Awesome Story

Bonswa!! I hope this post finds you all loving life and finding great adventures that may scare you a little – This post is slightly different than my usual writings as today I want to share the incredible story of a remarkable person with you. While living in Haiti I have been blessed to meet and work with some amazing people who have overcome the types of challenges that most of us cannot even imagine. It is truly an honor and a privilege to work with this man on a daily basis and to have the opportunity to learn from one another. As many of you know, sharing life stories and collecting the stories of the amazing people I have met while traveling the world is a passion of mine.

In Haiti, many of the stories I hear and share with people revolve around an indescribable and beautiful hope in the face of immeasurable heartbreak and tragedy. The people I spend everyday with in the deaf community embody the virtue of hope and service of one another. The first of many remarkable stories I hope to share on this blog, here is your introduction to 26 year old leader of the deaf community, Mackenson St.Louis.

After the tragic earthquake of January 2010, a small group of young men who are deaf gathered together to help a community that struggled more than most in finding aid and safety amidst terrible chaos. There is no doubt that foreign nations came rushing to the aid of the Haitian people and did everything they could to assist a nation struggling to make sense of such a massive natural disaster.

However, the deaf population of Port au Prince and surrounding areas struggled to receive aid as they experienced an additional communication barrier and a pervasive cultural mentality that places people who are deaf or hard of hearing at the lowest rung of social strata.

At the time, 24 year old Mackenson St. Louis realized the plight of many deaf people in areas affected by the earthquake. In a courageous and selfless effort, Mackenson, with the aid of two other young deaf men named Jimmy and Widler, worked tirelessly to gather the deaf people together in order to look out for and support one another. Through a series of extremely fortunate events and the work of passionate advocates, the deaf community now currently resides in 168 temporary shelters provided by the International Federation of the Red Cross.

Before discussing the new hope Mackenson and the deaf community have for a permanent and sustainable community at the Mission of Hope land in Leveque, Haiti, Mackenson’s story prior to his young leadership of the deaf community is just as inspiring.

Mackenson was born hearing and attended school until the age of 10 at a typical Haitian public school. Mackenson has nearly always loved learning and has a voracious appetite for languages and books. At the age of 10 Mackenson became ill and lost his hearing. As soon as he lost his hearing, Mackenson had difficulty speaking, communicating and interacting with everyone around him. Mackenson states, “my mother worked with me everyday to keep on speaking, but since then my hearing has been closed.”

Despite the desperate attempts of his mother to teach him to continue to communicate orally, Mackenson began to struggle in school. His teachers became impatient, and for the first time in his life, Mackenson’s favorite endeavor, learning, became an activity of discomfort and fear for him.

Mackenson dropped out of school at the age of 10 to spend time working with his mother. By the next year Mackenson’s love of learning and school returned and he started school at St. Vincent’s in Port au Prince. St. Vincent’s school remains to this day an oasis for children and adults with special needs who often struggle to survive in a culture that often desires to pretend they don’t exist. However, even in this new school Mackenson resisted all instruction aimed at teaching him how to communicate in sign language in the hopes that he could remain and communicate solely with the skills he had already learned in his “hearing” life.

Mackenson shares, “I still thought like a hearing person. I never comprehended sign language and I did not like sign language. I wanted to keep talking and remain very oral all along, but I still felt like I did not fit in anywhere. I could not communicate nearly as well as I would have liked, but I learned to survive the best I could by reading lips.”

Still the son of supportive parents who worked with him often to help him fit in to hearing culture in Haiti, Mackenson experienced devastation with the death of his parents when he was 14. Mackenson has been on his own for the last 12 years since the loss of his parents and at many points of his life has struggled to survive. Following the death of his parents, Mackenson no longer had any money for school and was forced to leave St. Vincents before he could finish his program.

He returned home and felt caught between the hearing world he lived in everyday and the reality of his life as a deaf  young man. Mackenson’s love of learning persisted and he spent several years reading as many books as he could find. While still a teenager Mackenson met many other people who were deaf and living in Port au Prince. His new deaf friends taught him sign language and for the first time Mackenson embraced a new way to communicate with people who understood what it was like to live as a deaf person in Haiti.

When asked what prompted his change in attitude, Mackenson responds with a smile and short answer, stating, “you just have to move on.” Mackenson shares with his typical beaming and infectious smile that “now I fit in with deaf culture, and I found where I am supposed to be.” Mackenson has found new hope with the deaf community and has emerged as a wise and hard working leader for everyone he serves. After the earthquake Mackenson found work but was distraught to always return to the community to find that fights and problems continued amongst people living in extremely stressful and dire situations. Seeing the people he loved and cared for needing mediation and strong leadership, Mackenson decided it was more important for him to stay in the deaf community everyday and work as a mediator and helper to all who were in need. When asked how he supports himself, Mackenson responds by saying, “God provides for me. I am not focused on money. First I am focused on working for God, second I am focused on the deaf community, and third I can focus on myself and my own dreams.”

Today, the Lord has provided for Mackenson and the entire deaf community that is currently living in temporary shelters on the edge of the most dangerous slum of the western hemisphere. Through the passions of many organizations around the world and the inspirational lives of many within the deaf community, construction of permanent homes for the deaf community has begun in the community of Leveque in Haiti. An incredible organization called Mission of Hope is truly providing a new hope for thousands of people living in poverty in Haiti. In partnership between Mission of Hope, 410 Bridge and many other organizations and churches, people from all over the world will work alongside the deaf community in pursuing goals of sustainability through spiritual development, education, clean water, micro-enterprise, agriculture and healthcare. Mackenson is a passionate supporter of education programs for the deaf providing the best possible foundation for sustainability.

As each new home will come with land for gardening and fruit trees, the deaf community will have an opportunity to provide food for their families in a way that one year ago they did not think would be possible. Mackenson’s greatest hope for the deaf community is this: “without having to worry as much about food, and without the constant fear of violence from City Soleil (the slum on the edges of the current community), people who are deaf can be free to learn about many things. They can learn to read the Bible and they can learn about skills they will need to find work. Deaf people will have safe room to play soccer, and all of the kids will attend good schools.” He also shyly admits to dreams of getting married and raising up a family in his new and safe home.

Mackenson has gained literacy in French and Kreyol and is currently trading lessons in Haitian Sign Language for lessons in English with his new missionary friend from the USA. To put that all in perspective, this 26 year old man speaks 3 languages and is learning a fourth after becoming deaf at the age of 10 and never finishing high school.

Mackenson dreams of learning as much as he can about the Bible and how scripture can teach him about being a good leader for the deaf community. Amidst brutal hardships and challenges in life that many people in the western world can only imagine, Mackenson consistently cries out for education and a chance for deaf people to prove to all of Haiti that they are capable of doing great things. Mission of Hope, 410 Bridge and many other partners have provided for a new outlook on life for many people in Haiti, including the deaf community. But the goal at every step of our projects together is full sustainability through the passionate and selfless work of Haitian leaders like Mackenson.

It is amazing how the very people crying out for more education and training in leadership are the very ones who can teach even the most credentialed “experts” a lesson in servant leadership and humility.

Here is my prayer today – Lord, in light of the incredible life stories lived by many of your children, it is my prayer that you grant us the courage, strength, and humility to passionately “dive in” to the great adventures and life stories you have planned for all of us. AMEN!!