By Faith We Continue

Below is an essay I wrote for a Faith and Development essay contest put on by the Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty (CIFA) and the SEVEN Fund. As my essay was not chosen as a winner, it will now serve as a nice addition to my blog. However, I was awarded second prize in an If I Had a Million Dollars essay competition. The essay and a section about Project Esperanza will be published in a book in the spring.

By Faith We Continue

We began by executing business ideas left and right with the faith that our efforts would produce fruit. In order to create change we would need money; money to pay rent on a house to feed, teach, and provide shelter for street kids. We would need money to pay Haitian immigrant teachers to run grassroots schools that educate children and keep them out of the streets and money to pay for odds and ends such as purchasing chalk or items for someone’s shoe shine kit. Lastly, we would need money to get ourselves there and then back again.

I remember when we executed our first fundraiser. It was a chilly Saturday morning in November 2005. We set up a table outside of Wal-Mart and sold Project Esperanza t-shirts, coupon books, raffle tickets to win a football autographed by the Virginia Tech football team, and did face painting. The Friday morning before this first fundraiser we met at the chapel on the Virginia Tech drill field and prayed. We asked God to bless our efforts and had faith that He heard our prayers. We did not strike rich off of that first fundraiser but did make seed money for further fundraisers. Every Friday morning we met and laid our requests before God. We had faith that He heard us and He showed us that He did. We continued fundraising, designing more t-shirts, and found local stores to sell them in. We sold mistletoe at Christmastime, held a thrift sale, 5K race, and executed various other ideas.

As a group, we raised over $30,000 which we used to serve in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic that summer. Though we started by working on the construction of a neglected public school, our main summer project began when we ran a street census in which we met hundreds of Haitian boys who had left their home country “in search of life”. They walked the streets daily, some shining shoes, others selling different food items such as hard-boiled eggs, peanut brittle, or coconut sweets. They started showing up daily at the house we rented, so we began serving lunch, teaching lessons, and playing games such as musical chairs, hot potato, and soccer. We faced challenges in setting things up and had nay-sayers among us, but we kept the faith and kept up the prayer, which saved us.

The summer ended and we took over the long-term rent of the house so that we would have a place to come back to. And we came back as often as possible. We soon learned about the faith of these shoe shining, street vending boys we had met. They crossed the border from Haiti to the Dominican Republic and walked through the woods for days in order to avoid guards and arrive in Puerto Plata. They also executed their business plans in order to make ends meet and to, in some cases, send money back home. They faced so many challenges; challenges much more extreme than anything I had ever encountered. Their faith further sharpened our faith.

I took special joy in helping them organize their personal business efforts. We began a little bank to help them save money and to show them where there money was going. I often helped them purchase shoe shine kits and materials, making a contract outlining their agreement to work certain hours after school and give back half of their earnings until the start up costs invested were paid back. I didn’t make back my money in most cases but introducing the concept of a contract and a business agreement was worth it. Some of them began acting as middle men, purchasing jewelry from local artisans at low prices, then sending the jewelry with me to the U.S. to sell. I brought back their profits and they bought things such as clothes, bikes, and chickens.

I remember the first time we did this. Two boys purchased ten bracelets each and watched excitedly as I packed them up in my suitcase. However, their excitement soon turned into conflict when one suggested that they separate the money between the two, regardless of whose bracelets sold. The other disagreed as he had carefully chosen his bracelets and did not want them mingled with those of the other. A heated discussion broke out which almost turned into a physical fight. I yelled at them to stop! They couldn’t let the business break them apart! I gathered them together and we prayed over their business and their friendship. They were soon smiling. Three years later, these two are still friends and they still wheel and deal together. I keep an eye on their wheeling and dealing to make sure that it does not get them into trouble, as well as look for healthy business opportunities for them.

Now Project Esperanza celebrates her fifth birthday. What began as a Virginia Tech student organization in 2005 is now a registered non-profit organization in both the United States and the Dominican Republic. Our faith-based and business minded fundraising efforts have allowed us to generate a steady income to cover a monthly budget that has fluctuated between $2,000 and $5,000 since the beginning of 2007. More importantly, we have generated funds with specific sensitivity to those we serve, being sure to protect and not exploit in any way. We have also been as clear and transparent as possible, taking out no administrative salaries to run the organization but relying on part-time work opportunities and personal business efforts to make ends meet.

In Hebrews 11, we find that “faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.” Time and time again we have acted on faith, taking steps without the visible and tangible security that everything would fall into place. This can appear crazy to those who lack faith. We can imagine how Noah appeared as he built the ark. And even those who have faith may question whether or not the God that you claim to have faith in is the same God that they claim to have faith in. They may question whether or not your efforts are truly carrying out His will. This causes many to observe but few to invest or risk much. But as we continue to overcome challenge after challenge, those observing cannot help but to admit that God whom we have faith in is in fact acting with us. He is our leader and counselor.

We are now faced with challenges in getting our first local business up and running. This business will be located in an area where we run a grassroots school which is also close to a tourist resort. The school provides education to about seventy Haitian immigrant children who mainly live in small one room houses with several family members and eat one or two meals a day. With tourist excursions passing through to “see the countryside” on a daily basis, social stratification reaches its peak. Passing tourist excursions include horse drawn carriages, four wheelers, horseback riding, and go-karts. Kids from the community have learned to run up to horse drawn carriages and beg. A complete image of royalty and peasantry is the result. The profit from these excursions goes to those running the excursions. Nothing goes toward developing the struggling community they pass through.

The business we are setting up is an internet center and gift shop. Passing tourists will be invited to stop by to receive information about Project Esperanza and the efforts we are making to develop the community, to purchase local artwork, and to use the internet. Volunteers have been forming a women’s group among mothers in the community, teaching them to make various forms of jewelry out of purchased and donated materials as well as beautiful indigenous seeds. The women are anxious to have a spot to sell their work. Other artisans include painters and a basket weaver. Food such as delicious homemade peanut butter will also be sold.

We have invested resources toward launching this new business but have steps to take before things are actually up and running. With limited resources, one can only act on faith. Many in this country do things similarly. They invest what they have to build a house halfway and have faith that they will be able to finish it one day. Getting this business up and running will likely lead to a necessary breakthrough for us. The income generated will provide financial stability, independence from U.S. funds, support from the visiting tourist population, and start-up funds to execute more business ideas, thus providing more work for local people.

When resources are abundant, it is easy to act without true faith. But at times like this, when you are almost there but have spent all that you have and have exhausted all of your resources, there is nothing else to do except pray for doors to open and ask God for more faith as you’re knocking and waiting. Bondye pa janm komanse pou li pa fini. God doesn’t start anything that he doesn’t finish. And out of loyalty to God our leader, we don’t either.

Term "Hit and Run" Explained

In my last blog post I used the term “hit and run” referring to short term volunteer groups or even tourists who visit the Dominican Republic, have a good time whether spending time at the beach or engaging in activities with locals, taking pictures, then return home and continue with their normal lives. Their experience in the Dominican Republic remains a memory but other than the experience, memories, and pictures, no real and lasting connection exists between the individual or group and the community that was visited. This is the situation that I referred to as a “hit and run” but after receiving some feedback, I realize that this comment needs further explanation.

Here the economy is very slow and there is little opportunity for work. It is not entirely accurate to assume that locals are lazy and don’t want to work or lack business ideas that could be implemented to create work and profit. It is more accurate to understand that the economy is depleted. There is a lack of start up resources and there is a lack of consumers with resources to which goods and services can be marketed and sold. There is also, in many cases, a lack of local leadership and training but this is not hard to find a solution to with thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people available tolearn when a proper teacher or teaching team is present.

Whether or not members of communities here have cognitively recognized that these are the missing factors that cause the economy to remain slow, they do realize that visitors from the developed world possess resources that are lacking here and this causes their presence to be exciting and bring hope. However, as in any situation where one is excited and hopes are high, there is the risk of being let down. It is important, therefore, for foreign visitors to fully realize the effect of their visit and to be wise and sensitive accordingly. It is my point of view that if someone or a group cannot engage in such a relationship with the developing world with great sensitivity, conscienciousness, and committment than it is best not to engage at all. Any other such engagement ends up in some sort of exploitation. The Dominican Republic is full of the negative effects of such exploitation.

After locals have had a few encounters with “hit and runs” – foreigners who cheerfully visit but do nothing to create change in the community long term and begin to serve as a reminder of what locals do not have rather than bring hope for a brighter future, some locals take on a mindset that they should learn to get what they can out of visitors while they’re here. The most honest way to do this is to market products or services that foreign visitors seem to like and jack up the prices. Such products include alcohol, cigars, jewelry, and artwork. Such services include hair braiding, massages, and tourist excursions where visitors are led further into local communities on horseback, horsedrawn carriages, four-wheelers, go karts, or monster trucks, and sometimes to experience natural attractions such as waterfalls. I am not suggesting that all such activity causes negative effects but some have seemed to in the past when executed without careful consideration and sensitivity.

First, it is important to realize that those conducting such business with foreign visitors are indeed reaping a profit but this profit often benefits them personally rather than benefiting the local communities, schools, members of society in most need, etc. During the 2008/2009 school year I was responsible for two students in a small elementary school located in a rural area about twenty minutes outside of the city of Puerto Plata. This school had an established relationship with a monster truck tourist excursion business. Things seemed to pick up throughout the year, but by the end of the year, according to reports from the students I was responsible for, about four trucks full of about 20 foreign visitors each visited the school almost daily. Dominican public school days last about four hours and quite honestly, they do not provide very high quality education. Private schools do a much better job but still do not cmpare to the education I received from U.S. public schools. The students reported that visitors from the monster trucks interacted with them during recess. Often times they would have their pictures taken, would receive small gifts, or would come home with e-mail addresses. They once reported that one visitor threw coins up in the air and a group of kids mobbed to fight over the coins. They said that after recess their teacher always called them back into the classroom to begin class. Sometimes visitors came to stick their heads in the doorway and take pictures of the class.

Apparently community members began flocking around the school while visitors came in order to beg. The school’s director ordered these community members to leave. I became increasingly frustrated with this situation and believed that the school had compromised its purpose and the education of the students in order to entertain tourists. Also, the students I was responsible for are smillar to family members for me so imagining how many random people had taken their pictures was... and still is.. unsettling. I spoke to a teacher about this once, just stating that I heard about the visitors. He was filling in some paperwork as I spoke and without looking up, proudly replied that yes, this school receives visitors from the U.S., Canada, France, etc. With the schools Project Esperanza runs things are done much differently as far as visitors are concerned and I wanted to share my thoughts but felt sheepish to do so. I didn’t share my concerns with the teachers at this time The school year ended and the two boys did not attend the following year. This is an example of how such tourist excurions can be disruptive and exploitive from a local point of view.

Other ways locals have learned to benefit from the presence of foreign visitors is through dishonest business transactions or blatantly stealing as well as prostitution. Prostitution is present in various forms here in the Dominican Republic. To give a few examples, there are prostitutes who sell themselves on street corners at night and there are wives and mothers who “go out with the girls” every now and then but end up making money from a gringo somehow during their night out. There are homosexual men that move here or visit here occasionally who seek out relationships with boys on the streets. Shoe shine boys have reported such men becoming shoe shining clients but then the man eventually invites the boy to his house where he attempts to engage in a sexual relationship in exchange for food, clothes, money, etc. It has been my experience with the police here that they are not very motivated to bring about justice by the mere presence of injustices but are motivated by money. I have never attempted to persecute one of these men for this reason but plan to do more research here in the future should the situation arise again.

I am not relating this next situation to or labeling this prostitution but it is common for foreigners who visit here often to have a local boyfriend or girlfriend who they take care of financially in some way as long as the relationship lasts. These people may not feel as though they fit into a “hit and run” category because they do leave with a connection here and are helping someone out financially in some way. However, I have seen this situation largely taken advantage of as well. For example, I recently learned of a woman who lives in a community we work in who had a gringo boyfriend buy a nice, new vehicle for her. The word is that when her boyfriend visits, she says that her husband is her brother so that he thinks she is single. The husband is, of course, well aware and in on the business. I have seen this happen on various occasions. Perhaps the foreign boyfriend does not expect his Dominican girlfriend to be 100% loyal but I just use this example to point out the fact that funds being channeled into the country in this way does not necessarily create positive change in society. If anything, it sets an example for another exploitive practice. These flings are, of course, very different than more serious relationships and marriages between foreigners and locals.

In conclusion, as members of the expat community, it is important to be intentional about your presence here and to realize the effects that your presence has on the local community. The local community is honestly fragile in many ways, has been taken advantage of, been toyed with, and has taken advantage and done its toying in return. Or perhaps the abuses were simultaneous, I am not sure. Regardless, those of us from the developed world must admit that we, in general, have access to more resources which gives us more power which leaves us with more responsibility. So instead of asking those with less power to resist the temptations our presence poses them, we should act first in changing our practices. The more powerful party should set the stage. The local community needs sensitive and considerate interactions with the foreign community in order to become more stable and for such abuses to end. Let’s be aware of whether we are supporting a negative system or a positive system in the way we spend our time in the Dominican Republic or any other developing country.