Where He leads...: November 2013

[This post is about a terrible incident I witnessed in Haiti. It is lengthy and spares little details. I know some of you have children who keep up with me here; I trust you will use discretion with letting them read this or with what you share with them.]

"Thou Shalt Not Kill." (Exodus 20:13)

That verse in the Bible takes me back to some of the earliest memories I have of Sunday School as a child. And on Sunday, that verse came alive right in front of my eyes!

It was a typical Sunday morning. About half the time I go to church with Lesly or someone else, and the other times I go alone. Lesly was working so I headed out alone with our friend/main moto driver (I’ll call him Rory). I left the house around 7:45 and headed for the children’s home. I always pray when I’m on motos… I pray for safety and protection for the ride, and that morning I remember also thanking God for the opportunity to go to church here—specifically thinking of my missionary friends and millions of others around the world who do not have the freedom to go to a “public” church service. I remember thanking God for that blessing in Haiti.

Halfway to church, my moto driver slowed down because of some commotion in a field. I asked what was going on and he said people were fighting. I remember thinking that just last week someone had told me that typically Haitians run away from a fight, but people were definitely running towards this action.

We asked a few bystanders what was going on and the story was they had caught a thief trying to steal a horse.

“What are they going to do with them?” I asked, thinking I already knew the answer.

“They’re going to kill him,” confirmed Rory and was the same answer that everyone else around was giving.

Unfortunately I knew this to be an ugly truth in Haiti. A truth that I can’t even begin to grasp. And yet a truth nonetheless. (Though until Sunday I admit I had hoped it was a bit of an exaggeration or at most, a RARE occurrence.)

I can’t explain what exactly went through my mind at that point, but honestly it was simply this, “No, they are not.” Not because I didn't think they would, but because I wasn't going to let it happen.

At that point I told Rory that I wanted to go over there. His curiosity was peaked as well so he agreed, but for him it was more just that—curiosity—while apparently I was on a mission.

We paused briefly to process the giant ditch that stood between us and the field, but some careful steps and a jump solved that one. I don’t know if people were already staring and wondering, I simply made a beeline for the crowd. Another pause to greet a guy I knew (who, ironically, was a security guard with an organization I’ve served with… I’ll call him Vinny). He was happy to see me—like we were simply passing on the street. I was distracted, still trying to process what I was seeing… a man, likely in his late 20s or 30s, was lying on the ground with his hands and legs tied behind him, and maybe about 40 Haitian men were in a circle around him. Loads of others on the outskirts and still more continuing to gather. There was already a lot of talking and shouting that never stopped. Vinny came over towards me and we had a brief exchange. Mostly I asked him what was going on. Same story. “He’s a thief. They are going to kill him.”

“No.” I said, almost laughing with disbelief that this is even happening. “They are not going to kill him.”

I hopped a small ditch and climbed up the side, pushing my way through the crowd until I stood beside the man. He was sweating, not talking, but still alive and conscious—and despite his dark skin, I could already see some bruising and swelling on his head and face. Even when a mob punishment ends in death—often burning them alive—they usually start with a thorough beating.

I can’t write out what happened in five minute increments or anything, not necessarily because it was a blur but because every second was so intense my mind cannot pull out specifics in relation to time. I will say that every second was an eternity and I have an extreme recollection of knowing that throughout the entire event.

The scene is this… I am standing beside a man tied up and lying on the ground. There are likely 100 Haitians all around me, 95% men, all of them heated, some of them steaming with the most anger and hatred I have ever witnessed in person.

And here are the flashes I can remember…

Near the beginning I was asking the same question, getting the same answer, and offering the same response. “What are you going to do with him?” “We’re going to kill him.” “No, you’re not.”

Then questions for me, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to stand here and make sure you don’t kill him.”

I don’t remember that anyone ever asked me why, but I offered reasons nonetheless.

“You can’t kill someone!”

“This is not justice!”

“No one has the right to take a man’s life!”

And I suppose I could have added things like…

“… even if he is guilty…”

“… even if he is not the best person…”

“…and by the way, I am sorry that he stole from you…”

…but the situation was so intense and my “mission” was so purposeful that the bottom line was, “You are not killing this man and I will stand here until I see that you don’t.”

At some points I was standing on the man’s right side. At some points I was standing on his left. At one point I was standing over him, straddling his body with one leg on either side and I remember saying at least once, “If you kill him, you will have to kill me too.”

I don’t remember what everyone was saying. I wasn’t processing all of it. And imagine, with 100 people talking and shouting in a language not your own, even just picking out one voice was a challenge. But I heard a lot of laughter, I heard people repeating back what I said for others to hear or for them to mock me or for whatever reason. I heard people telling me to move out of the way. I know they all thought I was stupid. Rory and Vinny told me that I should leave.

“I’m not leaving. Not until the police show up…” or whatever would bring this to an end. I thought of both good and terrible scenarios of what would bring this to an end.

I tried begging people to end this madness. I tried reasoning with them. I tried preaching to them.

“This is the Lord’s Day… we are not going to kill a man on God’s holy day!”

“Is anyone a Christian here?” One woman said yes. I grabbed her hand and gently pulled, asking her to come stand with me. She laughed and stayed put.

I asked another lady who was encouraging this barbarity if she could actually stand before God one day and be ok saying that she killed a man—or at least stood by there watching and urging it on.

A UN base was not much further down the road. I knew I could go there and convince them to come. But as sure as I knew that, I knew that if I left, I could no longer protect this man. Why I thought I could protect him, I do not know, but I was determined. And there I continued to stand.

While being a foreigner in Haiti can bring a lot of grief, I suppose at times it can have its benefits. And I suppose in my mind I did think that being a white girl in that moment could have some benefits. I suppose I was betting my life on it. I didn’t think the angry mob would turn on me, but I definitely didn’t have a guarantee. They certainly were not happy with me. But in that moment I did not care what anyone thought. I had made my decision and I wasn’t budging.

Throughout the chaos I was praying, pleading with God for protection and for this to be over! The time I stood there seemed like an eternity. I would try to look over the crowd to see if I could see help coming, or a police or UN vehicle passing. Nothing. And when I would turn my head away from the angry men, I would feel a gush of wind and hear the sound of something hard hitting the man on the ground. There was one main man who was the source of these hidden attacks. I didn’t ever see his weapon, I assume it was a big stick like the others I saw. He always tried to avoid eye contact with me, like some little kid knowing he was up to no good and with a silly grin refusing to confess. Except this man’s silly grin was surrounded by an angry, sweaty, crazy-eyed face that no longer seemed like a man. I suppose a savage beast is the nicest way to describe it? Which reminds me, at one point someone asked me if I’ve come to watch an animal, referring to the man on the ground. Wow… I did see animals that day, but they were all standing upright.

Unfortunately for the man on the ground, he did receive quite a beating—both before I arrived and while I was standing there, despite my attempts to stop it. I’m surprised and thankful that I have no marks or bruises. I was putting my body and my arms between the accusers and the accused. There was one angry older man who was repeatedly hitting the man in the face. I reached my arm out to stop him and maybe I softened the blow a little but not enough. At one point when I was focused on his arm he stomped on the man’s face with all his might. The man remained conscious but at times I saw him lying there trembling. He was hearing all of this, seeing all of this, and I have no idea what he was thinking, but I imagine he was facing the very real fear that death was soon coming.

There were some people talking and maybe trying to reassure me that if the crowd was going to kill him, it would have already happened by now. And that the police will eventually come. I wasn’t convinced. Sticks and iron rods were still in the hands of the accusers. And there was talk of gasoline coming. I started to panic when I saw a man with a gallon of oil and seemed to have smelled gas at the same time. It took a while to convince me that it wasn’t gasoline. That was my biggest fear because I didn’t see how I could protect the man from being burned alive.

I mentioned I didn’t have much perception of time, just that it felt like an eternity. But within the first five minutes or so, I called Lesly. I didn’t know who to call or what to do. I just felt that having him there was important. He was at work and would have to leave his post as a security guard, but I called him. I couldn’t hear anything, I just kept saying, “Come!” and then I handed the phone to Rory and told him to tell him to come. Rory did and went by the road to flag him down. I asked Vinny to come stand with me in the meantime. Lesly arrived a bit later. I asked him if he alerted the police but he hadn’t because we hadn’t told him to and he didn’t know from our phone call what was going on. He had panicked the whole way there, thinking I had been in an accident or something. A few minutes later, he left again.

About the guys standing near me. I didn’t know who the good guys were, if there were any. I tried to look people in the eye. On two separate occasions there were two big men who stood near me. I looked them each in the eye and asked them to help me. They didn’t verbally agree to anything, but I can say that I felt a tinge of security with them there. They were big, and they weren’t doing anything bad to this man and seemed to be neutral. I felt that if nothing else, they might protect me. The older of the two did mention he thought the police would come and it would be over. Before them another man had been standing across from me next to the man on the ground. He never said a word but didn’t seem to want to hurt the accused man. I felt a hint of camaraderie there and then he tried to deflect a beating and the attention turned towards him and the next thing I knew there was an uproar and someone put him in a headlock and started beating him saying he must also be a thief. At that point I was screaming hysterically for them to stop. Thankfully that was my only moment of hysteria. And thankfully they eventually stopped beating him. Vinny stood with me for a while and seemed to help me fight them off. He said “No” a lot and was using his arm and body to help as he could. But then I worried they would start beating him too. Thankfully they didn’t.

I continued to pray—to PLEAD, “God protect me! God protect this man! God send help! Let this be over!”

Like a dream I saw Lesly in the distance, and a policeman. The time it took them to reach where we were was another eternity. Finally, Lesly was at my side. And the policeman was standing in the middle of the crowd. (We now estimate that from the time I arrived until the time it was over was about 45 minutes.) The policeman asked for the man to be untied. It took a while and there were jokes being said about how “someone sure knows how to tie knots!” Then the policeman asked to stand the man up. He placed handcuffs on him, asked for the owner of the horse to come as well, and led a procession of bystanders back to the police truck. Our moto was the other direction and the other direction was exactly where I wanted to go. And I did.

But one thing remained…

Obviously the man had seen me there. Obviously he had heard everything. He knew what had been going on. And I am sure he had feared for his life, and was in the right mind to fear for his life! But did he know that God had saved him? Because I knew that. Even in the midst of all of it, I knew with certainty that God was present and that I was standing there because of God and that God had protected us both. But did he know that?

I had to tell him. As much as I wanted to leave and not go anywhere near that crowd again, I had to tell him. I told Lesly I needed to talk to the man and crossed back over to where everyone was. I told the policeman I needed to speak to the man and leaned into his ear.

“Do you know that GOD saved you today?”

He nodded.

“You know that if I had not been here, they would have killed you.”

More nodding.

“I am praying for you that you change your life. Know that you can accept Jesus as your Savior. Know that all you have to do is ask Him into your heart. To change your life.”

And I don’t remember what all I said, I’m sure I was not very eloquent as I was probably still shaking from everything that happened and in moments of intensity, my Creole is at its worst. But when I started to talk about Jesus, the man began to sob. That sobbing lasted maybe 3 or 4 seconds and he cut himself off—understandably so with the crowd still pressing around him. I will never forget the sight of those tears, thinking of all that was behind them.

And that was that. I got on Rory’s moto, Lesly got on behind me. And I told them to take me home. Sunglasses on, I cried the whole way there. Thankful, exhausted, shocked, drained, thankful. Oh, so thankful it was over. After hugging Lesly and thanking him, I walked over to see my friends who live nearby. It was a safe place to cry, tell the story, begin to reflect, and pray together. More thankfulness for those dear friends and sisters in Christ.

I knew I wanted to write this story out for myself. Writing helps me process and remember what I experience. I knew that I would blog about it to some extent as well. You ended up getting the "full" version. Is it a story for people to read and why? You see my answer is yes, though I’ve never claimed that I have all the right answers. So if you disagree, I’m ok with that. But this is the reality of this country. And this experience is now the reality of my life. And I typically share the realities of my experiences for others to read. But most importantly, I want you to hear this… I did nothing—God used me and protected me to save that man’s life in that moment. I don’t have a guarantee that those angry people won’t find him later and kill him. I pray they don’t. (And it seems he was from another area so there is some anonymity there.) But I believe and trust that God had me there at that moment to do exactly what I did. And looking back on it, I would not do anything any differently. But again, all glory goes to God. I am not a hero. I am not extraordinarily brave. I stood up for what I believed in and I believe that people do not have the right to take justice into their own hands and take someone’s life like that. I am completely baffled about that being such a common occurrence in Haiti. If you see me as brave, then God put that bravery in me and made me the kind of person to do what I did. But without God divinely intervening on behalf of that man and to protect me, the outcome would have been different. Every Haitian I’ve talked to about this says there is no doubt the man would have been murdered. And they also say that if a Haitian would have tried to step in and do what I did, they would have still murdered the man and likely would have murdered and/or beat up that person as well.

Please continue to pray for the accused man. Pray for his salvation and for continued protection. Pray for Vinny and others who stood near or beside me. Pray for Lesly and Rory. Pray that there will be no negative repercussions for the decision that I made. And pray for me as I continue to process this experience. It has made an impression on me to my very core and I don’t know what all that will mean. I think it will mean good things, but I think that at times it will also make it difficult to serve in an already difficult place. It’s hard to see good and hope and peace in this nation after seeing such evil and despair and violence. It’s hard to have faith that God is transforming Haiti when so many Haitians profess to be Christians and yet I think some of those professing Christians were in the crowd, stone in hand. But I have to believe there is hope. If there’s no hope, I suppose I should pack my bags. And I think the devil would love for me to do just that. But by God’s grace, His strength, and your prayers, I’m not going to do that. I will fight for those who need someone to fight for them… and by God’s definition that numbers 10+ million Haitians who live on this island, and every soul to the ends of the earth.

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