Originally Written 8-19-2018 – 1 month post stroke before any seizures

Pastor Jeff,

As I try to rehab myself, I wanted to share a story (true story) with you because in my foggy world I saw your post of the guy cutting the grass with scissors.  The sending of this is a better alternative for (maybe not so much for the receivers) me as I work on my post-stroke eye and hand coordination than what my occupational therapist wants to do which is to practice picking up paneling nails with tweezers and place into 1/8 inch holes on a pegboard  NOTTTTTTTTTT!  Anyway, going back to the early 1980s while Charley Wilson was doing his war with the CIA in Afghanistan.  I was knee-deep in a mining project in Haiti, taking over an old Reynolds Bauxite mine (used ore for aluminum).  Through a journey with as many twists and turns as Charley had including voodoo, Tonton Macoute and a little CIA thrown in, and of course Baby Doc.  This is another whole story, but I wanted to tell you about was an amazing Haitian named “Esnider” (I’m spelling for phonetic purposes only since no one could write his name) and my ramrod at the mine was named Dean Snyder. 

Dean was a no-nonsense ex-Navy guy who was everything you would expect, hard-hitting, hard-drinker and cussed like a sailor, that would make even me blush.  I would fly into Haiti every Friday and back on Sunday night because we had the family mining company running here in Florida at the time. The purpose of this trip was to check on our progress and bring American money in for expenses, payroll, schlep machine parts, etc.  On this trip, when I approached the gate at the compound I noticed among the hustle and bustle of men and machines a single thin Haitian young man cutting the grass while he sat down with a machete.  I thought this odd and a waste of manpower especially since the guy was just sitting there to boot.  Being a bean counter myself, I addressed Dean and said, “We are hiring over 100 people per week on a rotation basis why do we have this guy sitting on the ground cutting grass with a machete?”   The tough sailor said sheepishly that the man cutting the grass is named Esnider.  He has polio and he hobbles on the ground to get around.  I said, “Dean you know that when the weekly hiring time comes, we have 40,000 men show up to apply and we even pay the local garrison of the military to keep order why are we hiring this poor guy?”  The otherwise brusque Navy man, I think I remember his eyes tearing up, replied “I take responsibility for this hire and after you hear what I’ve got to say, you can fire him.  You are the owner. Your call.”  He said, “Esnider is the only one in his family of several healthy siblings that is useless to the family, so he used to sit all day, do tiny little jobs and never left where he lived.  He hobbles almost 5 miles each way and crosses a substantial stream just to get here every day on time to do this job.”   Esnider said that we were the only ones who ever thought he was worth anything.  So, that’s why Esnider cuts the grass.  He cut that grass with a machete every day until we had to leave Haiti when Baby Doc fled, and we were forced to shut down.  I never saw Esnider again and don’t know what happened to him, but maybe at least once in his life he found that he was worth something.

There is a lot of back story, the real story here is a brave young man and tough sailor whose heart was touched and a young American business guy who learned that you just have to stop when you are changing the world long enough to realize what life is really about. 

As I write this barely able to type, I thank you, Pastor Jeff, for triggering this memory as I struggle through this time.  Maybe I’ll think a little more about Esnider and what he went through and grapple with the price Jesus paid and somehow overcome my feeling of utter uselessness and disappointment with how I fell short with finances and providing for my family no matter how honestly hard I worked. There’s so much I could tell about my time in Haiti, every time there is a mission from church to Haiti, I had been touched to support it. 

A struggling Christian, Rick