Healing in Haiti Needs God

Only a theology based on the lessons learned from Christ's death on the cross will bring healing and wholeness to the hearts and souls of those who suffered through the earthquake that caused widespread destruction in Haiti on Jan. 12.

With that in mind, the Center Transforming Missions (CTM) plans to start an effort of spreading a "theology of cross" in Haiti starting in early May, says Mario Martos, Caribbean Director for the Center for Transforming Missions (CTM).

Matos says CTM is returning after making a fact-finding visit to Haiti in March.

On the March trip to Haiti, says Matos, it was evident from all of the stories at the sites that he and his group visited and the interviews they conducted that many of the Protestant churches in Haiti lack the focus and resources to provide the spiritual support that people need following a crisis such as the quake.

"It was crushing to hear what people are hearing from sermons that either have condemned people for sin and called them to climb 'moralistic ladders' back to wholeness or escapism messages telling people they simply need to 'move on with their lives' and forget the past," says Matos, a Christian Reformed Church pastor in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

As Caribbean director of CTM, Matos works in a strategic alliance between Christian Reformed World Missions and the Center for Transforming Missions, an organization run by Joel Van Dyke, a CRWM missionary in Guatemala City.

Matos said the March visit to Haiti had already been scheduled before the earthquake. But the focus of their trip changed after the disaster. The initial plan was to begin the Street Psalm series, which focuses on theological formation for urban missions, with a host of leaders identified by Sous Espwa—the organization through which CRWM, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, Back to God Ministries International, and other partners work.

Instead of a training series, they used their time to explore and discern how CTM could serve more broadly "alongside our brother and sisters at Sous Espwa," says Matos.

"Through site visits, interviews, and after listening to countless earthquake stories of Haitian leaders, our group learned how lacking the theology in the local church was to effectively and compassionately help earthquake survivors move into the pain, fears, and questions that surge forth . . . after a disaster of this magnitude," says Matos.

The mainstream theology, says Matos, in churches that they encountered demonstrated "that it has little to offer people who have been crushed by life. The prevailing theological system seeks to avoid pain and suffering. . . ."

The trip led to both a short and long-term strategy for moving forward in work for Haiti. 

Sous Espwa asked the organization to return in May with some members of their international network and lead a series of vision trips. These trips will include presenting the program "Moments of Blessing," which involves liturgical practices that honor life and proclaim hope in places of death and pain.

"We will be holding these at the sites of mass graves and in the places where huge loss of life occurred. One pastor asked us to do one of these liturgies at the hospital where his wife worked as a nurse and whose body has never been recovered after the hospital collapsed upon her," says Matos.

A theology of compassion, rooted in Christ's suffering on the cross as well as his resurrection from the dead, is crucial in this program to bring about long-term healing in a community, says Matos.

When they return to Haiti, they will include in their efforts "a city mapping process that sets out to map the hurt/pain of a city, the hope of a city, and the heart of God for a respective city. This we do via these vision trips and teaching based in the ministry of Lament: the poetry of truth telling."

The vision trip will include three or four leaders from the CTM community in the Dominican Republic, two leaders from the U.S. who are part of the CTM Street Psalms Community, and two or three leaders from Guatemala City.

Specifically in Haiti, the idea is to run three consecutive daylong vision trips to as many as four different communities selected by Sous Espwa with the help of its network of partner organizations. “One of these three would likely be at the STEP seminary. . . . Their main educational/administrative building was destroyed and a student was killed there under the rubble,” says Matos.

A core of 8-12 people will participate in all three days of the vision trips. But another 10-15 people will likely participate on any given day depending on their connection to the places where the vision trip occurs. Then afterward people involved in the vision trips will be invited to gather to explore content from the Scandal of God, training material that focuses on the meaning of the cross among those who have been crushed by life.

"It is a journey into the dark side of the faith, fueled by the Gospel of hope in Christ," says Matos. The primary missional question the Scandal of God asks is how people can speak of God "in the midst of incredible pain and suffering that marks the lives of marginalized youth, children, and their families. In this case, the people of Haiti."

After that, the long-term plan is for CTM in the Caribbean to select and send a team of leaders who will do the follow-up from the vision-trip week and to continue the process in Haiti. A formal group of 25-50 leaders will need to be selected who will commit to taking part in a two-year journey helping Haitians recover spiritually from the earthquake.

Once that team has been put into place, CTM can establish a series of Street Psalms conversations that can be put into a schedule of three-a-year for two years, with an intensive session every two-to- three months and follow-up meetings every month,” says Matos.

Matos asks for prayers:

• For the preparation process that includes selecting the local leaders who will be equipped to nurture and perform follow-up work in Haiti.
• For the translation of documents into Haitian Creole, which can be quite expensive.
• For financial resources for the transportation of leaders from the network in other countries.
• For the staff of Sous Espwa and other ministries that are overworked as they respond to the needs of the victims of the earthquake, while having to travel back and forth to be with their families abroad.
• That God will use CTM’s efforts to equip, sustain, and bless the Haitian leaders with whom they will be working.
• That God will continue mobilizing people and using his hosts of saints to bring transformation to Haiti and its people.