The Social Conscience of a Missionary

"As a kid, I hated it that everyone knew who I was," Danny remembers. "They knew who my dad was. It was like 'Pastor Joel' was written on my forehead. Even in the dark of night when there was a blackout, they knew who I was."

Once, when Bishop Joel spoke out against the ruling party on a radio show, his supporters all rallied at the compound for fear that it would be burned down. The deacons were sitting on the roof of the church, ready to drop rocks on anyone who tried to do damage. Danny wanted to defend the church but was told that he was too young. Eventually, they let him be a lookout, and he remembers seeing burning tires and people running through the streets with machetes.

Haiti has always been as unstable as it is impoverished. Back in the seventeenth century, French buccaneers used the island as a staging spot to rob English and Spanish ships, until Spain ceded the western third of the island. Then the French began importing African slaves to work on sugar and coffee plantations, which made the land one of France's richest colonies even when its inhabitants were the poorest. In 1791, the slaves revolted, and by 1804 Haiti was independent, only the second republic in the Western Hemisphere and the first black republic in the world. But between 1843 and 1915, when the U.S. military started what would turn into a nineteen-year occupation, the country experienced 22 changes of government. In the mid-1950s, Haiti fell under a 29-year dictatorship. Finally, the country ratified a constitution in 1987, then elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide president in 1990. He took office the following year, only to be removed in a military coup six months later. He went into a three-year exile in the U.S.

Dan remembers when school got canceled for "coup" days. The Clinton administration placed an embargo on Haiti, and no planes could travel between the two countries. All of Dan's teachers fled on the last flights out. Dan left, too, and went to stay with friends of his father's in Pennsylvania.

In 1994, the U.S. led a multinational force of 21,000 troops into Haiti to oversee the end of military rule. Elections followed, but so did accusations of fraud. In 2001, Aristide took power again, and for the first time in the country's history, a full-term president transferred power peacefully to a successor.

Through all the chaos, Dan had one constant: his love of basketball. No sooner was he back in Haiti than he started begging his father to send him back to school in the U.S., which Dan knew was his only shot at the NBA. When Dan was nineteen, his father finally agreed — on the condition that Dan go to Bible school in order to become a minister.

Dan agreed, and enrolled at Victory Christian in Tulsa, where a friend of the church had agreed to give him free room and board — and where Dan quickly joined the basketball team. For once, he wasn't regarded as Bishop Joel's son, but rather as "that kid from Haiti." He was one of five black kids at the school, four of whom were on the basketball team's starting lineup. But because he was already nineteen, Dan couldn't play ball officially until January. Still, in just half a season, he rated as one of the highest scorers in the school's history.

Dan's father found out what he was up to, and in the argument that followed, Dan vowed not to return to Haiti until he could afford a room in a hotel. But then his grandfather died, and Dan returned to Bishop Joel's compound.

He was soon back in the U.S., though, with a full scholarship to junior college in Midwest City, Oklahoma. From there he went on to Rose State College, where in his second year he led the team in both scoring and rebounds. Another scholarship to Harding University in Arkansas followed. It wasn't the launching pad to the NBA that Dan had hoped for, but in 2001, he did manage to earn a bachelor's in criminal justice. He figured he'd become a lawyer.

But first Dan decided to give basketball one last chance. A team in Italy was hosting tryouts, and he talked to a team from Sweden. He even played with one in Finland for a while, but he thought the culture was cold. So he split for France, where he played on a national league. He was making a living, but his team always came up one win short of the highest professional level in the tournament style of play.