Trip 8 – The Return to Carissade

Posted Saturday February 22, 2020 by Greg Smith

Trip 8 – The Return to Carissade

Today’s been one of those incredible, totally-blow-you-away days that seem to happen quite often when you’re here…one of those “Ferris Buehler” days where this morning seems like at least two days ago now, because so many really cool things just kept on happening, one right after another after another.  It’s hard to really do justice to what today has been like, but here are a few highlights…

Johnny, Jeff, and I return to Carissade today (there’s a very cool backstory on why this place is so special to us – see previous post at https://thehaitifund.org/2020/02/21/carissade-the-backstory/ ).

Their meeting place has undergone an amazing physical transformation – here are the “before and after” photos:

The Carissade church building when we were here last October:

The new Carissade church building, made possible by someone’s generous donation to The Haiti Fund:

Johnny, Jeff, and I preach at Carissade today, and seven more people are baptized.

As usual, about three dozen members of the church pile into – and onto – the truck, and we all go down to the river for the baptisms.

Afterward we return to the church’s little meeting place, and the members surprise us with a huge lunch that they have prepared for us, along with about a dozen baskets full of fresh fruit, vegetables, cooking oil, coffee, and other food staples – gifts for us, just for coming to visit them.

The three of us are completely blown away, and we all comment on how the story of the widow with the two mites really hits us on a very personal level today – these people have absolutely nothing, and yet they are showering us with such extravagance, for no other reason than that they are happy we have come to be with them.  It’s hard to imagine being any more humbled by something.

We end up spending about half the day with these sweet and precious souls at Carissade before traveling on to St. Michel.