Journal Entry – Sunday May 10, 2015 – Chambellan, Haiti
JT’s words have come back to me several times today: “If I have a group of Americans with me, I can do more in one week than I can in months on my own.”
Many of us have heard JT make this comment several times over the last few years, in reference to evangelism and church-building. Today has seemed like another profound example of the truth behind that statement.
After the completely insane ordeal of getting here yesterday (more about that later, but short version: After getting up at 5am yesterday, driving from Greenville to Atlanta, flying to Haiti, then leaving the Port-au-Prince airport at 3:30pm for what was supposed to be a five hour drive…at 4:30 this morning I was still trying to get into bed at what we discovered was the only hotel in Chambellan – and the only hotel anywhere within an hour’s drive of Chambellan. At one point I looked at Jeff and said, “I think we’re trapped inside a really bad Cohen Brothers’ movie.”)
But all the stress of getting here yesterday (and the completely ridiculous “Oh, this can’t really be happening” absurdity of all the obstacles and delays we encountered along the way) became weirdly distant and totally insignificant long before noon today – in fact, pretty much from the time we left the hotel to go over to the church building this morning.
To get a sense of how remote and isolated Chambellan is, it helps to actually eyeball it on the map of Haiti (see below): If you see where Port-au-Prince is, and then look all the way out to the western end of the southern peninsula, you’ll see where the town of Jeremie is. You can also see that the road continues westward (for about an hour, we discovered); where that road ends, lies the village of Chambellan. For those of you who have been to St. Michel, the hotel here in Chambellan makes the one in St. Michel look like the Four Seasons.
The preacher here is Jeriel, the younger brother of Jean Martel (the preacher at Hinche, who many of you have met). Jeriel and his wife (who met at Delmas) moved out here in 2005 and, under JT’s mentoring, started the first Church of Christ that had ever existed in this region.
Jeriel’s church has now grown to a few hundred members, and they have also started ten other churches that meet in this area. Jeriel and his wife have also started an elementary school that meets at the church building, which now serves about 250 children grades K-6.
So back to this morning. After less than two hours of halfway-almost-sleep, I woke up a little before 6:30 (roosters, remember?) completely wide awake and wired. We left about 7:45 to drive over to Jeriel’s house, where Madanm Jeriel had breakfast prepared, consisting of fresh bread, raw plaintains, boiled eggs, and – of course – the unbelievably-strongest-coffee-on-the-planet.
Then we walked next door to the church building, where a large crowd was already gathering. Frank did about a 10-15 minute “lead-in” devotional talk, Jeff did communion, I led a couple songs in Creole, Jim preached, and all this was interspersed – of course – with lots and lots of the truly breathtaking singing that we’ve only experienced in the villages.
Video – singing at Chambellan
And at the end of it all, nine people – one young man, and eight women of various ages – came forward to be baptized.
What we experienced for the next hour and a half will be hard to capture in words – to call it an “event,” or even a “celebration,” would be a vast understatement. With this as my 12th trip to Haiti, my “Haiti Firsts” are less frequent now, but I can honestly say that I’ve never witnessed anything that even came close to what we saw today. (I looked at Jim at one point and said, “Yeah, this is one of those ‘standing on holy ground’ moments…”) A group of students from the school – boys and girls, all ages, in their impeccably crisp, clean blue and white school uniforms – assembled in front of the church building, and then began this singing-dancing-marching processional, leading the entire congregation down the street, over to the edge of the gorge, and then down the steep bank to the river bed to share and participate in the baptisms. After a deep enough section of the river was found and then all nine folks were baptized, the processional resumed, leading the congregation back up and over to the church building for another 45 minutes or so of more singing and celebrating.
Video of the processional down to the river for the baptisms:
(Maybe we could learn something in our U.S. churches about the true significance of baptism – and how to really recognize and honor that…?)
