At a garbage dump on the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince, gaunt and weary Haitians formed two lines to wait in the searing sun June 20 for Buckets of Hope to be unloaded from a truck near Eglise Baptiste Canaan.
These Haitian brothers in Port-au-Prince and their family will be fed for a week or more by food items in their Bucket of Hope, affixed with a yellow label with a gospel message from Southern Baptists.The church, named for the Promised Land, is, ironically, planted at the garbage dump where a makeshift city of displaced Haitians has sprung up after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
The Buckets of Hope were among the thousands that had been sitting in the capital city’s port for two months before Haitian customs officials, overwhelmed by the processing of other shipments of supplies since the earthquake, would release them. Five shipping containers filled with 6,750 buckets have been released by government officials as of June 25. Another 13 containers remain at the port, while Florida Baptist Convention staff work through government bureaucratic channels for their release.
At the garbage dump, Moreno Robert, pastor of Eglise Baptiste Canaan, coordinated the food distribution to the tent city. The vivid blue-tarped structures dotting the mounds of refuse became a place of refuge after the earthquake left people fearful for their safety. Robert started the church at the dump after an evangelistic crusade resulted in new Christian believers.
As the buckets were handed to those first in line, each recipient quickly departed, unwilling to chance losing his bucket to someone else. Despite having to stand in line for the promise of food, the crowd never became unruly.
That same day, nearly 250 people crowded inside Eglise Baptiste Bethaniem in Port-au-Prince as others stood outside waiting for the Buckets of Hope distribution at the end of the service. As pastor Louis Joseph called each name, some families sent their children to the front of the church to receive their bucket.
The buckets were given to church members as well as others in the community who attended the nearly two-hour worship service and heard the gospel message proclaimed. An air of solemn excitement filled the congregation while the 150 buckets were distributed. Guarding their newly acquired prizes, families raced to their homes to open the five-gallon buckets.
The contents of each Bucket of Hope include flour, rice, beans, oil, pasta, peanut butter and other items that will feed a family for at least a week, depending on the size of their extended family. The buckets themselves will be used to carry water from wells and in numerous other ways as Haitians survive in abject poverty.
In all, Southern Baptists packed more than 155,000 buckets for the Haitian people after the earthquake.
Jean Phito Francois, a Baptist director of missions in Port-au-Prince, said he had been telling his churches that the buckets were coming.
“Many people asked, ‘When did the U.S. people get time to do this?’ ” Francois said. “This is a great blessing unto God,” he added. “See the buckets – the people are so happy to receive [them]. Especially for me, it has touched my heart.”
The concept for the Buckets of Hope originated with Fritz Wilson, director of Florida Baptists’ disaster relief, during his first trip to Haiti after the quake.
Wilson, who also is serving as the Haiti disaster relief incident commander for the North American Mission Board, determined the buckets’ ingredients after consultation with the Haitian kitchen workers at the Florida Baptist Mission House. He and his family assembled the first bucket when he returned to the States.
“As I watched a family in Haiti open their bucket, I thought about my family going up and down the aisle of a Walmart putting the very first bucket together. We knew that the food bucket would be a blessing to a family but could not really comprehend the enormity of it all,” Wilson said.
While the challenge of working the containers through Haitian customs has been frustrating, Wilson looks at the challenges as a “God-thing.”
“The need for the buckets continues to be great, even as Haiti is recovering,” he said.
The rainy season in the tropical Haitian climate is in full force. Wilson constantly tracks the weather via the Internet to determine if any hurricanes or tropical storms are threatening the island of Hispaniola which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.
The need for food could become increasingly critical during the next few months, he said. “I have said it often, God in his perfect timing will release the containers at the perfect juncture. Our job is to wait on him,” Wilson said.
Wilson equated seeing the first bucket distributed to “the first water station in a marathon. It was a welcome site. It was refreshing and re-energizing, but there are still many miles to go.”
– Denman is director of communications for the Florida Baptist Convention.