t bear real fruit for many years.

But they are not in it for instant, feel-good results.  Pastor Esperandieu and his team are “long-haulers.”  They are not doing relief. They are doing development.

Instead of simply handing out food or money, they are providing a generation of children a quality education.  Instead of coming in to do a couple of major evangelistic events, they are painstakingly building a congregation with its roots deep in the village community.  Instead of simply bandaging wounds and handing out painkillers, they are educating the people of Chambrun about how to stay healthy in the first place.

You get the picture.

Very little of what NVM does looks great on a spreadsheet.  Board meetings aren’t accompanied by skyrocketing graphs.

But although the children of Chambrun aren’t much better off now for knowing geography and long division, when they grow into adults they will be equipped to work and earn a living in ways their parents could have never dreamed.

Think About It

This is why I am excited about child sponsorships.  Instead of pouring our money into an endless string of “quick-fixes,” we now have the opportunity to invest in a ministry that is truly in it for the long-haul!

Are you willing to be a part of the development of Chambrun?

So think about it.  If you haven’t already, take a look at the many children in Chambrun that are still awaiting sponsors by clicking here.

Pray and consider… Are you being called to invest in the work of NVM?

———-

Anthony Bordain learned the hard way that there is no easy answer to the poverty of a country like Haiti.  But I wonder… How would his perspective have changed if he’d eaten rice and beans with the kids of Nehemiah Vision Ministries?

It wouldn’t exactly be gourmet cuisine, but I guarantee you of one thing… it would be a meal he’d never forget!

I walked through the dusty village looking down at the baby toddling in front of me.  She held on to my fingers for support, but otherwise charged ahead as if I wasn’t even there.

Rosmelie, trying really hard to walk on her own!

An infant-sized “onesie” was hanging off her tiny shoulders, unbuttoned at the bottom to make a kind of skirt (a common outfit for babies in the impoverished village of Chambrun, where buying new clothes every month is out of the question).

As the one-year old looked down to see the rock she had just stepped on, one of the pre-teen girls from the village ran up and swept the baby into her arms.  Cooing baby talk in Creole, she turned the baby around.

I looked at her chubby cheeks and into her beautiful brown eyes, hardly able to believe that she was the same baby I had met just six months before.  But she was…

The baby was Rosmelie.

Kacie with baby Rosmelie.

A Life That Was Saved

I first wrote about Rosmelie during my last trip to Haiti in September.  At the time, she was a malnourished and dying six-month old who had been essentially abandoned by her mother.  However, because of the work of Nehemiah Vision Ministries, Rosmelie’s life was saved.

Today, Rosmelie is an energetic one year-old, learning to stand on her own and just about ready to walk.  She has developed quite a sense of humor, too, and thinks it’s hilarious when people blow on her face.  Although she is still very tiny for her age, Rose is developing extremely well!

As I spent time in Chambrun writing about NVM’s incredible child sponsorship program, I got to play with and love on little Rosmelie quite a bit.  Needless to say, I absolutely fell in love with the little punkin’!

Hard Work

Much of Rosmelie’s survival can be attributed to the work of two volunteer nurses working in NVM’s medical clinic, Aubree Dell and Kacie Davis.  When they first discovered Rosmelie, starving and half-dead, they dedicated enormous amounts of time, energy and patience to nurse her back to health.

For the women of Chambrun, there is still a lot that needs to be learned.

Over the following six months, they worked hard to educate Rosmelie’s mother (as well as the many other young mothers in that part of the village) about proper nutrition and children’s health.

This was no easy task, as there are many misconceptions about child-rearing in the village.  One day, Kacie told me, she was laughed at by the women in the village for suggesting that babies shouldn’t eat solid foods when they are only one month old.

Complicated

Making things even more complicated, about a month after I wrote my first article, Rosmelie’s mother changed her mind again and decided that she didn’t want to care for the baby after all.  Once again, she abandoned little Rose and simply left her lying in a hut, helpless and alone.

Thankfully, Rosmelie’s aunt found her in time and decided to care for the baby herself, something she has been doing faithfully ever since.  Rosmelie’s mother continues to visit from time to time, often showing a genuine interest in caring for the baby, but then inevitably leaves the village for three or four days at a time.

Aubree and Rosmelie in the village.

So yeah… it’s complicated.

Respect

Nevertheless, Rosmelie continues to grow and develop.  Kacie and Aubree continue to love and care for her.

And as a result of their regular presence in that part of the village (checking up on Rosmelie, bringing cans of formula for her aunt, teaching the mothers about health, etc.), the two nurses have become a recognized part of that community.  Just two months ago, Kacie was asked to become the godmother for a newborn baby!

As they have grown closer to the families there, Aubree and Kacie have earned a lot of respect and are even in positions of authority that they never could have been in before…

“What are you doing? You need to go to the clinic first thing tomorrow and get that checked out!”

“Actually it’s better if you don’t let the babies share bottles.”

“What is this, flour? Yeah, you really should try to give her more milk.”

It may not seem very significant to Kacie and Aubree, but those two nurses are helping to bring about some incredible social change in Chambrun.  Living simply and using the gifts that God has given them, they are playing an important part in the restoration of an entire community…

Working for the Good

As Rosmelie continues to mature and as her body continues to grow, it’s amazing to think about how far things have come in just six months.

Thanks to NVM, Chambrun is coming alive!

Under normal circumstances, a baby in Rosmelie’s position would have simply passed away unnoticed; another statistic in a deeply impoverished nation.  But because Nehemiah Vision Ministries was there, not only has one baby been saved, but an entire generation of children can now have hope for bright futures!

Romans 8:28 is really starting to make sense to me now:  “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

The story began with a baby close to death.  But because God’s kingdom is at work in Chambrun, an entire village is now coming to life!

What an incredible trip this has been.  In just six days we have secured 14 of the 25 sponsors we are hoping for!  Just a few more to go before we meet our goal!

In the meantime, I would like for you to meet Chené, the child I’ve begun sponsoring through Nehemiah Vision Ministries.  Although he is a bit shy on camera, he is one of the sweetest little six year old boys I’ve ever met!

Little Chené, who will now begin school in the fall!

Although this episode is shorter than usual, my hope is that it once again gives you a glimpse into what life is really like in the World Next Door…

Episode 9 Footnotes

• As I mentioned in the video, Kacie Davis is holding the camera.  You can meet her and Aubree Dell in the first episode of WND Uncut by clicking here.  
• Yes, that is a baby goat in the background.  Dawwwww….
• Sorry for getting so distracted around 1:20. Kids were all over the place and it was a bit tough staying focused!
• Check out the Next Steps below to see how easy it is to sponsor a child with NVM!
• Tune in next time for Episode 10, in that episode we’ll be reporting from Jerusalem!

Nehemiah Vision Ministries needs just one thing to break the cycle of poverty in Chambrun…

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Sponsor a child today!

“You! You!”  A group of preschoolers ran up to me trying to get my attention.  They had seen my camera and wanted their picture taken.

As I started snapping a few photos, one of the older kids shook my hand and asked in English, “What… is… your… name?”

I answered, “My name is Barry.”

“Beh-wee?” He asked.

I laughed and said, “Close enough!”

Amazing Growth

It was my first full day back in Haiti.  I spent the morning wandering around Nehemiah Vision Ministries’ campus to see what was new.  I had only been here for a few hours, but already I was blown away.

Since my last visit in September, NVM has completed two dormitories for volunteers, finished two homes for long-term staff, and built a giant warehouse out of old shipping containers.  They have raised walls on the hospital foundations and even broken ground on their new children’s home (raising their capacity to care for orphans from 8 children to 64!).

To say that I was impressed would be an understatement.  As I walked past the nearly finished volunteer shower building and heard stats on the number of chickens NVM was raising (yep, they’ve started an egg-selling microfinance initiative!), it was clear to me that God is working here in some big ways.

The new men’s and women’s dorms on NVM’s campus.

But as I sat on a bench surrounded by adorable preschoolers waiting to see their pictures on my camera, one final sign of growth struck me as the most important: there are way more kids in NVM’s school than I ever remembered before…

Humble Beginnings

As I’ve written on past trips, Nehemiah Vision Ministries began in 2005 after Pastor Esperandieu Pierre and his wife Dianne stumbled across the impoverished village of Chambrun while on an afternoon drive.

As they drove between the mud huts looking for a way back to the main road, they were overwhelmed by what they saw: thirteen year old girls breastfeeding their babies, children with distended bellies and orange hair (a sign of nutrient deficiency), uneducated and unemployed men sitting under trees… Some of the worst poverty they had ever seen in their country.

Unable to shake the conviction that they needed to help somehow, Esperandieu and Dianne began Nehemiah Vision Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping the people of Chambrun pull themselves out of poverty.

A few of NVM’s adorable preschoolers!

Realizing that a lack of education was one of the primary causes of Chambrun’s poverty, they began an elementary school for around 25 children.  Their plan was to add a new class of preschoolers each time they moved the previous class up a grade.

Today

Today that school has grown to 377 students.  This year’s preschool class alone has nearly 100 kids!

This is what astounded me the most as I sat there on that bench.  Surrounding me was an entire generation of children from Chambrun (and now, other nearby villages) who are being given the tools they need to break the cycle of poverty forever.

But educating so many children is not free.  Although NVM creates ownership by charging very modest school fees to parents, they still require significant financial support to keep so many kids in school.  Qualified teachers need to be paid, books need to be purchased and hot meals need to be cooked (for many kids at NVM, their school lunch is often the only meal they get during the day).

You and I

That’s where you and I come in.  Nehemiah Vision Ministries has a fantastic child sponsorship program that makes it easy for us to directly support a child from Chambrun.  For just $40 a month, we can cover every part of a child’s education here.  Books, meals, healthcare… all of it.

One of NVM’s preschool teachers hard at work.

Right now, there are still 175 children here in need of sponsors.  Some are preschoolers, just starting out.  Others are teens, needing simply a little push to finish strong.

But here’s the thing.  Unlike a lot of great causes to which you might write a check and hope for the best, NVM’s child sponsorships keep you involved directly in the life of the child you are helping.

When you sign up to sponsor a child, you will receive a packet with all sorts of info about him/her, about NVM and about Haiti in general.  As your sponsored child grows and develops, you will be able to stay in touch with letters and periodic updates.  You can send small gifts and even, should you so desire, come to visit him/her yourself!

Unforgettable

I just started sponsoring a six year old boy and got to hand deliver his very first Tonka truck this afternoon.  Believe me when I say that it was an unforgettable experience (more on that in my next article).

There are still many children waiting to be sponsored. Will you answer the call?

My goal for this short visit to Haiti is to secure 25 new child sponsorships for NVM.  As of the writing of this article, we’ve got 3 lined up already.

Will you be one of the next 22?

Think about it.

—————

As I left the classroom of preschoolers, I looked around once more.  The teacher was there, writing on the chalkboard.  The pencils and papers were there, sitting ready at the desk.  The students were there, willing and excited to learn.

All that was missing was you!

Of all the trips we took in 2010, there was one that stood out the most.  It received by far the most pageviews and garnered a ton of impassioned responses.  People were deeply moved and I still have people tell me how it changed them.

The trip?  New York City.

Dawn in central park. Quite a different experience after living on the streets!

During my time in NYC, I lived homeless for four days and three nights in Manhattan.  I wanted to see what life was like on the streets, and boy, was I in for an eye-opening experience.

I wrote four articles during my stay (mostly from a free public computer at the library).  One of them focused on my experience panhandling (click here), one was about the night I spent sleeping in Penn Station (click here), one covered my two nights living in a homeless shelter (click here), and the final one touched on the emotional baggage that came from just four days on the streets (click here).

According to my algorithm, three of the “On the Streets” articles landed in the top 10, so for the sake of variety, I counted them all together as #1.

If you are interested in getting a small glimpse into what it’s like living on the streets, I encourage you to read all four.  If you have time for only one, be sure to check out “Day One.”

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Thanks, all, for reading!  In the next couple of days I’ll be posting the winners to our contest.  If you want a World Next Door photo book or 2011 calendar, it’s not too late to enter!  Simply comment on articles or post links on Facebook or Twitter (hashtag #bestofWND).

Posting these articles on Facebook or Twitter for our contest? Use http://bit.ly/gFvg4E

India. What an incredible place.  Home to so much life, so much culture and so much injustice…

During my short, two and a half week stay in New Delhi this fall, I had the opportunity to embed once again with Truthseekers International.  Sitting at the feet of Christ-following social reformers like Sunil Sardar gave me a rare glimpse into this unique and powerful expression of the kingdom of God.

I can never forget the things I learned here!

I witnessed everything from gypsy children being given an education to outcaste farmers having their feet washed by Westerners.  I stayed for a while in an impoverished New Delhi neighborhood and spent the night in a rural village.

Everywhere I went I saw the kingdom of God at work.  The poor lifted up, the powerless given a voice and outcasts bestowed with dignity… Truthseekers is beating back the darkness with the most powerful weapon of all: hope!

A Movement in the Dark

How could I have hope in a place so filled with injustice?

Click here to read this article…

Photo Gallery: Dreams for the Future

For an impoverished community of Indian gypsies, education has always been a luxury… until now.

Click here to see this photo gallery…

World Next Door Uncut – Episode 6

Wow!  In five minutes you can change the life of a child in India forever…

Click here to read this article…

Planting Seeds

Cups of chai and traffic jams… How can this lead to change?

Click here to read this travel journal…

Three Letter Word

This three letter word has led me to a whole lot of crazy places.  So why can’t I stop saying it?

Click here to read this travel journal…

Girl Power

In a room full of saris and veils, a quiet revolution has begun…

Click here to read this article…

Photo Gallery: Dignity

Dignity for the broken. Does it get any more beautiful than this?

Click here to see this photo gallery…

World Next Door Uncut – Episode 7

In this episode, we visit a village in India!

Click here to read this article…

What Lies Ahead

What would make Indian villagers stay up past their bedtimes?

Click here to read this article…

Modern Madrassa

A Christian madrassa that teaches modern topics to conservative Muslims… Am I missing something here?

Click here to read this article…

Last week I had the incredible opportunity to spend the night in a small Indian village outside of Lucknow.  I’ve written a little bit about the experience already, but it wasn’t just a fun adventure.  I learned a lot about what life is really like for the people of Sadullakheda and about what God is doing there now that Truthseekers is involved…

—–

When the footwashing team was gone and Deshpande and I were alone in the village, we sat down for chai with several of its residents.  We talked a bit about their families, asked about the village and explained just why a random white guy wanted to spend the night.

The village of Sadullakheda. Home to about 75 families.

After chai, a couple of the young men in the village were assigned to us as tour guides of sorts.  They took us across the village, guided us through a few surrounding fields and essentially just gave us the lay of the land.

While we were walking I had the chance to meet several villagers, ask lots of questions and get a better understanding of what village life is like.  Deshpande, who grew up in a similar village in central India, helped a lot as I sought to understand it all…

Subsistence

The whole family helps out at harvest time.

The village of Sadullakheda is a pretty standard picture of what rural India is like.  Although their brick and plaster homes are a step up from the mud huts found in the most impoverished Indian villages, the residents of Sadullakheda are still very poor.

A few of the 250 villagers work in the city during the day, but most get by solely as subsistence farmers (growing only enough food to eat, not to sell).  They spend their days planting and harvesting rice, cultivating vegetables, picking fruit and caring for their flocks of goats and buffalos (cows, considered holy and never eaten, simply wander around on their own).

The people of Sadullakheda can usually get by with what they produce, but harvesting rice is a difficult and time consuming process.  Poor crop yields or a sickness in the family can often create a lot of stress with their already backbreaking work.

While we toured the village, I got to see villagers hard at work in just about every stage of the rice harvesting process.  Drying, carrying, threshing, winnowing, storing…  Let me tell you, it looked tough.

Nevertheless, the people of Sadullakheda continue to get by.  Apart from a few technological advances like cell phones and occasional electricity, life in the village goes on the way it has for thousands of years.

My host family for the night, winnowing rice (separating the grain from the chaff) with an electric fan.

Unfortunately, rice harvesting and shepherding are not the only things that have continued in the village for millennia…

The caste system has too.

Puja

As we walked around, Deshpande explained that half of the village consists of low caste people in the Shepherd Community (an Other Backward Caste or OBC).  The other half of the village is made up of Dalits (Untouchables).

Any time a major life event happens such as a birth, a death or a wedding, travelling Brahmins come by to perform a religious ritual called puja.

These upper caste priests come into the village (careful to avoid contact with the Dalits, of course) and perform the ceremony whether they were invited or not.  They light some incense, say a few prayers, then expect to get paid for their services.

Everybody pays.  It’s just a part of life there.  As a result, these Brahmin priests live lavishly while the people of Sadullakheda struggle to scrape by.

A statue of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god.

No Choice

Now, I’m an American.  My culture has bred in me a finely tuned sense of justice.  I’ve been taught since childhood that people should get what they deserve… that nobody should have a free ride.

Hearing about these greedy priests taking money from the hands of the poor got me all worked up.

“Can’t the villagers do something about this?  Don’t they have a choice in the matter?” I wondered.

The answer, as frustrating as it is, makes perfect sense from the framework of Hinduism:  if these villagers want to be holy – if they want to reincarnate into a higher caste in their next life – then no.  They have no choice.

They must continue to dig deep into their pockets to pay for priestly services.  They must do humiliating and disgusting rituals like drinking cow urine or smearing cow dung on their bodies.  They must recognize that their low position is due to misdeeds in a previous life and must do whatever it takes to rise up in the next.

They have no choice.

Or at least they didn’t… until last week.

Discussing the message of Truthseekers by the light of a small lamp.

A Monumental Event

Last week, Truthseekers International came to Sadullakheda with an earth-shattering message for its people: you have value.

As I wrote in my latest photo gallery, the message of the caste-less kingdom of God hit home.  Never before had the people of that village been given such incredible dignity.  Never before had they been told that there were alternatives to slavery and subjugation.

Americans, influential caste leaders, Brahmin-born Christians… washing the feet of those on the bottom of society’s ladder.  It was a monumental event for Sadullakheda.

No Longer Slaves

That night, as Deshpande and I finished eating dinner, the five grown sons of our hostess, Parmeshvary Devi, pulled up chairs into the small room to talk some more. They had many questions and were anxious to hear more about the kingdom of God.

Who knows what lies ahead for Sadullakheda?

By the light of a small kerosene lamp, we talked for hours.  We discussed the teachings of past Indian social reformers like Mahatma Phule and Bhimrao Ambedkar.  We shared stories from the Bible.

Deshpande passionately made the case that these men no longer needed to be slaves.

Finally, when nobody could stifle their yawns anymore, we all went to bed.  In the morning, Deshpande and I left Sadullakheda to catch a train.

A Long Journey Ahead

On the six hour train ride back to Delhi, I had plenty of time to think about everything I had experienced in the village.  I was once again blown away by the powerful work of Truthseekers and humbled to have been even a small part of it myself.

There is still a long journey ahead for the people of Sadullakheda.  It will take a lot more than a single footwashing event to break their bondage completely.

But I have hope for this little village because of the words Sunil Sardar spoke to me right after the event.

“Don’t worry, Barry… We’ll be back.”