Everyday tasks: haitian style

MOWING THE LAWN

   When we aren't performing at a church, we can usually be found doing work project on the St. Marc base. Another girl and I were elected the job of mowing the lawn. Grass is scarce here. Maybe that is why "mowing" meant using this contraption with a rotating blade (no motor) that you had to run over each section of grass with at least 3 times. Sometime I wasn't sure I was cutting the grass or just smashing it because I went over it so many times. What about those hard to get places that you would usually use a weed eater for, you ask? Silly question. Of course the all time favorite tool in a third world country is employed here. The machete.

VACUUMING THE CARPET

    I noticed before we left goniaves that there were large sections of carpet in our rooms. Being the good leader that I am, I asked if we could vacuum before we left. Well, they don't really vacuum them, the base leader explained, they wash them when they get dirty. Thus began a long process in which we dragged the carpet up on the roof, used a hose to soak them, threw soap on them, used scrub brushes to wash them and lastly used long thin boards to squeege them out. It took a good 2 hours.

WEEDING THE LAWN

    Lets get something straight. If, when I said weed, you got a cute little dandylion picture in your head, you are gravely mistaken. These weeds are more like small trees with trunks the size of my calves. They have thorns and are covered in very small black bugs that fly on you when you disturb them. Legend has it that many years after satan was kicked out of heaven, God gave him a second chance and told him if he cut down all of this particular weed in a field, he would let him back into heaven. Satan took one look and walked straight back to hell. Ok, I confess that we made that up while we were hacking away at these beasts of plants with machetes. But if you'd have been there, you would have believed it. The legends got even more ridiculous as the day went on.

5/11/09

   We finally got to perform in the prison today. We had been trying to get in since the beginning of the outreach. We had a captive audience of 200. As you can imagine, they don't get much entertainment in prison. The prison inspector was very receptive and thanked us for coming. We have no way to measure what kind of soil our message fell on, but just based on facial expressions, I would say that we were hitting the mark.

5/12/09

     Our journey here ended  the same place it started. We hoped in the back of the flatbed truck and made the 2 hour drive out to the 5th section. Because it has stormed several times this week, the drive was like 2 hours of mudding. It has always been a lifelong dream of mine to experience mudding, I just never expected it to be standing the back of a truck, hanging on for dear life and praying I wouldn't have to get out and push. All in all though, I loved it. We returned to the 5th section to finish a part of the wall on the church that didn't get done while we there last time. They remembered all of our names. I spent a good chunk of time trading english lessons for creole lessons with my friend who is about 15. He taught me the names of each finger, the monthes of the year, the days of the weeks and other various words. He is an extremly fast learner and remembered the english much better than I did with creole. I also got to sing songs and play games with the girls.

    We leave for the airport tomorrow at 7:30am. It still hasn't hit me yet that we are leaving. Where did the time go? 6 weeks is over already, really? Next post will come to you directly from the USA.

All my love,

Amy

5/7/09

     They scheduled our team to perform for every school in St. Marc this week. We perform 3-5 times a day, most of the times out in the hot sun. Some places we are well recieved and have a captive audience. Some places the kids are distracted and more interested in staring and making fun of the "blancs" (white people). The team has already performed in 42 different locations and everyone is starting to feel the monotony of the repitition. As I stand, sweating at only 8 am just standing still, surrounded by kids on all sides who want to stare at me and try to communicate though I can't understand a word, I question whether its worth it or not. Are we really making a difference? "What is the price of a generation"? I hear God ask. Haitian puts very little value in kids. They are generally ignored till they are grown. How crazy is it that I get to be a part of God's plan to take the next generation right out from under the devil's nose by bringing the good news to an entire generation of a city? I am beginning to realize that so much of we do here, we will never see the fruit from. That doesn't mean God isn't moving. Worth it? No question.

5/8/09

    The entire room went into an uproar when we said we had to leave. The loved the dramas and and shouted for more. Our time at the school was up, though. We grabbed our equiptment and started to make our way out. We were about to pull out when we noticed a commotion in front of our van. A girl in the school we had just performed for was flailing her arms and yelling as her father carried her out of the building. "She has a demon" he explained when our translator asked. We began to pray for the girl, through our translator, who is also a pastor. She said she wanted to accept Christ as her savior. About midway through leading her is prayer to be saved, her face changed. She started pushing us away and acting like she couldn't hear us.

     I've always been skeptical of things like demonic possession, mostly because I didn't understand it. Why is demonic possession and manifestiation so prevelant here and not in the states. Someone answered my question by explaining that people here are more aware of the spiritual realm and are very aware of when they are giving themselves over to a demon. Demon's manifest to create fear. There are people who are posest in America, but they don't generally manifest because it just draws attention to them, which, unless it creates fear, they don't want.

   We prayed to cast out the demon and were able to finish leading her is prayer. Our translator invited her to his church and she replied that she needed to come. I have so much to learn.

   The next school we went to was probably the biggest we'd been to. At least 700 kids filed out to watch. I'm not sure at what point the teachers lost control of the crowd but it must have been soon after I'd finished introducing our group. We didn't even get through the first 5 minutes of our performance. The kids were pushing and shoving and crowding to the point that we didn't even have room to perform. We tryed everything we knew how to regain the crowd. Out of options, we finally left. I left frustrated at the kids. The team tried desperately to keep them to step back only to be overun. Then I remembered that our battle isn't against flesh and blood. I was royally ticked that the devil had been able to keep all those kids from hearing the message God wanted to bring through us.

5/10/09

Small blessings:

-I always forget something important when I pack for outreach. This time it was good literature for down time. I just discovered the library on the base. I have been devouring the classic "to kill a mocking bird" ever since.

-I discovered that there is an old, unused gate next to the wall surrounding the base. If you climb it, you can sit on the wall with a perfect view of the sunset over the ocean. It has become my favorite part of my evening, watching kids play soccer in the street, enraptured by the beauty of my God in the background.

-Its not quite as good as in the states, but we did find icecream here in Haiti. its cold. love it.

-The rainy season here starts in a few weeks and so sporadic storm are starting to occur (as opposed to in storming all the time, which is apperently reality during rainy season). Storms here come up fast and are suprisingly violent. The last one occured while we were out painting and working on the walkways on the base. it ended in a lot of laughter and running in the rain.

-I was expecting it because he had asked permission before he took her out, but the squeals of delight from the girls and seeing the expression on the newly engaged couple's faces made my day. A missionary kid, he'd lived in Haiti since as long as he could remember. He came to do a dts and soe in Texas, knowing that he was called back to Haiti long term. One of the beautiful girls in the school also felt called to Haiti long term. It didn't take long. They started dating early on in the school. Both were shocked when God called one of the team to go to Haiti for soe outreach. Our last weekend here and he finally popped the question we all knew was coming. I love watching stories like this unfold. I am humbled to have had any influence in the amazing lives of my students as I watch them grow and go into the nations to fulfill the calling God has put on their lives.

    I have not found a way to verify it, but I am completely convinced that no one has an amazing a life as I am privileged to live. Why me, God? Why have you chosen to bless me this much?

4/28/09

    One of the things I love most about 3rd world country outreaches is the deprivation of entertainment. In our entertainment saturated culture, its always so refreshing for just a couple weeks to put away things like movies, texting, spending hours on facebook, ect. You, your team and your imaginations is all you have for entertainment. You have to learn about each other, you have communicate and build relationships that are real.

   We typically are able to draw a crowd of 200-300 people within 30 minutes when we do street ministry. We usually have a few people raise their hands to accept Christ every night when have an alter call. This girl wasn't content with that. She emerged out of a sea of faces and walked up to our translator. She told him she wasn't doing well in school and got into alot of fights with her mother. She didn't know how to stop. I asked the translator to ask if Jesus Christ was her Lord and Savior. She said no but she wanted him to be. We got the privilege of leading her to Christ that nice. How beautiful genuine repentance and humlity must be to our God.

5/1/09

    After having spend almost 24 hours total in the house hauling dirt, we left with all but one room finished. It was a night and day difference from when we got there. A little more work and the house will be livable once again. We saw 55 salvations during our street ministry and performed for several thousands. We visited several schools and went to the orphanage twice. It was hard to leave Maula and his family. We had become quite attatched to them. They thanked us profusely and invited us all back whenever we wanted. It is such a privilege to be able to have partnered with such a neat family. We took a few parting pictures and crammed into our van. Back to St. Marc.

5/509

      The days start to lag. I start to miss family, friends, cleanliness, make up, my bed, etc. I start to count down the days. Its that point in the journey where everything starts to rub the wrong way. Home, what will it be like, what will I do first when I get back. I can't wait to call my mom.

    How easy  it is to miss life because every step of the journey you are looking forward to the next, thinking it will be better somehow. Emerson once wrote "we are always getting ready to live. But never living". How much of my life will I allow satan to steal by telling me that I just need to survive and get through a season because life doesn't really start till I get home, a boyfriend, married, more money, etc. God, I want to live each day to the fullest. I don't want to miss a single lesson or chance to minister in my time in Haiti. I believe you still have things for me here.. Help me to be here to be here. Not be here to leave here.

    I haven't worn makeup in over a month. My legs and arms are covered in mosquito bites. My hair is stiff and always in a pony tail. Sweating have become a constant state of being for me. How is it, then, that I feel so valuable and beautiful when I come into God's presence?

   I may have jinxed it when I commented last week that we had had such an injury free, healthy outreach. Yesterday, 4 people started to feel sick and Jesus accidentally connected a punch and broke Satan's nose in 2 places during the fight scene of one of our dramas. Funny how God often chooses to showcase his strength when we are our weakest. The school we were performing at had been described to us as "a bunch of roughnecks". They were making fun of us through most of our performance. Standing out in the ridiculously hot sun, I was so proud of my team as the sick ones, though nausiated and pouring sweat, still shared the testimonies and messages that God had given them, and the student playing satan, though dripping blood all over the concrete since the middle of the performance, still finished. By the end, not a single kid was mocking us. I guarentee they will remember that performance for a long time.

Typical day in Goniaves:

6am-wake up and have a quiet time

7am-breakfest

9am-1pm- haul dirt

1pm- lunch

2-3pm- shower (there being only one shower for 11 very dirty people means no one get a shower everyday)

3- team time

4- teach english

5:30-8 street evangelism

8- dinner

9- Because we are all on old people time, we usually stay up talking for maybe an hour and then are passed out by 10

4/25/09

  After a semi-day off yesterday where our only activity was to hang out and play basketball at a park, we went into today well rested and ready for a long day. We performed at a church this morning. Haitian church services are long....like sometimes all day long. Like sometimes people leave to go eat and come back because they are so long. This one was only a few hours. We performed for 30 minutes of the service. The people LOVED us. After the service, the pastor bought us all coke. The thing about coke here is that it all comes in glass bottles. So you buy it, drink it and return the bottle to reuse. Not wanting to be culturally inappropriate or seem ungrateful, we all tried to finish the 1/2 liter bottle in the few minutes we had before we had to get back in the van. Most failed. Shout out for all the hallow legs on the team who were able to finish everyones.

    With a very good head for buisness, he did well in his village. His gardens and flocks flourished. The villagers noticed and were jealous. The cursed him by cursing his firstborn, who had not yet been born. Instead of going to a doctor, after his wife had been in labor for a few days and still no sign of the baby, he took his wife to the witch doctor. The witch doctor hung her upside down on a pole. When they took her down, she was passed out. Somehow, while she was passed out, her child was born......dead. She was hanging on to life but barely. Setting the child aside, they started trying to save the woman. When they realized she was going to survive, the father went to bury his child. He was stopped by the witch doctor, who decided to perform a voodoo ceremony with drums and singing on the little boy. I studied Maula's face as he told the story of how he was born dead and somehow started breathing again. I started to realize the death grip voodoo has on its followers.  They told Maula's parents that the spirit had given Maula life and would require a very expensive sacrifice every year at the time of Maula's birth. Pologamy is still prevelant in Haiti. Maula's dad had taken many more wives and now had fathered many children. To this day, Maula doesn't know who all he is related to. His mom could not always afford to make the sacrifice by herself. If she couldn't make the sacrifice, Maula would get deathly ill, sometimes vomiting blood. Until the year he found Jesus Christ, and found that he was stronger than any spirit in this world. He ran away from home at 16 because his parents beat him when they found out. They did it out of fear that the spirit would kill him and the whole family. With no means to buy food, he started to starve. He cried out and God provided miraculously all that he needed. He no longer gets sick except the flu every so often. Many of his brothers and sisters have become Christians and his parents, though still immersed in voodoo have asked him to pray for them because the recognize the power in the name of Jesus Christ. What a mighty God we serve.

    Maula's story taught me so much about voodoo. Generally speaking, voodoo is one of the most confusing religions I have ever encountered. I think that it is mostly because people are so loath to tell you anything about it. Why? out of fear. We went to visit a voodoo temple yesterday. They wouldn't even let us inside because they weren't sure what we would do. They avoided all our questions. An entire village had sprung up around the temple, because the people are scared to leave because they might miss a sacrifice and anger the spirit they worship. Maula told us that most people he talks to who practice voodoo are very unhappy. They are ashamed of what they do, but are too scared to leave it.