Seattle Times Opinion, Love and Kindness

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
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ARIANA CUBILLOS / AP
A boy carrying bottles passes by a mural wall in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.


Larry Bailly

Love and kindness in a harsh land
By Larry Bailly
Special to The Times
After a full day of modern air travel, the jolt from landing on the rock-strewn runway at Port de Paix always brings my senses back to the reality that is Haiti.
Port de Paix is on the country's north coast, a busy seaport that is one of the main supply routes for goods, mostly castoffs of our society, coming in from the U.S. Ship decks will often be covered with used cars and trucks, building materials and even mattresses. At the airport terminal, we met Rob Hulshuizen, a missionary from the Netherlands. After fording a river, we traveled west on a United Nations-built road that could stand to be redone.
The 30-kilometer drive to Hulshuizen's compound at Passe Catabois was an extraordinary trip into what could have been the Old West of the United States. Though the area is usually dry and devoid of vegetation, this year, the rain has been kind and the desert was in bloom.
Many of the locals live in grass-roofed huts, or just outside along the rivers. Nighttime drums remind us of the predominance of voodoo in the Haitian culture. The sound must be similar to what the pioneers heard in the American West.
Hulshuizen's wife is Dr. Anne-Marie Hulshuizen-Wessels, the only modern medical doctor for as many as 700,000 inhabitants of this area of Haiti. She has her hands full, on call continuously. She also has responsibilities as a wife, mother and missionary.
Their mission is ... just amazing. They provide free medical care at a clinic that is not much more than a hut with an office. The waiting room is open-air, and the pharmacy doles out precious medicines in small baggies. The medical care is far beyond what many of their patients could ever have afforded, given out with love and kindness in a very harsh corner of the world.
Rob and Anne-Marie have provided this mostly with their own money. They do have support from churches in Holland and visiting teams from many places in the U.S. In the next couple of years, a hospital will be completed there. Our team from Snohomish Community Church was there recently to complete a number of tasks at a guesthouse for future workers and medical staff.
Haiti, like many other small countries that have been abused by their own and other governments, lives on a thin margin. These fellow human beings are so unbelievably resilient. They survive on the leftovers of their richer neighbors, but just barely. The infant mortality rate is chilling. In the past several months, the clinic has been unable to save 14 infants. More arrive every couple of days, and even more never make it to the clinic.
We, as brothers and sisters of these people, need to do something. Anything will help, but just realizing these problems exist is the first step. We go about our pampered lives, believing that somehow we are entitled to the blessings we have. There are people right here in our own country, our own community, who also need our help.
I firmly believe that, whether you are Christian or not, we are all connected in some way. As a nation, we could make far more difference in the world by caring for, rather than insulating ourselves from, our neighbors. Our foreign policy should be one of aid rather than oppression or meddling.
Wars, embargoes, blockades and regime change seldom impact those who live at the top of the society. But the effect on the middle class and poor of countries like Haiti is devastating. I think of our own Revolution, the battle against the oppression of England, and if we could have been embargoed and blockaded into submission.
Haiti fought for a similar independence from France; it is the second-oldest free republic in the Western Hemisphere, second to ours. I have great admiration for the Haitian people and their determination to survive. Like our country, they should be afforded a chance.
Rob Hulshuizen and Anne-Marie Hulshuizen-Wessels will give hope, and a chance, to the next generation of Haitians in the far west of Haiti. We all should be willing to do the same.
Larry Bailly, a lifelong Snohomish County resident and a mechanic by trade, spends time in the mission field in Haiti, Mexico and other places. Contact him at baillybusbarn@juno.com
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