two weeks ago I met Yahweh he spoke to
me I looked at his face and if you know
your old testament you know Yahweh means
God the great I am you’re not supposed
to be able to look at him and live well
i did and i’m here to talk about it
because Yahweh lives in Haiti he has a
wonderful huge smile he’s the gardener
at the guest house where I building
goodness foundation volunteers today
when they go to the area of leg on I was
down there last week checking out
housing after Hurricane Matthew this is
a typical teek hai a small house that
building good foundation has built seven
hundred of them I’m very very pleased to
say that our ruse did well houses
survived not so much the neighbors these
are temporary shelters that still people
are living in six years after the
earthquake in 2010 some of my friends
who are not religious use the word about
an earthquake and a hurricane in a
hurricane as apocalyptic I’m not afraid
of theological language I come from a
large southern family we get together
twice a year sometimes more enjoy
perfect wonderful pork BBQ a side bowl
of theological discussion doctrinal
strips on the side our conversation is
all about stories memories and trying to
be 16 18 years old again and almost
always about grandma Madeline grandma
eppley our matriarch
the story goes like this an unlikely
couple Madeline on her way to the
mission field very driven smart in
seminary very unusual for a Baptist
young woman she had if she won’t end up
going to China then she met Kelly a
sailor just back from the North Atlantic
where he was on a very fast ship chasing
German submarines and he had a touch of
tuberculosis so they fell in love and
for love she did not go to China and for
the Great Depression it forced them back
to their homeland to his home in the
mountains of North Carolina close to
Asheville and the story the next story
is that as she sat on the steps of that
little shabby home and the wagon that
had brought their possessions slowly
made its way back up the road she sat
down and she went to ballin that’s
Appalachian for really big grief and
then she got up which was her character
and she went to work and she made that
area her mission field she got involved
in the school she was a backbone of the
church she was the heart of the
community she drove people to goodness
she raised a family and the nurses
teachers phd’s successful business
people she had a code and she had an
ethic I think they went something like
this because of her faith and her love
everyone knew she loved deeply number
one you treat your neighbor like
yourself love your neighbor like
yourself everybody’s the same number two
you go to school and you never stop
learning and then you never ever stop
learning and number three you work
really really hard especially at number
one and number two so
for us and for me specifically she
impacted me so directly that it
projected me through the 1980s the first
few years I lived in west africa i
worked with volunteers who are working
in water development next to the desert
I learned French middle of the decade
worked with Haitian refugees the crisis
when so many people were coming back to
Haiti from Haiti to to Virginia actually
and I learned Haitian Creole then my
wife and I worked in Latin America
Central America South America with
Habitat for Humanity we learned Spanish
so when we were looking for a place to
stay I did what we do in our family the
guys we marry intelligent women we
listen to them she chose Charlottesville
so we ended up here in 1991 and I
realized that I was in a town where I
could thrive number one love your
neighbor as yourself but your neighbors
weren’t just local they were global it
was everybody number two people around
here never stop learning and number
three I could work hard I found a place
in the nonprofit industry and I have
been a professional volunteer
coordinator in every job I’ve had
helping empower the community fast
forward a little bit 2010 January
thirteenth I was having breakfast at tip
top restaurant Jack stoner he was the
chairman of the board for building
goodness foundation I was the newly
hired executive director and the
conversation went like almost every
nonprofit conversation goes how do we
get more money get more volunteers how
do we raise awareness you know how do we
get in the media everyone who’s done it
knows this but for me because it was
Jack’s donor I was completely stoked I
wanted to work with this guy it’s a
personal hero he had been to Haiti
number of years before had a huge
transformational experience
found that he could use his construction
skills very well as a builder came back
and he created a visioning pulled people
to him as close as friends and they
decided they had a vision for an
organization that would give local
designers and builders a chance to use
them and change the world he was unhappy
with his life he was discontented with
the huge gap between the haves and
have-nots and he turned it on its ear
and brought and inspired so many people
to him and to a friends who got friends
and friends that are involved that it
became a movement and I watched it
happen throughout for those 20 years and
so that was January thirteenth and he
said as we stepped out a tip top he said
did you see the news last night and I
said well no I did and he said had
mentioned it before but Haiti had an
earthquake and I said that can’t be true
quick hadn’t happened 100 years so I
went back to the office and there on the
screen I was horrified to see
port-au-prince with a mile high cloud of
concrete dust from thousands of
buildings that had imploded on top of
each other and there were images of
people being dragged out of buildings
and stories about the whole gym not the
whole campus but the campus roofs
falling from the port-au-prince
University killing thousands of students
at one time and the palace was down and
government buildings were down and then
the news started calling our office
because we had been to Haiti and we
became ground central for things about
Haiti and so we ended up hearing from
getting on the TV and getting the radio
and talking about this horrible thing
but I was touched mostly by the calls
that I got from the volunteers someone
called and said how’s Renee someone else
called said house clay mom someone else
called and said house y’all Philippe
have you heard anything about him
someone else called said how is that
lady that lives under the church with
those six kids next to the clinics that
we built
then it struck me Haiti was not a place
where we go for one more tragic story
haiti was a place where our neighbors
lived we knew their children we played
with them on construction sites we
helped them build their homes we had
whimsical memories of what it was like
to be there in their villages we worked
with him we employed them we were side
by side partners with them in helping
their lives and dealing with a very
tragic history so we got busy it was
about neighbors in our community helping
our neighbors in Haiti plan went out
once the the Emergency Response cream
teams were cleared out about a month
later we got busy and we built a trade
school so that Haitians can help the
next generation of Education buildings
not implode in an earthquake schools and
communities that were far from
port-au-prince this one’s in Cap Haitien
in the north beautiful school in hench
cooperative centers where people can
process mangoes and coffee economic
development centers a women’s health
clinic the only of its kind in the
mountains within 50 miles and 700 homes
helping people have homes after the
earthquake and then after Hurricane
sandy so we learned some things Haiti is
a place where people automatically think
about 400 years of inhumane injustice
and slavery corruption bad US policies
rice subsidies that obliterated their
rice economy all these things are huge
and should be discussed but what we have
learned in our time I would like to say
this it’s about being good neighbors a
methodology of neighborliness number one
size does matter while the international
community is trying to and for good
reason fine
way to build the plumbing to get
resources to the ground small
organizations like ours can make a huge
difference by going into communities and
being involved on the grassroots level
to work with number two good neighbors
already in place organizations that have
been there a long time but don’t want us
to come in and fix them they already
know how to fix themselves we partner
with them it’s about a relationship it’s
not about a transaction and that can
happen on the community level and number
three I don’t want to be seen as
critical but then going to Haiti for a
long time seeing thousands of volunteers
get on the plains and go down to be a
part of it for good reason they want to
help people want to help they need to
learn about these things however how
many work sites when you go on or places
where you go where Americans are doing a
great job volunteering and the Haitians
are on this side and there’s a sixty
percent unemployment situation going on
the Americans often are doing the jobs
that people can do I’m not saying don’t
go I’m just saying let’s find more ways
to employ people because neighbors help
other neighbors have the dignity of jobs
what we do now we send small teams work
side-by-side with Asians we employ
dozens and dozens of impatience to give
them the dignity of jobs so they can
send their kids to school and so that
they can pay for medical bills so we’ve
learned a few things and now i’m talking
about yahweh I said Yahweh I went out to
your village destra we built that
community center out there I heard that
the storm hit and it was well used but
no one will talk to me they’re little
traumatized by the situation what
happened he said I’ll tell you what
happened he said when the hurricane hit
and the wind started blowing in the
water rose out of the ocean and the
river right next door flooded the whole
village water level picked up one or two
feet and when people who lived in those
temporary
shelters started getting flooded out
they headed for the community center and
so for two days the wind house so loud
we could not hear it I said come be a
Monday la how many people were there he
said oh I don’t know I’m peel I’m p lime
peel it’s like don’t tell me how many
families wheat decent puck only eight or
nine really so you’re talking about 80
or 90 100 people grandpa’s grandmas kids
cousins everything in that shelter he
said yeah yeah yeah yeah we couldn’t
hear ourselves talk we couldn’t hear
ourselves things and the kids were
crying and I said that must have been
horrible he said oh no no lieb only
buncombe plan said what as good as good
he said yeah guide Oh Lita Kambei the
roof it stayed on and then he went back
to his garden Thank You Yahweh [Applause]