Wow this is an extremely daunting task to try to describe my past week, truly the most amazing week I’ve ever experienced. It’s hard to describe what it’s like walking through villages where, I’m not exaggerating, every single person knows and exclaims your name when you walk by. They’ll almost always have something to say or a handshake to give you whether they’re a two-year-old or the 70 year-old woman of the village. My Haitian friends that were staff on base when they would walk with me through the village would always joke with me that I was going to be the next President of Haiti because of the reception I got from the people!
It is such a surreal experience to be outwardly loved by that many amounts of people. When a white person or “blan” comes into a village such as these it’s difficult to see whether the affection they give is truly out of love or just mere amusement at the white oddity in their presence. I truly believe with all of my heart, after spending nearly every day of the past 3 weeks in this village that I can discern their warmth to be love. The reason I can claim such discernment is because of the reciprocity of the love between them and I. I know that I poured out all I could there. Sweat, blood, joy, prayers, every once of Creole I could wring out of my language reservoir, and all of my time were truly donated to them.
The thing that makes my emotions so rosy for the people is that they gave it all back to me. I really think that is a vital component of mission or humanitarian work that is missing. So often people will come in and dump clothes or food off to the needy, or bring in water filters and barely, if at all, show them how to utilize it. They’ll call this love or compassion. In a way it is, but not nearly to the fullest. In a society where much of people’s days are spent tilling their rice or corn gardens, or simply trying to stay out of the blistering heat, it is difficult to muster love for one another. When marriage infidelity and abuse run rampant, it’s hard to love and trust those around you. There are a million reasons why places like these lack an easily accessible joy and compassion for one another. If people are spending the time and the resources to “help” the people, can’t they supply an intangible and perhaps equally important commodity to the people? I’ll never, ever forget Chaplain Joe Brummel’s phrase, “people are more important than projects”, I see Christ in that, just as much if not more than actually putting up a church or food in their bellies.
Wow wow! I didn’t mean to through in a life lesson so soon, I still have to throw in the day-to-day stuff! I won’t bore ya with the details. Each day we (we= a YWAM School of Evangelism team from Tyler, Texas, and the Haiti Discipleship Training School, and some more Haitian staff) would work on building the church. The church was 20ft by 56ft and about 20 ft tall. This is a MAMMOTH structure out in a village such as this. The first couple days were spend using a skid-loader to lift up the cement columns that we had filled the week before the work teams got here. After we had those completed we did the foundation with the help of some local Haitian masons (which has a cool separate story which I’d write about a different time for brevity’s sake). Once that was finished the masons continued on along the concrete block wall while we started laying the tin on the roof. This lasted work lasted about 5 days, we’d work from about 8 AM till 5 PM more or less in the hot Haitian sun.
Then at about 6 each night would be the Bondye-beni-ou-sade (read my previous posts of that makes no sense), and this is where the good-times rolled. If none of you ever experience Haitian worship, or Haitian music then you’ll have lived a deprived life. They get everybody going, and peoples’ body’s, heart’s, and souls are involved. Especially with my friends Jude and Philipson leading worship! Most of the night would be worship, and then Terry or somebody else would deliver a message, and the DTS or SOE from Texas would perform a drama with a specific message to it. It was an amazing time, it had such a feel good block-party attitude to it, and people were truly worshipping. I love to dance (whether I’m good or not is another question), and I did get into a couple dance-offs with some Haitian friends, it got pretty crazy!
My favorite experience, however, was just the downtime in the village. Whether it was teaching the kids English, telling the same old Haitian goofball everyday that my name was CLAYton not Bill CLINTon, getting my hair braided and corn-rowed, bathing in the Artibonite River, joining the big circle of men watching cockfights, or playing soccer with the older boys, I loved it. I was also blessed enough to stay in one of the villager’s houses. They cleared out and opened up about 10 houses for each of the teams to sleep in while they were out here. I was fortunate enough that I could stay by myself in the house of the Maxico, the leader of the village’s house with his sons Mackinson, Francisco, and Devenson (my best friend in all the village). They new not a lick of English other than “I love you brother” and “give me t-shirt), but luckily I had been utterly blessed with picking up Creole quickly. Before falling asleep we would talk for hours where I would ask them questions and they would ask me questions. They mostly asked about my family and fiancé, Taylor, and told me which white girls in the Tyler group they had crushes on. The last night there we even took a midnight dip in the river! Good golly I could never forget these memories even if I had Alzheimer’s disease!!!
Perhaps the most meaningful adventure of the entire trip, however, happened just yesterday on Easter Sunday. I can never stop thinking about the people out there, and with it being my last week I had no idea if I’d get a chance to see them again. I wanted to be a part of their first Easter more than anything. So my roommate and I, Marc (who doesn’t speak a lick of Creole), decided to take some motorcycle taxis out to Lubin, WITHOUT a Haitian translator. This would be the ultimate test to see how well my Creole had come along. We did make it out there (with a sore behind from the bumpy trip) and came during their service. I was so overwhelmed because they were so surprised and overjoyed to see us, and this was when I knew our mutual love for each other was genuine. They invited me to speak and so I timidly got up and read a passage to them from a Creole Bible, and spoke a sermon all in Creole. I had never given a sermon to any sort of congregation big or small, let alone in ANOTHER LANGUAGE. It was incredible though, they were completely understanding of my limitations in my Creole, but I knew they understood my message because throughout the message I would ask “ou kompran (do you understand)?” and they would yell AMEN! My friend Marc said they paid so much more attention than they even did to the pastors when they spoke. I didn’t think it was possible, but that day my love for them and desire for them to know the Hope of Jesus grew ten-fold. I know if I didn’t have so many obligations I would without a doubt live with them and try to disciple them.
Unfortunately the taxi-drivers were impatient and we couldn’t spend a lot of time with them, but it warmed my heart so deeply, I know I’ll never be the same because of it. This new week I’m going to spend a day up in the mountains doing some ministry there (which I hear is the most beautiful part of Haiti), but if I could I would just go back to Lubin. I told them so many times that I would never forget them and always pray for them, but even that seems like an understatement. What a blessing to me these people have been. I really hope everybody can find this much joy in a group of people, I don’t care what it looks like, whether it’s friends, children you teach in class, a place similar to Haiti, anybody, I hope you find it and embrace it and lift each other up in love and reverence. That’s what the body of the Church, to me, needs to look like. Thanks again for reading this blog (wow this one’s a mighty long one), I’ll be home soon to share anything, or everything, or nothing with y’all, I’m just excited to see everybody! Give me a call, a text, a smoke signal, anything, because I’m gonna need a lot of things to distract me from longing for the Lubinites! Godbless urrrrrrrybody!
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