I’ve been searching for a way to describe today – it’s incredibly hard to capture any of this in words, and feel like you’re at all doing justice to it. Tremendously fulfilling is the only thing I can come up with – just this pervasive sense of rightness about where we are, and what we’re doing.
Those of us who have been here to St. Michel have absolutely fallen in love with this place – me personally, it is now my favorite place in all of Haiti. (For the backstory on our very first trip here, go to https://thehaitifund.org/2020/02/20/st-michel-our-first-trip-ever/ ).
You can tell that it holds a very special place in JT’s heart as well. To see what Rolin has done to grow the churches here, and what he and his wife have done to grow the school, is absolutely profound. We’re humbled again by the amazing hospitality of their family, as we share all of our meals with them in their home. Me and Jeff preached tonight; Johnny and I will preach again tomorrow night.
It seems that the farther up into the mountains you go, the more energized the worship becomes. For those of you who have experienced worship at Delmas: Worship in the villages goes to even another level entirely. Up here in the mountains praise is a full-body, total immersion experience; transcendent is the only word I’ve ever been able to find that even comes close to describing the singing.
Yes…very happy to be here again.
A few highlights from the day:
This morning we visit the school that Rolin started – the three of us share a few devotional thoughts, and spend some time with the children there.
We travel out to another little church, about 5 miles outside of St. Michel. It’s the typical countryside meeting place – a fragile mixture of palm leaves and canvas, loosely framed around wooden sticks and tree limbs. Dirt floor, benches made of 2 by 6 planks sitting on concrete blocks. Several dozen members have come out to meet with us in the mid-day heat; we share a brief message with them, and spend about an hour singing and worshipping with this group of Christians.
We are clearly the object of much fascination for the children – who, here in St. Michel, very rarely see blan (white people) – and afterward they flock around us with a curious mixture of bashfulness and intrigue. As usual, the shyness melts away pretty quickly, and they all want to know your name – and they want you to know theirs. (We have learned that this is very important to Haitians in general; it is an incredibly relational culture.)
Our final night of worship at Rolin’s church – singing totally rocks, my voice is completely trashed (just about couldn’t get anything to come out when it came time to preach). Johnny and I preach, one more person comes to be baptized – a girl, looked like maybe in her late teens.
Afterward, we wind down the rest of the evening at Rolin’s house with JT, Bwa, Rolin and his wife, their five children (4 sons, 1 daughter), a grandmother, an aunt, and a cousin. Everyone is crowded into the tiny kitchen, even all the teenage kids, apparently wanting to spend a little last bit of time with us on our final night here. I’m happy to find out that we’ll be coming back to say goodbye to them in the morning before we leave town – I was getting sad at the thought of leaving this home tonight. Amazingly sweet and precious family.
Back at the hotel, Johnny, Jeff, and I talk late into the night. I think all three of our brains are buzzing with ideas, plans, dreams, opportunities. And I think all three of us are extremely glad to know that we’ll be back here in just a few weeks – it would be incredibly hard to leave here tomorrow morning without having that to look forward to fairly soon on the horizon.
