Our month in Haiti was almost night and day from last month in the Dominican Republic. While our ministry was similar, serving a pastor at his church and school, we often felt like we didn’t have much to do. The first week we walked around the nearby neighborhoods for a couple hours with a translator signing up kids to attend the pastor’s school for free (most schools in Haiti cost money, so poorer families aren’t able to send their kids to school). The second week we didn’t do a whole lot except occasionally going to the pastor’s church to do a Bible study with some of the women of the church or play sports with some of the kids. The next week was a week of Revival. Every night we would go to church and one of us girls would preach to the congregation. The church services were long; long prayers, long worship songs – they were usually about three hours long. But they were so lively! We would dance and sing with freedom and yell “Alleleuia! Merci Seigneur.”
After a week of Revival, we did some door to door ministry. Sometimes we would strike up conversation with strangers on the street, talking about life and God. Sometimes we would visit members of the church to pray for them. We prayed for a young man with lung cancer and an older woman with arthritis and several other ailments. While we did do outside ministry with our pastor, there ended up being just as much ministry within the house (not to mention a tropical storm that limited what we could do outside anyway).
“Because what’s been done and overcome
Cannot be stopped by the power of any human
Like the number of sand we will stand
And we will fall, all In the face of an eternal call
But those who call on His name
In the midst of the pain
In the guilt and the shame
And the world full of blame
And all the bloody stains
From the unjust gains
I learned all men suffer the same
Because we’re wayward sons
And all our jokes betray
Our foolish hearts and our selfish ways
But if we would turn to the Father’s grace
We would never be the same.”
– Rejoice and Lament, Josh Garrels
Let me just start by saying that Haiti is an extremely spiritually dark country. One of our translators told us that when Haiti gained independence the people dedicated their land to demons to negotiate their freedom. It is amazing what a difference this makes and how much we could sense it just being in the country. One night, one of the teams was doing feedback on the front porch. Two of the girls said that they saw a Haitian person in the tree right behind our fence. It was determined later that this person was a voodoo witch doctor chanting over our house in an attempt to thwart our ministry. Once we discovered that this was happening, it brought quite a bit of light to what had been happening within the house. By the end of the month, only one or two of the nineteen girls had not been plagued with some sort of sickness. Our house was full of girls with extremely high fevers, achy bodies, throwing up, diahrrea, runny noses, coughs, lightheadedness, among other things. Some of the girls even ended up having to go to the hospital (which is another story in itself, read about it here). I ended up catching a bit of that sickness as well right at the end of our stay. It was miserable. We had been sleeping on the floor all month, so it was difficult to get comfortable while your body was dealing with several other symptoms. It was also difficult to access food that would really help our bodies recover. My sickness would go in waves. I would feel up to doing things for a couple of hours and then have to lie down (for danger of passing out) for several more hours. It was never super painful, more just uncomfortable and at times miserable. Unfortunately, my sickness extended into our travel days to Thailand (read a blog from my teammate about our crazy travel days!).
But despite the discomfort and worry, I found myself feeling super joyful. It was so interesting to experience joy in suffering firsthand. In America, we have things to fix ourselves at the first sign of a problem. But in Haiti, our “fix-it” was Jesus because He’s all we had. And yet, relying on Jesus brought me such joy. As I was about to pass out at the breakfast table or on the airplane to Thailand, I told Jesus that He needed to sustain me – and He did! As I was freezing cold but burning hot with a fever, I told Jesus He needed to regulate my temperature – and He did! As I was lying on my sleeping pad on the floor, up every hour each night, I told Jesus He needed to give me rest – and He did! When you have two options: Joy or misery, choose joy. I hope when I return home and I catch the flu, I will remember to choose joy and to choose Jesus. Looking back, this sickness was probably one of the worst I’ve ever had; and yet I don’t remember it feeling all that awful, in fact all I can think about is Jesus’ mercies and how it brought me closer to Him.
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:3-5
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” – Romans 8:18
Check out some of the videos made by my teammate (Ashlee) and squadmate (Amanda) from our month in Haiti, and watch the World Race workout video made by Jacquie (it’s hilarious!):
