Journal Entry – Friday March 15, 2013
After leaving Dubuisson this morning, our next stop is Pageste. As we’re driving down toward the river, JT says, “The thing you preached last night…can you preach that again?”
I say, “I don’t know…can you interpret it again?” JT laughs his JT laugh.
Pageste is a place I’ve always wanted to go; very few Americans have ever been there. To get to Pageste, you have to drive from Mirebalais down to the river, and then cross the river in small wooden boats that are ferried by young men with long wooden poles.
(Boats which, I noticed, had a whole bunch of water leaking into them around the cracks in the wooden boards…)
After crossing the river, you still have about a half mile walk through the village up to the church building. Very, very sweet – we’re escorted from the river bank by a crowd of children, who all want to hold our hands as they lead us up the pathway. Again, there are many of these children who I recognize, and many of them seem to recognize me.
The experience at the Pageste church building was nothing short of profound; it will be hard to put into words. All four of us commented later of having the sense that we had been standing on – truly – holy ground, and had taken part in the most deeply sacred experience that any of us had ever witnessed.
In addition to whatever the “conflict” issue was, there’s another important back-story to the day: The very first gospel meeting JT ever preached was in Mirebalais, many many years ago. One of the people he baptized at that gospel meeting was a man named Merite, who JT then began training and mentoring. Merite has started thirteen different churches in this area, including Mirebalais and Pageste, and has been preaching and ministering to all of them for the last several years.
I had heard recently that Merite has been in poor health; today at Pageste – where Merite lives – some of the members at Pageste actually carried him into the church building on a bed.
After I preached about dealing with personal conflicts in the church, JT preached on James 5:13-14; at the end, the entire congregation gathered around Merite in his bed and prayed over him, as JT rubbed medicinal oils on his stomach. Then they picked up his bed, and the entire congregation walked along with us as they carried Merite back to his house, where JT went in and again prayed for blessings over Merite and his family.
After we had left Pageste and crossed back over to the other side of the river, JT tells us, “Your presence has been a great blessing to the congregation, and after talking with the individuals involved in the conflict, I believe that the matter has been resolved.” And then he grins and adds, “But I will be following up, just to make sure.”
