Church In The Sticks

Yesterday, as part of our church's (Community Church of Columbus) annual House Church Sunday, the girls and I went to church - to be the church - at Luke & Billie's lovely Indiana farmhouse, armed with a pan of French Toast to share for breakfast. Digging through Mark chapter 2 together with the kids, we marveled at the friends of the paralyzed man, who knocked through a hard mud roof to lower their friend down so that he could see Jesus in this crowded gathering. The kids escaped to play around the farm, and the rest of us chewed over things like the sovereignty of God, why God allows suffering, His eternal plan of redemption, and the fact that Job (a man famous for the book in the Bible bearing his name and story of his suffering) probably wasn't thinking how his story was going to be used to teach so many of us in centuries since. Job was just trying to be faithful. 

Ah, the challenge. To be faithful to God today. Whether my circumstances are bringing me oodles of joy or the deepest heartache.

Bwa Nèf - New Wood Church

Back in Haiti a few Sundays ago, we joined about 20 people, mostly women and children, to worship in their stick-framed church in Bwa Nèf, about 30 minutes’ drive on rough roads from the OMS mission compound outside Cap‐Haitien. 

Just minutes into the service, Esther was already asking if it was gonna be
over soon. A couple of sweets I had stashed in my bag helped her endure.

We'd heard about Bwa Nèf for a while—it’s a village where our co‐worker said: "There are people there, but there's no life", speaking of the physical and spiritual poverty, where people are yearning for something more, not realizing what they’re lacking is a living relationship with God. It’s an area where voodoo has a strong grip on people. Our teams have done outreach many times here, sharing the Gospel again and again, leaving households with a solar radio so that people can listen to Radio 4VEH, and to the New Testament in their heart language (read by Storly). It’s all been encouraged by a dedicated pastor, Pastor Janiel, who's a leader and church planter with OMS' Every Community for Christ church-planting ministry. 

I've been needing a photo of Haitian children praying, for some Vacation Bible School
materials we're working on for the Resounding Hope radios initiative. Glad I got this one. 

"Please, take my picture!"

It was great to be with the people of Bwa Nef church, quite literally out in the sticks, with families being nurtured by the daily broadcasting of Radio 4VEH. During the service, this lady (above) sang, to “thank God”. When she committed her life to God, she worried that she still owed a (spiritual) debt to the voodoo spirits, paid via ceremonies performed by the local witch doctor. She learned from Pastor Janiel that through Jesus, all debts have been paid, and she's free. That's something to sing about.

Plenty of smiles from Hannah (now the service is over!). It's a challenge as they
understand very little of what's going on. 

Villagers gather at the water pump just down the road from the church.

Whether it's in a church building, a home or in the middle of a bunch of sticks, it's good to be together as His church.

"So, How was Haiti?" (Part 2)

The trouble with writing a Part 1 is that it implies there'll be a Part 2. Well, here it is, glimpses in answer to the question: How was your (recent April) trip to Haiti?

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.

Driving through the riverbed isn't the end of the challenge of arriving at the church.

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.

Journeying Outside Comfort Zones

A couple of weeks ago, I sat with three ladies (and a little girl) enjoying the surroundings of Tropical Smoothie, a Caribbean-inspired sandwich & kind-of-healthy fruit smoothies cafe. And as each of them shared why they signed up to join me on my next Haiti mission trip (end of April), I remembered why I LOVE taking people to Haiti.

Because the guys at Men for Missions (the short-term mission teams ministry of One Mission Society) have got it spot on: these trips are part of a life-changing journey, and Storly & I love walking alongside people as their eyes are opened to 'the real world' (the poverty, the daily reality of how most of the world lives), as they allow God to take them way beyond their comfort zones, and as they see God in action in a different context, in ways that blow their minds and break their hearts for the world God loves and came to save.

My next trip at the end of April will be the 8th team from our church here (Community Church of Columbus) since we took up residence in this part of the world. And three of us from CCC (Keri, Karen and me) will be joined by Kelly from Columbus (who was part of last year's trip) and four people (Larry, Debbie, Michael and Amy) from Findlay E-Free church in northern Ohio (who partnered with us with their Christmas offering last year to give to Resounding Hope solar radios).

So, at Tropical Smoothie, I told a story that I want to share with you. Except you get all the background too...

In June 2011, our CCC team visited a small village called Kayemit (Ky-meet), named after a local fruit tree, known in English as Star Apple. I'd been hearing about this village from Medson (our evangelism/radio distribution leader) as a place in need of the Gospel. A pastor from the local town of Quartier-Morin had started to visit this village, saw people's needs there, and felt called by God to start a work there. Our team was happy to be a part.

So, to Kayemit we went. After Luke, Devin, Randy, Tim and Ken helped fix a flat tyre on the van.

We gathered under the shade of a huge tree with Pastor Deusma, Medson and evangelism team, and others from Pastor Deusma's church in Quartier-Morin. We prayed, got instructions on the day's activity (like 'don't randomly give the radios out on the street, only after conversations with people about the Gospel, preferably in their homes or yards', and 'each radio is for the whole family or household, unless you visit with a witch doctor or voodoo priest, then give them one for themselves'). And then we split up, two or three visiting team members, a translator, a evangelism worker and a local guide who knows the community and can direct the group to homes and people most in need of the Gospel.

I usually hover around trying to spend some time with each of the groups, taking pictures, observing, sometimes helping with translation and interpreting some of the cultural stuff that doesn't always get translated effectively. So I started with Ken and Kellie, good friends of ours who had taken a huge step outside their comfort zones to come to Haiti. And there were more steps of faith to come. 

I wrote about this day in Men for Missions ACTION magazine, here's excerpts:

Villagers Hear a New Voice

As we approach the first house, Pastor Joseph Deusma pulls me aside and whispers, “A witch doctor lives here.”

Though we couldn’t see the red and blue flags usually identifying where a witch doctor lives, there were other objects, including a bottle hanging from a tree (used in voodoo ceremonies).  

So here we are, on the frontlines of the spiritual battles that rage across the earth. This time, in Kayemit village in northern Haiti.

About 800 people call Kayemit home. But in the eyes of Emmanuel Félix (Medson), Radio 4VEH’s Extension Ministries Director, this is ‘virgin territory.’ With no real church presence in the community, the voice of influence belongs to the witchdoctor. Until today.

Visiting missionaries from Community Church of Columbus, Indiana, along with local evangelists first gather under a tree. Emmanuel explains the key to sharing the Gospel in communities where most identify themselves as Christian. ‘Ask about Jesus. What position does Jesus hold in your life?’ 

(What a great question as we talk with anyone. Not asking how religious you are, how much 'knowledge' you have of God, how often you go to church, how you label yourself, but where is Jesus in your life? Is He Lord?)

At the witch doctor’s house, he’s not home. But we speak with several members of his household, as well as another man visiting. We leave a solar radio for the household, and one for the witch doctor. 

Next door, the witchdoctor’s niece combs through her daughter’s hair.  When asked about her own faith, she replies she’s a good Catholic, and also dances at the voodoo ceremonies held regularly by her uncle. She wasn’t ready to accept Christ as her personal Saviour.

The global prayer resource Operation World explains Haiti’s complex religious context this way: ‘The Roman Catholic Church’s role as the state church ended in 1987…Haitians overwhelmingly identify themselves as “Christian”…An estimated 75% of Christians are also actively involved in voodoo, a development of West African Spiritism and witchcraft.’

By the end of the outreach, 51 radios were given out after 70 people heard personal presentations of the Gospel. Three people prayed to receive Christ as their Saviour, and 37 people refused Christ.

But now there’s a new voice of influence in Kayemit—Radio 4VEH, The Evangelistic Voice of Haiti—the voice that speaks about Jesus through all kinds of radio programs.

Pastor Deusma says, “Even though people here don’t have a church where they can worship God, they can now hear the Gospel. The radio receivers will help them to hear the Word of God. Listen, you can already hear people listening to the noon prayer program on their little radios!”

“I know it’s a seed that’s been planted today. And God will bring those seeds to fruition. He will produce the fruit. As we leave here, God will do the rest.”

Fast forward two years, to June 2013. We took the Columbus team back to Kayemit, wondering what had happened to those Gospel seeds that had been planted and watered every day through the little radios, and the pastoral care of Pastor Deusma and those working with him. 

What a privilege to be standing where a new church has been planted. Where the physical space, starting with a few sticks and plastic sheeting, is showing the village that there's a new body of Christ-followers in this place. 

The Columbus team at the entrance to the church Pastor Deusma (in stripey T-shirt)
has planted in Kayemit

Pastor Deusma and the small congregation at Kayemit, with Medson on right

Under the plastic sheeting, praying for Pastor Deusma and the work God is doing in Kayemit

Back to the story I was telling at Tropical Smoothie. It was this scene above. One of the highlights of our whole summer in Haiti was this moment when the team prayed for this new church, this pastor ministering in this village, for the new believers here. And the person praying was Kellie, the one who was never comfortable praying out loud. And here she was, praying a prayer of blessing in front of team mates, villagers, friends, strangers. Praying a prayer to her Heavenly Father on behalf of these brothers and sisters in Kayemit.

Being alongside people on their life-changing journeys is an absolute honour. What's your life-changing journey look like? Doesn't need to be a mission trip to Haiti (though we'd be happy to take you!). Could be a new thing right where you are. Could be a new thing on the other side of the globe. Who's with you on your journey? And who are you walking alongside of on their stepping-out-in-faith, stretched-by-God journey way beyond their comfort zones?

• Would you pray for the people of Kayemit, for Pastor Deusma and for the new church there? 
• Would you pray for this new team going to Haiti in April - for Keri, Karen, Kelly, Larry, Debbie, Amy, Michael and me - that God will prepare us for what He has in store for us? 
• And that God will prepare people to hear the message we'll be sharing as we give out solar radios? 

P.S. This isn't the last story about Kayemit. A couple of weeks later, we went back with a Dynamic Women in Missions team to start at the other end of the village, and talk to people about Jesus, and give out radios. More on that another time.