Relative Calm in Haiti?

Many of you have been keeping up with All Things New and also with Haiti in general over the past 3 months of pretty extensive political unrest in the nation.  A lot of people, both with All Things New and people in general who love Haiti, have been praying for this unrest to stop and for peace to reign again. Well, over the past 2 weeks or so, those prayers have been answered.  Things are not back to normal by any means, but there has been relative peace in the country compared to what we had seen since September. 

This is great news, but there is a huge caveat to this “peace.”  In the middle of January the entirety of the Haitian Parliament could and probably will be disbanded.  Parliament neither scheduled nor could they fund elections in October to stop this from happening.  What this means is that Haiti will not have a functioning government, but their constitution has a “Plan B” in place. 

Plan B, in this instance, is that the President will then rule by decree.  There is precedence to this and has happened in the country before, but it could be much more dangerous this time.  With all of the political unrest already and with so many people calling for the President to step down, him gaining what is essentially all of the political power in the nation may not sit well with protesters and other Haitians.

I have been intentionally vague in the preceding description of what is going on politically in Haiti because I do not fully understand the intricacies of the Haitian political machine.  I cannot even begin to predict what will or might happen when some of these things go down.  The President may extend terms (this is unlikely), the general population may be ok with him ruling by decree (also unlikely), and people may be “protested” out.  I have no idea.

Here is what I know right now.  There is some relative peace in the country and this is a great thing. Some schools (not our kids’ school) have started back and some aspects of life are going back to normal.  There is still very intense gang activity between our house and Port Au Prince, but even that has calmed a little.  What I also know is that there very well could be a very big and new political storm coming to this country in the next couple of weeks.

I say all of this to say…PRAY!

I am not sure what the best outcome of any of this would be.  But I can say that continued rioting and uncertainty is really not good for anyone in the country.  If there is a way out of this, and I know there is, please pray that GOD would provide that way.  Ask GOD to work through everyone who is playing a role in what is happening now to bring lasting peace to the country.  Ask GOD to allow Haiti to make her own way rather than relying again on international help.  While you are praying, please pray for All Things New, our kids, our employees, and our family.  There are so many things that we want to do and move forward with, and it is very difficult to do anything.  

Thank you for all that you do for and mean to ATN, and we look forward to a great 2020.  Look forward to some “End of the Year” type blogs soon as we look back over what GOD has done this past year.  And…

Merry Christmas!