Unnecessary Trash

I’ve thought a lot about how to write this post, and I still don’t know how to do it well… I don’t want to NOT do it, so I’m starting here, right in the middle of the mess:

(Photo of used underwear, bras, and *brand new shoulder pads* donated for women at the Heartline Maternity Center in Haiti)

First, confession time: I am guilty. I want to save some of you reading this post from this same guilt. And I want to honor and love the Haitian people, while educating us all on something that happens often but is just not ok…

Let me back up a little. The first four days of this New Year were very busy with births at the Heartline Maternity Center (This is the organization where I am now volunteering in post-earthquake Haiti). We slept very little and labored during several loooong hours with painful, beautiful, frightened, strong mamas. Each birth was different and lovely and had a happy ending with a healthy baby boy! (Here’s to 2012 being the year of the boys! Woohoo!)

Anyway, since I’m not medical and don’t know much about birth, I spent many hours- and by many, I mean easily over 100 hours- helping get things organized and sorting through donations: soft new baby blankets, packets of colorful matching onesies, and tiny baby socks. In some ways it was like a south of the border Babies R Us. I love tiny things, but tiny matching things for babies...love multiplied!

But, on a different note, many of the donations I sorted through were things that weren’t asked for and don’t really belong at a birth center. Donations which arrived on their doorstep, in a collage of random assorted medical & baby & clothes items. Donations that were not requested and consequently were put into a corner because the energy required to sort through them was not available to the person on the receiving end that day. Things like tracheotomy kits (not too many of trach’s happening at the birth center these days…um, or ever), used dirty underwear, baby clothes stained with spit up, and old scrubs embroidered with other people’s names. Some dear soul even took the time to organize her old rusty barrettes and put them in a used tic-tac container secured with a rubber band. I imagine her heart swelled at the thought of someone receiving this “gift”…

So let me pause here and say, I know people sending donations have good intentions. I know it makes them feel good. And at the risk of some of you deciding never again to give anything away, I want to say as politely as possible, Haiti doesn’t need your junk.

The missionaries I know who are living in Haiti don’t have the time to sort through your suitcase of random expired medications, partially used medical equipment, baby bottles (they teach exclusive breastfeeding there), and the like. And even if they DID have the time to sort through these regularly arriving suitcases, there are 1000 other things they could and should be doing with their time and energy and ability to speak Creole. That being said, there are things that are genuinely needed in Haiti. And if you truly want to give “stuff” when you come, I’d encourage you contact the organization you are going to serve with, and find out exactly what is needed to bring, and (here's the hard part when your friend offers you her bag of old baby clothes, or you pass by that tiny display of baby nylons and want to pick up a few pairs because they are soooo cute) stick to that list exclusively.

Doctor Jen, who routinely saves lives and has many gifts and skills to benefit people in Haiti, spent several days cleaning cabinets with me. She found some medication that expired in 1992. Not only is that scary, it is such a waste of storage space and time. And then we are faced with the decision about whether to a) throw it away in Haiti-- knowing someone will probably go through the trash and try to use it, possibly making themselves or someone else sick-- or b) pack it back up in our suitcase to throw away in the States. Does that seem like a crazy waste of time and energy and suitcase space to anyone else? Aside from making me crazy, I’ll admit it makes me angry (and it might get me arrested for 'drug trafficking' in customs some day!)

Heartline does an amazing job of loving the women in their program. One small way they show love and respect to these women, is to gift them with a birth pack once their baby has arrived. This pack has NEW items in it—probably the first, never-worn-by-other-people items that some of these families have ever owned.

Put yourself on the receiving end in either of these scenarios: First, imagine yourself as a Heartline staff member. Working hard day in and day out just to get the job done, to love the people around you, to be faithful to God as you make impossible decisions, and to take care of your family and life amidst the challenge of living in a city with very little infrastructure. Now imagine the number of times they encounter a short term team member who says “I brought something for you”. And since it is already there in Haiti, a suitcase filled with random, un-asked-for “donations”, they have graciously said “yes” to something they knowingly didn’t need, in order respect this visitor and then put it away in a corner for “some day” when they have the time to sort through the ziplocks full of randomly sized Band-Aids and assorted tubes of partially used creams. (I even found stuffed in a corner, an earthquake kit with a partially used tube of toothpaste. People, can we really not spend the $1.00 to buy a brand new tube for someone that just lost everything and survived a major catastrophe? Sheesh.)

Second, imagine yourself as a new mom. Your precious perfect baby has arrived. You don’t have much, but you are proud to take your baby out and show her off in the best clothes you have. (Haitians are incredibly clean and well dressed people—in spite of the many obstacles that they face.) Imagine, as you are leaving the birth center, the nursing staff gives you a bag of donated items to start your new life with your new baby. Imagine opening the bag and finding stained and holey baby clothes, a hat three sizes too big crocheted with black and red yarn that “needed to be used up”-for your baby. Would you put your baby in them? Would you use someone’s old nursing bra, stained and smelling of someone else’s milk? Maybe for some of you the answer is “Yes”. I come from a Dutch family that reuses ziplock bags…we know a little something about using every last thread of an item before buying something new. I get it.

But at the same time, when the Gospel tells us to “Love God with all our heart, and love our neighbor as ourselves”, I don’t think it’s telling us to give our ‘neighbors’ in Haiti the things we are ready to discard. Partially used medical equipment that would be discarded in the US, should be discarded in the US…not flown to Haiti in the name of “donations” to be thrown away there. Leftover prescription medications should never be sent (or brought) to Haiti, unless you have clear instructions to the contrary from the organization to which you are planning to donate the medication.

So please, before you -or anyone else you know- fills up your suitcase with items to "donate", make sure they are really truly needed. Make sure they are not taking away jobs or income for local Haitians (one example: http://apparentproject.blogspot.com/2011/08/peanut-butter-and-shelley.html). Make sure that you are not making MORE work for missionaries by bringing things they can’t use. And, whenever possible, bring items that are NEW!

(Don't you want the BEST for these ladies?!)

I am sure this is offensive to some people reading. Before you comment, please read “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett or “Toxic Charity” by Steven Bush. I started off by saying I am guilty of this. Truth be told, as I bought new towels on Sunday, the thought crossed my mind to store my old towels in the garage to take down to Haiti next time. BUT, thankfully, God is still working on my heart. And the better gift I can give, is, first to confirm that towels are needed and bring my NEW ones down to donate (they will certainly last longer- and therefore be more useful- than my old towels) OR save that space in my suitcase and fill it with love. What I mean by that is keep the space in my suitcase AND in my heart open, so that I am not sorting through “stuff” down there--when I could be spending time with Haitian people, loving them and being loved in return.

So I want to end with this thought. People living in poverty don’t waste much. They are used to making the best of any situation or donation. But it’s the folks in the middle (usually the long term missionaries—who have the awkward and time consuming job of determining what can be saved/given out/thrown away). So lets do everyone a favor and band together to give people living in Haiti (or wherever you serve) the BEST that we have. New items, made well, that will be passed from family to family to family, and used over and over again. Lets honor them by loving them, as we would love ourselves. If we wouldn’t be excited to receive it as a gift, why should they? If it would be discarded here, lets do just that, and not pack it up to be thrown away in a country with no garbage system. I think together we can serve the missionaries and the people on the receiving end of our charity well, if we truly begin to practice “loving our neighbors in Haiti, as we love ourselves”.

And in the end, let’s remember that its relationships that change lives…not stuff. Even stuff that is useful. Especially at Christmas time, I am reminded that in the midst of all the gifts and ‘stuff’ of life, God came to us…as a person, a baby, to be in relationship…and since that time the world has never ever been the same. Lets follow THAT example!

For further education check out these posts by Heartline staff members:
http://ryanandmelissaalberts.com/1308/haitian-disaster-relief-conference/

http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/2012/01/reposting-from-summer-of-09.html

Or this one:
http://talesfromethehood.com/2010/05/29/american-culture-101-more-blessed/