Haiti was...CONNECTED
Inside the new concrete New Life church at Vye Tè near Grison Garde, as the morning worship service was just beginning, something spoke to me, deep inside. Big, bulging tears overflowed my eyes as I felt the words 'I love this place' bubble up from somewhere deep in my soul.
The journey there was beautiful. The eight of us on the visiting team, along with the Bundy family and Gross family.
The youngest Bundy, Kristina, isn't enjoying getting windswept in the back of the truck as much as the rest of us.
The road becomes the river.
"That way!" she points out for us.
Realizing we need to go down a slope into the river bed, we're wondering if Director Brett is going to go for this one. Of course, he will! So, after some picture-taking, we all decide it's time to sit down and hold on.
By this point, several people are realizing why I was telling them to wear walking shoes and change into 'church' dress shoes once we get there. So, it's down the hill, across a stream and up the other side. In sticky red mud.
And this is the church, a brand new concrete building since last time I was here (in Dec 2011). (It was finished about a month earlier, I think).
Prayer to begin.
And great worship. When Pastor Enick invites me to the front to introduce the group of visitors, the visitors (who are supposed to be on best behavior) start laughing. I find out later that Brett (who is translating for the group using headsets) has told the team that I'm going to the front to sing. Never trust a translator!
So, why CONNECTED?
I first met the leaders of this church, Pastor Job and Pastor Enick, when they both worked at Radio 4VEH. At 5pm, most evenings, Job would come in after most other staff had already left for the day. Job was the cleaner. Enick worked as a guard.
It was years later when I was visiting Haiti in 2010, with Marilyn Shaferly and others for the 60th Anniversary (we are just starting celebrations for the 64th Anniversary now - special live broadcasts start any minute) that I said we needed to go and visit Grison Garde, a church that I'd heard so much about.
You see, years earlier, in the early days of evangelism and distribution of solar-powered radios tuned to 4VEH in a campaign called Operation Saturation, Emmanuel Félix and a team had visited this area of Grison Garde called Vye Tè. It was an area heavily under the influence of the witch doctors. People lived in fear, afraid to go out in the dark.
But as the short-term mission team went door-to-door and, with the help of translators, told people of the hope available to them in Jesus, four people gave their lives to the Lord. The team left behind solar radios to minister to families every day through the radio programs.
Some time later, Pastor Job graduated from the OMS seminary, and was challenged to go into the rural areas rather than taking the easier route of staying close to town. Seeking to follow the Lord, Job and Enick found themselves in Grison Garde. And the people there began sharing their stories.
They asked Job to be their pastor, but said "You're not our first pastor, our first pastor was Radio 4VEH."
After the Gospel message and solar radios were shared with this community, people began to listen every day to Christian radio, and heard Bible studies, preaching and community programs. By my first visit here, New Life church was well established with 120 members.
2011 visit
A year later, when I returned with a team including ministry partners Tim Whitehead (head of Galcom, who make the solar radios) and Ron Harris (serving international Christian broadcasters, then through NRB, now through MEDIAlliance), we worshiped with the believers at New Life and heard some of their stories.
This was the church in 2011, corrugated iron. Used as a school during the week.
This lady was one of many who suffered at the hands of the witch doctors. She told how she had lost several children to the witch doctors, who were known to sacrifice children to appease the spirits.
Richard is a leader at New Life church. When I interviewed him in 2010, he said:
"I can tell you, the person I am today, it's because of what I have heard on Radio 4VEH." Fantastic!
It was great to see him again last month.
On our way to church that morning, Pastor Job had asked if I could translate. I said yes, assuming he meant I would translate from Creole into English for our visitors. My Creole is not perfect, but my English is pretty good :) so no problem.
When we were getting out of the truck to start walking down that hill to the church, I realized that our visitor Tim had been asked to preach, so I was in fact going to be translating from English into Creole. Not so easy. With God's help, Tim's clear message and a few words of help from others, we got through it.
A couple of days later, we returned to New Life church, to work alongside this congregation in sharing the Gospel with their neighbors, and leaving solar radios to help them every day. Even found this elderly man with one of the original solar radios.
(Thanks to Ron Harris for some of these photos).
Connected
So after talking to Pastor Enick when we arrived at New Life church last month, and sharing news from family and ministry, including him telling me about several new churches or 'stations' that they have planted in neighboring areas (exciting!), I sat down for the service. And I knew that I love this place. This church. These people. This ministry. This country. This particular place and time that God has me and my family in.
Haiti is connected to me, to us, and we're forever connected to Haiti. Connected to the body of Christ, His church here in Grison Garde, and across this country.
"Remember me?"
On our final day, Melissa invited the ladies on the team to go to town and have pizza for lunch. While we
enjoyed pizza and some good conversation, I spotted someone across the restaurant, realizing I knew him. Turns out, it was Evans, who worked for a while as part of my communications team at World Vision in Port-au-Prince. He asked how was my baby (meaning Hannah, who's now 8) and we figured it had been a long time since we worked together. Another connection.
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