Spring 2010 - La Puente Home

Haiti Parallels
Lance Cheslock, La Puente Director
From 1986 to 1989, just prior to working
with La Puente, I lived in rural Haiti and was
the volunteer director of Habitat for Humanity’s
second overseas project. It was my first
intensive experience with rural poverty and
homelessness. Habitat was doing groundbreaking
work in the area of affordable housing,
and the project was ripe with challenges
and opportunity. Those years had a profound
impact on me.
In the light of Haiti’s recent earthquake
tragedy that killed and displaced thousands of
people, I wanted to share a story of a Haitian
friend who inspired me with his life-lived values. I found these stories
from letters written home, and I’ve left intact the perspective of my 26year
old spirit that struggled to understand the world around me.
Pastor Boukan Tilus was the tireless president of the regional Habitat
board in the community of Dumay, serving 6 rural villages located about
50 miles southeast of Port-au-Prince. During my three years in Dumay,
Boukan mentored me in the values and challenges of faith and social justice,
an experience that inspired and changed me.
Boukan lived in a small 4 room house provided by the mission for
whom he works. The home is constructed of concrete blocks, a simple
tin roof and no running water or electricity. Boukan is married with 5
children, yet each time I visited him, I noticed a lot of other folks coming
and going from his house. One afternoon I asked Boukan just how many
people ate and slept there. He paused, looking upward as he thought,
and then exclaimed, “Sixteen!… no Seventeen!” Boukan then went on
to tell me about each of them. He had adopted numerous orphans, as
well as children whose parents simply could not care for them, he housed
several people off of the street, as well as folks who came to seek refuge
from political persecution in a northern province. He sheltered a newly
married couple, Daniel and his Madeline, and their one-year old baby.
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