Jezi se wa!

It's been about a week since we returned from Haiti. Last week I was able to attend services at Ferris Hill Baptist Church, home of the team that went on this year's mission to Haiti. Today, we gratefully accepted the extra hour of sleep afforded by the return to Standard Time, but missed out on worship up in Huntsville due to some, er, health issues. Everyone is fine but somewhat indisposed to phrase it politely. We had looked up several local churches on the web, one or two that I had visited, a couple that our neighbors attend and another that is nearby. Next week!

Thinking about worship brings me back to our experiences in Haiti. I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ rather late in life, accepting Him as my savior in 2001. Although I like music, I'm not musical and I've always found it somewhat uncomfortable to be overly demonstrative during worship services. This is not because I don't love God and am not moved by the Holy Spirit, it's just because I'm not going to give Jesus shout outs or wave my arms around just because everyone else is doing so.

As a member of Ferris Hill for the entirety of my new life in Christ (so far), I've discovered that Southern Baptists in general are not a very demonstrative lot when it comes to worship time in church. A quick note to those for whom church is not a regular occurance...although we may refer to the entire service as worship, once you are in church the term worship generally refers to the part of the service in which the congregation sings praise to God.

            After revival services at night - church is a party!

With apologies for the long-winded explanations above, all of that was to contrast how we worship God with how the Haitians worship God. It's not an acceptable practice to go about taking photographs during church in Haiti so we were only able to get shots afterward. Suffice it to say that in a Haitian Baptist church, worship is dynamic! And even an old fuddy-duddy like me is swaying and clapping by the end of the night.

You may be wondering about the meaning of this blog's title: Jezi se wa!

That is Creole for, "Jesus is king!" It's a phrase that features often during worship in Haiti. And as I was thinking about how to continue this blog series for our experiences in Haiti this year, I kept thinking back to how often we heard Jezi se wa and how often we saw the name Jesus when we were in Haiti.

                       Christ on the cross in Les Cayes

Just down the street from our hotel was the traffic circle in the picture above. Can you imagine pulling up to a major intersection in your town and seeing a twenty-foot tall cross with a life-sized Jesus hanging there? What an incredible daily reminder of what God has done for all of us.

Jezi se wa!

After our frantic trip to Les Cayes from Port au Prince; after finally getting settled in our rooms following a tasty chicken and French fry dinner; after a decent night's sleep and some seriously strong coffee (sorry, no creamer); we went and worshipped God last Sunday morning at the church in which we would be serving at revival during our week in Les Cayes.

Sunday afternoon, we went back to the church and spent some time with the kids there, playing games and getting to know them. Sunday night we had revival. In between, we continued to ponder and plan for the next day's Bible school. Being somewhat settled, we did what most of us would do when feeling a bit out of our element - we went in search of the Internet!

                      Facebook and Skype are our friends!

It was awesome to speak with - and in some cases see - our families. Modern technology is amazing. It's still somewhat unbelievable that in a small Haitian town, we could hit the dining area in our hotel and get access to the wider world through wireless satellite Internet access. The ability to communicate across the globe always reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 about the Gospel of the Kingdom being preached to all nations - and then the end will come. There is nothing that will help you get over the discomfort of travel and circumstance like remembering that you are actually doing what Jesus has asked you to do.

Jezi se wa!

It had been morning and evening on our second day in Haiti. Monday was to kick off all of our teaching ministries: Pastors, ladies and children. This seems like a great place to stop for today. Thanks for reading and stay tuned to hear about our teaching experiences and see pictures of the kids!

God bless you.

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…but the greatest of these is love.

Bienvenue!

           The welcoming banner at our hotel in Les Cayes

This is the first of I’m not sure how many blogs that I will post over the next few days or weeks in an effort to share thoughts and insights gained from our church’s recent trip to Les Cayes (Aux Cayes) Haiti. This was my deuxième voyage to Haiti and this trip was very different from the first one I went on last year. I’ll write more on those differences later.

Many people ask about what we do when we go to Haiti; in effect, they’re asking, “Why do you go?” For some, it’s not enough that we are spending time with men, women and children, loving them, sharing with them, teaching them, feeding them…giving them something hopeful, something different from their everyday life. I’ve had people tell me that I don’t need to go to Haiti, or anywhere for that matter, and push my beliefs on the people who live there. I respect anyone’s freedom to share their opinion on that with me. I also respectfully disagree.

For one, I’m not pushing my beliefs on anyone. I’m sowing seeds. Each one of us has a choice to make regarding what we believe. All I do – all we do – when we go on an international mission is try to bring light into the life of the people we encounter. That light may be a smile, a helping hand, a meal – or it might be medical care, a new roof, a home.

In 1^st Corinthians 12, Paul explains why all of us have to work together for the good of one another and how each one of us has gifts and abilities that we need to use for God’s glory. As I drove to work yesterday, my first day back from Haiti, I wondered about people who don’t believe in God – or maybe do believe in God, but don’t think He’s actively involved in our world. Where is the purpose in their life? From birth to death, they eat, work, play, laugh, cry, get angry or whatever – and then they die. And that’s it. King Solomon must’ve felt a little like that when he wrote what has become the book of Ecclesiastes. How empty it would be to get up in the morning and think that whatever I accomplish today has no ultimate meaning or purpose.  

But I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole today.

Our team consisted of seven people led by our Pastor, Brian Nall of Ferris Hill Baptist Church (Milton, FL). Three of us had been on mission last year and four were experiencing it for the first time. The first of many catch phrases that came out of our trip to Les Cayes is: “Well, last year…” and then you fill in the blank. The four new missionaries wanted to throttle us by Tuesday after about the hundredth time we began a sentence with those words.

                       The team in Port au Prince

This year’s trip was completely different than last year’s. The location was different, the travel experience was different, the climate was different, the kids were different, our in-country team was different, the hotel experience was different, the schools were different, and our team was different.

Corina, Julie, Laura, and Patrick: I’m sorry for beginning so many sentences with: Well, last year…

            The ladies in the back setting out for Les Cayes

The first thing that was different was change. Our first hint of the week to come occurred right after we made our way out of the crowded Port au Prince (PaP) airport at about 4:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon. Our itinerary called for an overnight stay at the mission house in PaP (about 15 minutes from the airport) and then a five-hour drive west to Les Cayes on Sunday morning. We were all prepped for that after getting up in the pre-dawn hours to make our 7:00 a.m. flight out of Pensacola.

        Everyone out of the bus! Fixing one of our flat tires...

It was a l-o-n-g journey to Les Cayes Saturday night. I think we stopped about five times. A couple for gas and such before we left PaP, and three on the highway. One to tighten lug nuts, two to change flat tires and then to switch vans after the last flat tire so we could complete the journey and get to our lodging in Les Cayes.

Brief word(s) about the term: highway. Potholes; unsafe bridges, detours through a convenient dry wash, speed bumps, mountains, curves…Last year we had a relatively pleasant (sorry Rebekah) drive to Mirebalais. This year, we had Dramamine.

Through God’s Grace, we finally made it to Les Cayes at or about 9:30 p.m. Our in-country team had called ahead and the hotel staff (bless them!) had a late meal of chicken and – of all things – French Fries waiting for us. Believe it or not, the food helped everyone’s stomach feel a little better. Or maybe it was our favorite drink:

               Anyone for a Sprite or fifty?

After dinner, we trooped upstairs to our rooms – three to a room – and were lulled to sleep by the soothing roar of the diesel generator outside. Apparently, it’s cheaper to run the entire hotel off of generator power than pay the government for electricity. In any case, we were most grateful for this modern – if somewhat noisy – luxury. We had survived the journey and were looking forward to a night’s rest and then a morning of worship in God’s house.

We talked a lot about God’s creation during our week in Haiti and it seems appropriate that I end this particular blog here, at the end of our first day. Thank you for reading and I hope you come back to The Stream to catch up on the rest of our mission adventures!

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