Religion is Important in Haiti

A few nights ago, the mother of one of the NICU babies had some questions about her son. The Haitian physician was busy with a new premature infant and could not talk with Mom. He asked me to explain the situation with an interpreter. This baby is the sole survivor of the original four premature infants who were in the NICU when I arrived and he is just hanging on, stable over the day, but still precarious. I found an interpreter at the triage station and he explained word-for-word what I wanted to say to Mom. I described the clinical situation as I saw it. The baby has meningitis and a serious intestinal infection. The baby stopped breathing at least twice during the day while I was around. There are a variety of bad case scenarios for the baby. I mentioned perforation of the intestine, a new blood infection, increasing lung disease, and hemorrhage in the brain, any one of which could cause deterioration and death. Mom accepted this with sadness. I asked her if she had any questions and she replied, “God knows what will happen.” I hear a variation of this occasionally in Canada (God only knows), but more as a hackneyed statement about life. For this Mom, the words were literal. 

Haitian pastors have visited the unit three times while I have been in the unit. The same two men have visited on two occasions and three women on one occasion. They stand in front of a bed and pray for the child. The older man shouted loudly, with an almost angry tone, as if to make sure that God heard his call for the child to improve. The other man looked up to the sky, swayed his hips, moved his arms around like a choir director, and sang prayers. The women who visited staged a variation on this theme. The senior woman asked for the help of God and the other two sang prayers. The pastors prayed only for a specific child. I presume this means the family is a member of the same church. Two Catholic Nuns visited the unit yesterday. They were dressed in a traditional white habit. Both were older women, likely about my age. 

Umberto is the “Go to” person on the unit. He is a young Haitian with good English skills and he has worked for the hospital for several years. He does not have any formal medical training, but he performs a variety of tasks. He knows where everything is in the unit. His official job is to serve as a translator, but he certainly performs well above this pay grade.

Umberto is a devout Christian and his passion is music. He sings in the church choir and over the next week he will perform in two church events.

I asked Umberto why the recent democratically elected leaders have not helped the poor, and he responded that the rich people prevent the leaders from doing their job. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That’s in the bible,” he reported with finality. Faith is clearly at the center of Umberto’s personal world.

The actual biblical reference for Umberto’s quote is Matthew 13:12, which reads, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” 

I have always interpreted this phrase to be a description of what is common but not as a description of what should be. My sense is that Umberto thinks differently. For him, God (the Bible) is the official explanation for the poverty of the Haitian people. Haitians are poor, and since God permits the poor to get poorer, Umberto accepts this. I didn't ask Umberto, but to me this implies that Umberto might believe that God allows this suffering for a reason, presumably a good reason by God's account. This is the Problem with Pain, that CS Lewis wrote about. According to Umberto, although Haitians are doomed to be poor, God offers them heaven so long as they live a good life.

Religion is a strong force in Haiti, whereas in Canada many churches struggle to maintain membership in their congregations. The people in Haiti are poor and they suffer. Canadians, by comparison, are fabulously rich, and Canadians live the good life. Religion thrives in the midst of suffering because faith offers the poor some hope for deliverance, perhaps only after death, but deliverance from their suffering all the same.