Adventure in Haiti; Where Was God?
I have been indecisive on sharing this experience but I feel pretty compelled to share it with friends, family and even strangers who desire to make a difference in the world we live in.
Every January the staff of Dirty Feet Missions takes a trip to focus on what is in store for us for the year. The last two years we have found ourselves in Haiti for this time of re-focusing.
When Jennifer and I arrived at Hope House Haiti. I told Jennifer and Yverose (founder of HHH) that I was excited about the ADVENTURE we would have while we were there. Yes, I admit that I am a bit of an adventure junkie and typically see no fear in whatever situation I am in.
Day 2 of our trip, Yve approached us with an idea. She wanted us to go with her, her brother (Pastor Jean), her sister and niece to a remote vodoo village called The Gap. Her sister and brother in law had recently planted a church in the village. A young Haitian family volunteered to move from Port-au- Prince to The Gap to help the village come to know the power of Jesus instead of voodoo. They were in need of encouragement, food, a church building and other resources. Well of course we said YES! The power of saying YES is a message in and of itself.
I must stop and interject here, however, that these are not the kind of “adventures” we take our teams on. The safety of our teams that travel with us is always a priority. Our trips alone are quite different.
During our 5 hour travel time, we were told stories of how this village had always been a place of spiritual darkness, and how this young Pastors family was making a difference. The plan was to show The Jesus movie in creole to the people on Friday night and then invite them to the Sunday morning worship service where I would bring them a message of God’s forgiveness and unconditional love. Oh and maybe I should add right here that Jennifer and I were the first white people to ever come visit this village.
Upon arriving to the Pastors home we found them in a small 2 room house with no running water, no electricity and no bathroom facilities. This was typical of all the other homes in the area. They were a beautiful family of 5 with three small children and a heart to serve the one who had set them free. The pastors wife of 22 years old had been sold into voodoo at the age of three and had given her life to Christ only a few years prior. They greeted us with love, excitement and hope. We brought food for them and the village and they busily began to prepare a meal for us while we set up “camp”. We unloaded our mattresses and began to prepare for the nights events.
Jennifer and I smiled to each other as apparently word spread throughout the community that there were “blanc’s” (white people) in the village. We sat in the front yard as children and adults stood outside of the yard and openly stared at us. Now, admittedly we look rough on the mission field, so we joked with each other that we hated that we were the ones to represent our race.(smile)
With the darkness came the movie. Shown on the side of the house on a sheet. The first time most of them had ever seen a movie. My guess would be about 30-40 people came into the yard to sit down and watch the movie while countless others chose to stand outside of the yard in the cover of complete darkness to watch. While watching the movie we could hear chanting in the distance. I am sure the powers of darkness were not happy that the truth of Christ was being proclaimed. Strangely enough Jennifer and I were at complete peace and felt no fear.
After the completion of the movie, Pastor Jean spoke to the people about the love of Christ, food was given out and there was a time of prayer and worship. We drug our mattresses close to the house where myself, Jennifer, Yvrose and her sister slept side by side. Our bags were put between our mattresses and the house. Pastor Jean slept a short distance from us while the Pastor and his family slept close by with their door open should we need them.
For the most part I felt all was well. We laid in the front yard for a short period of time laughing and giggling like school girls at a pajama party. Prayed and went to sleep. I’m a pretty light sleeper so every sound seemed to stir me awake. Chickens, goats etc. were wondering through the property as well as other sounds that go bump in the night. OH and did I mention the chanting continued? I woke up a few times to the Pastor walking to the door and checking on us. Once, I heard footsteps and opened my eyes to see an entire group of people walking just outside of the yard all dressed in white. Yeah.. Im still not sure what that was all about but weirdly I just rolled over and when back to sleep.
We had only been asleep for maybe an hour or so when I woke up to the sound of Jennifer yelling. When I opened my eyes I saw the shadow of a man at our feet running away. Jennifer being to scream, ” he took your bag”. I immediately began to yell which woke everyone around us up. I don’t mean to over dramatize the scene but immediately my entire surroundings took on the look of a really bad dream. Everyone around us took off running after the thief. No one was left at the house except Jennifer, myself, the 3 children and Yvrose’s niece. Jennifer and I sat in pretty much a state of shock at what was unfolding. I began to pray silently as my brain was trying to process what was taking place. Every story that had been told to us about the evil that had taken place in the village came rushing back to my mind. I’m not going to lie… I was scared!
After stirring ourselves out of shock, we moved into the house for safety. Jennifer and I spoke no words to each other. Our only adult companion spoke no English. My heart was pounding, my head was pounding and my imagination was running wild. We looked up to see 3 men standing in the doorway and my first thoughts were, ” this is it, this is how it’s going to end.”(dramatic, I know) Even though my natural mind was screaming fear, my Spirit said , “I trust you Jesus”. So many negative and fearful thoughts came to my mind to speak but I always stopped before I spoke them out loud. Jennifer was the same. We sat there in silence. The three men turned out to be men from the church who came to protect us from whatever had been planned against us. After what seemed like hours everyone returned to the house. My back pack which included all of my cash, my cell phone, medication, prescription glasses and my passport were gone.
The yard began to fill with people. Not knowing the people or understanding the language, we had no idea who was friend or foe.The Haitian people are very expressive with their language and I always laugh at the fact that I think they are mad or arguing when in fact they could just be having a casual conversation. Yve left to go find a police station in a nearby village to file a report. Jennifer and I stayed in the house not fully understanding what was taking place around us. Pastor Jean came into the house. We were all filled with confusion, doubt, guilt and yes, even fear. He had no words but began to sing songs of worship. I can honestly say the last thing I felt like doing was singing. How could this happen? Where did I miss God? How could we have been so stupid? Why didn’t we feel this coming? Where was God in all of this? But as we all began to sing songs of worship we felt peace replace the doubt and fear and love replace the anger. We laid down to sleep until morning.
With the morning came more unanswered questions as the yard continued to fill with people who had just heard the news. We came to realize that the people were angry. Not only the small church family but the leaders of the community including the voodoo priest were outraged that my things had been stolen. The majority of the people realized that with us coming to visit their village came the opportunity for help to their people. A group of men conveyed that they would not rest until the thief was caught and my things were returned. They went in search with machete’s in hand as it is their custom to kill anyone who steals. We began to pray for the young man who took the bag and asked that mercy be shown to him.We also had people praying at home for us that as unlikely as it was, that my bag would be returned.
Even though the entire village was in an uproar we decided to go ahead with the morning church service. Not only was I spiritually and mentally shook, I was also physically ill and declined giving the message at the service. The church service held about 50 people consisting of the believers in the community. The believers that were gathered worshipped their God. The Pastor of the church preached and then more worship began. If you’ve ever been to a Haitian church service you know that they have no time restraints.
During the second round of worship I was summoned outside and asked to follow one of the community leaders to the center of the village. As I approached the crowd of people that had gathered, there in the middle of them sat my bag. The details are still a bit vague on exactly how it was recovered but from what I could understand the young man who had taken the bag had dumped out the contents, took what he thought was valuable (cash and iphone) and was about to set fire to the rest of the contents when he heard the pursuit and fled. The people and the vigilante group watched as I took inventory of the contents of my bag. They were closely scrutinizing every single facial expression. I was beyond thankful at the miracle of receiving the items back that would be hard to replace. The money and phone were irrelevant to me but not to the community of people. We could see and hear their anger and the fear that we would never return to help them again because of what had taken place. Yverose quietly asked me to address the people.
There was complete silence as I spoke. I thanked the community for standing for justice while asking for mercy for the young man who had still not been found. I conveyed to them a message of love and forgiveness. I gave them hope for their future and assurance that God’s people would continue to return to help their village not only with their natural needs but their spiritual ones. I was pretty bummed that I did not “preach” to the people in the church that morning but I later realized that I may not have preached a sermon to the believers that morning but sermons are not necessarily what we say behind a pulpit or the way we perceive they should be. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The truth is, our life, our actions and our re-actions speak way louder than our words. All of us preach a sermon.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to process the series of events that took place. Trying to find answers to some of my initial questions. Why? The best answer came from Jennifer as we sat doing our morning devotions a few days later.
John 9:2 -3 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen..”
I don’t tell this to my credit but to His. I will continue to say yes to the adventures that God so kindly brings my way. Jennifer concluded our trip perfectly by saying,” we dreamed big, we were challenged and encouraged, our faith was stretched and our desire to make a difference in Haiti and the world was increased.”
My prayer is that you do the same. Say yes to adventure!
Genia O’Neal