CARLINE AND JERRY -- ZANMI M AYISYEN (my Haitian friends)

My journal about Haiti must include a posting about Carline Paul-blanc and Jerry Delva, my new Haitian friends.  What a gift their presence is!

Carline Paul-blanc

Lourdevic (Jerry) Delva

The couple appeared miraculously at Forest Hill Church one Sunday morning last spring as visitors looking for a welcoming church family.  It could not have been more dramatic.  It was the Sunday after we learned that our Haitian leader, Ralph Jean-Mary (see previous blog post), would not be with us on the next trip to Haiti.  It was also the Sunday when we announced in church the Haiti fundraising event held in July.  After the service, Carline and Jerry asked about what was going on at Forest Hill Church involving their country. Needless to say, there were stunned people gathered in the coffee hour after church exclaiming over this amazing occurrence!

Carline, with her natural exuberance in full bloom, was overjoyed to discover that we were headed back to Hinche -- a city she knew well, and where members of her family were located.   We could not contain our excitement about finding someone who was so willing and so able to join our efforts to develop relationships in Haiti.  The connection was instant and nearly overwhelming!  It was surely an answer to prayer.

Carline and Jerry are in the United States to get advanced education in order to carry out their personal mission of helping build a better Haiti.  Carline is in nursing school and had recently come to Cleveland to complete her training.  Other members of her immediate and extended family are in this country as well, including two grown sons, Stefan and Fabien, who live here in Cleveland Heights.  Jerry and the young men are working and attending college part-time.  Like so many immigrant families, they face barriers of language and culture with a resilience and persistence that one can only admire and respect.  

Over the past six months Carline has been helping the Haiti team with the fundraising event, with making plans and organizing logistics for the trip, and teaching us some Kreyol.  She has a gift for teaching.  She will be joining our traveling group as both an interpreter and shepherd.   Her family in Haiti is very large and she has connections with people who are able to enrich our experience on this trip.  She is part of our medical services group as well.  

Jerry is rather shy and reserved, especially in English-only conversations.  He and I have had several chats.  He has an amazing story.  He is educated and is something of a "jack of all trades." He has worked as an accountant and financial advisor in Haiti.  He has a passion for social justice and for the poorest of the poor.  The story of his work with the International Red Cross of Geneva inspecting and improving prisons throughout Haiti is especially compelling.  He encountered the worst prison conditions imaginable and lived in the shadow of injustice with its most marginalized victims for years.  In his low-key way, Jerry shows a pragmatic and determined hope for a better, more just Haiti.  I hope he will be able to share his special witness with us personally as we get better acquainted.  Meanwhile, I pray that Jerry will be able to find work here at a level matching his abilities and needs.

I look forward to continuing the friendship with these Haitian friends now for a time my neighbors in Cleveland Heights.  They surely enrich life in my community.  Mesi ampil!

--kjl