Where He leads...: My first week with Baptists 4 Haiti

My first week with Baptists 4 Haiti

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I’ve been back in Haiti now for 5 days. I returned Thursday and on Saturday our first Baptists 4 Haiti volunteer team arrived on Saturday. The group is from Georgia and most are students at Armstrong or Coastal College. There are 15 of them and they’ve divided up for the week into two teams who will do two different Vacation Bibles Schools in the afternoon at nearby churches. On Sunday they attended the church where they would be doing the VBS. One is up at the top of a mountain and requires hiking up what appears to be a goat trail. Hundreds of Haitian men, women, and children walk this trail every day, probably with a little more grace than we do! Thankfully no one has fallen yet! The other church is not far from the guest house. It has a half finished perimeter wall and a few tarps scattered across some wooden beams to provide a little shade. I worshipped at this church on Sunday morning. It is always a joy to worship with people from a different country, language, and culture… yet we are worshiping the same God. After lunch we got to spend about an hour at The Lamb Center orphanage, where I first served with Samaritan’s Purse. As always, it was a joy to visit my dear friends there! I am excited to be living back in Leogane, so close to so many friends I made during my first trip to Haiti last August.

Each morning this week we will be ministering around the community. Today we walked around this neighborhood where the guest house is located. We went door to door, meeting our neighbors, introducing ourselves, and asking how we could pray for them. We had some sweet times of prayer with our Haitian neighbors. We also met several of the business men and women who sell various foods and products on the side of the road. There is also an eye doctor a few houses down. His clinic is at his house and he invited us in to chat and pray for a few minutes. One of the girls suggested we make some fliers that he can post around town to advertise his business. He said business has been slow these past 6 months. I’m excited that this is a tangible way we can help one of our neighbors.

Each afternoon the groups will be going to the church where they’re doing the VBS. I went with the group heading up the mountain. We took the taptap (basically a taxi truck) up the mountain as far as we could go. All I heard was, “Hold on!” and the next thing I knew I was being flung out of my seat! The road was so steep and bumpy, we were falling all over each other trying to keep our seat in the back of the taptap. We were all laughing. It was like we were on some crazy roller coaster ride! When we reached the point we had to get out, we began our trek up the goat trail. It was steep, slippery, and rocky. We all made it but it was not without difficulty. It didn’t help that we had to carry up bags of water and snacks for the kids. My calves haven’t had such a brutal workout in a long time. Probably not since I hiked up a volcano in Kenya in December 2010! We looked like we had been swimming by the time we reached the top… or at least I did! We went into the small tin church and began the activities with the kids. More children trickled in throughout our time there. There were well over 60 before it was all said and done! We sang songs and then did a David and Goliath drama. One of the volunteers put a small kid on his shoulders, draped a tarp over himself so you could only see the child’s head, and that was our Goliath. :) They had the kids decorate paper bags that they’d cut holes in for sleeves and the children could wear them as armor. After the story and craft we went outside for a game of “chat chat chien” (“cat cat dog”)… it’s “duck duck goose” but with animals they are more familiar with. Afterwards we headed back down the mountain with dozens of children in tow. I had two of them by the hand and was praying for steady feet because if one of us fell, we were all going down!

I’m excited for whatever the rest of the week has in store. I’ll go to the other VBS tomorrow and see how it’s going. It’s wonderful to have time to be able to go out and serve with the groups. When I was at the last guest house I had more responsibilities at the actual house itself. This is a fun change. And hopefully here in a couple weeks I’ll get to go visit the town I was in last time and say hello to all my friends (and puppy) there!