Each time my family and I go back to the states, I am amazed how far the USA has progressed technology wise. There is a new vocabulary that we have to pick up, in a form of reverse cultural shock. I feel like I am behind the times because I don’t use #hashtags. #whataretheyanyway? The texting lingo throws us off when communicating with friends. IHNCWMOTA = I have no clue what most of them are? I just got used to smiley faces, and what do they have now – emoticons. What!? It can go on and on and on.

Let me be clear and honestly say that I realize that some of this confusion is in part because I am getting older and I don’t pick up on things as quickly. Why must software updates change the way things look and where other things are located?

I live in Haiti, a third world developing country.
It remains the only country in the history of the world where slaves revolted and won their independence, and it was the second in the Americas after the US to gain its independence. As history has noted, Haiti has suffered from chronic poverty since it won its independence on January 1, 1804. Less than 25% of the population has electricity. Let me explain a little about that. For the first time since God said, “Let there be light,” we have electricity in our area. But it is not what you think. It may be on for 3 days and off for a week. It may be on for a few hours and off for a couple of days. At the time this article was written, the normally 120 volt service has only been putting out 87 volts. That is not enough to run our battery charger or other things like that. The reason I tell you this is to let you know that once you leave the USA be prepared for the technology curve to take a nose dive.

The blazing fast 4G service you are used to will slow down to dial-up speed or slower. I must interject here that the internet service in Haiti has improved tremendously over the past year. You may be used to email communications and that is not the case in many other countries. For the first time in 8 years I finally received an invoice via email from a local Haitian company where I buy books from for our schools. Granted culture has a part to play in all of this too. You may find that in some cultures it is required to have a face-to-face meeting to place an order or to conduct a business deal. Techies can get really frustrated really fast in “non-techie” countries and cultures.

One reason I personally do not use an electronic Bible is that the Haitians are not ready for that yet. You have to realize that cell phones are a relatively new technology here in Haiti. When we visited the country back in 2001 the only cell phone coverage was through one company, and they only had a few towers in the largest cities. Jump forward in 2006 when we arrived in Haiti as a family, and there was a company that was expanding throughout the country and then to today (2014) almost all of the country is covered. Even still if I were to use an electronic Bible, there would be those that may think it is my own words and not a Bible because they don’t see me turning the pages. Child Evangelism Fellowship taught teachers to read from the Bible in their hand so the children could see it was not just someone else’s words but it came from the Book called the Bible. Therefore, people who do not know anything about an electronic Bible may not believe you are reading from the Bible if you are using a smart phone or tablet. I do want to say that I love studying with e-Sword®. It is the only electronic Bible program that I have found that has the Haitian Creole Bible on it. So when studying for a message, a Bible class, or a Sunday school lesson I can have my KJV English, the Haitian Creole and French Bibles all open and go back and forth to try and get something that is clear in a language that I was not born speaking. I benefit from using calendar and task apps on my smart phone. My laptop makes translation work much easier. So there is a place for technology, but at the same time it can be a deterrent.

Technology is a tool, but not when it takes too much time to get it working or keep it working correctly. A laptop in the hand of a national pastor that has no clue how to use it becomes a time stealer for a missionary. I use my laptop nearly every day. It is an invaluable tool to me. If I were to put it in the hands of some well-meaning national pastor, I would not be able to get any work done for having to “walk him through the process” multiple times. For example, the director of one of our schools completed a computer coarse and received a diploma stating that he had completed the necessary requirements to receive said diploma and is proficient in Microsoft Office programs. The diploma failed to include that during the entire semester he never touched a computer, much less typed even a sentence in a word processing program. So to allow him to do some of the computer work, it actually took more of my time to fix the stuff he did than it would have if I had done it myself from scratch. This is very typical in developing countries. There are institutions that want to teach and students that want to learn, but there is a lack of resources to fuel the education process. Haitians definitely want to learn and they are definitely not lazy. They simply do not have the opportunities like in other countries. This is a quote from World Bank.org:

Haitians have also benefitted from better access to some services. The biggest success has been in education, where participation rates of school-age children rose from 78 to 90 percent. However, the quality of education remains low. Only one third of all children aged 14 are in the appropriate grade for their age.

We as missionaries are expected to stay in constant contact with the USA. If a pastor has not heard back from his email in a “few days” he is ready to cut our support. Meanwhile he has no clue that our satellite internet has been down for several days and that we have no idea when the guy is going to get here to fix it. (actually happened to me) Mission boards are having more and more things available online as far as financial accountability forms and the like, while here in the boonies it can take 3 to 5 min. for the photo rich home page to load. As we say in the south – Bless their hearts they mean well.

I find myself asking the same question from time to time – Why am I here? Am I here to advance the technology threshold of Haitians or am I here to advance the Kingdom of God? Am I here to help the Haitians live like Americans, or am I here to help them realize they can have a victorious life in Christ in Haiti? I could go on and on. I have found that Haiti is a black hole for social programs. Just after the earthquake, I was in contact with a pastor that had been to Haiti in 1973 during the Duvalier years. He made an interesting observation in that he saw no difference in the country from 1973 to 2010! Here the Haitians still plow with oxen, many still cook over open fires, and according to UNICEF, 49 percent of rural Haitians openly defecate. Why does Haiti seem to be stuck in neutral? Well if you do a small amount of research on the internet you will find that the list goes on and on and I am not going to try to wade into the muddy waters of reasons. I will say this – no matter what country, what culture, what race, what language – sin can have a devastating effect on a country. Psalm 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” If America does not change its direction, it too will be going in the opposite direction.

To power down this article, I want to give you this advice. Test the waters on technology. OK that was not the best analogy – water and technology. Go with little to no expectations and then see where you can go from there.

Serving Jesus,

HGP3