I have to say, so far I love Haiti. It’s not quite what I had expected – it’s beautiful here, the people are very open to hearing about Jesus, and I don’t feel unsafe at all. All you worriers out there will be happy to know that the city I am staying in, Jachmel, is known as possibly the safest in Haiti. Our team has learned that facts 
like that still do not change the reality that we are in a country that is still permeated with darkness…even in the safest of locations. That was felt even as we approached the border on day one.
After about half of our 10 hour bus ride was complete, we finally reached the border to Haiti. After a bit of discussion at the border, I heard the words that you don’t want to hear from the person translating for you…”they aren’t going to let us in…we have to go back.” We all stared at each other stunned – really?? There was even a car that pulled in front of our bus and drove forward towards us, blocking us from going forward and pushing us backwards away from the border. We were not thrilled with the idea of driving 5 hours back to Santo Domingo, and then trying again tomorrow. So we started praying…praising God…praying…praising God. We literally spent a good two hours just looking at the border of Haiti as our bus driver negotiated. Finally, as we were singing the song “How Great is our God”, our bus began rolling forward…across the border. It was very much a God moment! A rather prophetic picture of what our time in Haiti has been like thus far. The enemy keeps trying to attack us, but I am personally learning, and we’re learning as a team, how to fight these battles victoriously! Our God is so much bigger than anything the devil can throw out at us.
I want to tell a little story to illustrate this point. A few days ago, we went out to visit a particular area in Jachmel to follow up with some families we met the day before. We were visiting a particular house where we had spent a good deal of time speaking with two sisters. The conversation that day was going really well, they were asking many great questions, and we were able to talk to them about the freedom available to them in Christ. As we are talking, a young boy, maybe 9 years old, ran up to the wall directly in front of the house (shown in the picture below) holding a reel of VHS tape. He looked directly at us, in a rather co
nniving sort of way, as he proceeded to spend quite a bit of time getting the tape wrapped around the top of the wall…directly in front of this house we were visiting. He then takes the free end of the reel and begins to run down the street, stretching the tape across the wall behind him. Now, this may seem like a big deal, and had I not been told about this sort of thing when I was in Israel in June, I would have probably not thought this was all that strange.
When we were walking the streets of one area in Israel, I had asked someone why there was tape from cassette tapes strewn all over the place. They told me that often, people will record curses on cassettes and then wrap the tape around whatever they want to curse. I know to many this sounds like nothing of significance, but I am learning that evil and curses and witchcraft and all sorts of other things like that are very real, and not to be taken lightly.
For whatever reason, I told that story to several people while I was in the Dominican Republic, although I never saw tape anywhere around. Lots of trash, but no tape. The first day we started walking in Haiti though, I began to see tape everywhere. Not surprising considering the amount of Voodoo and witchcraft that exists here. So, as I am seeing this boy surround the house of our new friends with that tape, I’m thinking, “heck no, this is not going to happen on our watch.” I leaned over to tell one of my team members what was happening to get her to pray, and even though she didn’t know about the curse stuff, she had already begun praying for the situation – she already knew something wasn’t right. So as our team continues to talk to this family, we start praying to ourselves for God to remove the tape. A few minutes later, a motorcycle drives over the tape that is now stretching across the road. I watched in utter joy as the tape caught on part of the bike, and slowly was almost completely whisked away as the driver drove away. Within the next few minutes the rest of the tape had been blown completely away in the wind so that when we finished our talk with the family, nothing of it remained!! I had the biggest grin on my face and could not wait to tell the rest of my team what had just happened.
The enemy may try to attack us in any number of ways…curses, sickness, distractions, nightmares; but he has no authority over us, and as children of God, we are learning how to walk in that identity. God desires the Haitians to experience freedom and joy and love and peace and light through Jesus Christ…and that is exactly what we are here to show them.
