Five people came forward to be baptized after we preached in Chambellan on Sunday – similar to what we’ve experienced in other places, the entire congregation assembled in front of the church building and then proceeded about a quarter mile down the road, over to the edge of a deep gorge, and then down the steep bank to the river bed to share and participate in the baptisms.
Chambellan is a place that’s very special to those of us who’ve been here before. On our first trip here in 2015 we were incredibly moved by the love and the joy of the Christians here, and we completely fell in love with this congregation.
We’ve tried to come back to Chambellan many times since then, but there’s always been something that’s derailed our plans at the last minute – political unrest (twice), hurricanes (twice) – but of course, as most of you have heard me mention, this area still has the strongest concentration of Voodoo practice anywhere in Haiti (and I personally believe that we’ve been running into a lot of spiritual interference from forces that do not want us coming out here).
To get a sense of how remote and isolated Chambellan is, it helps to actually eyeball it on the map of Haiti (see above): If you see where Port-au-Prince is, and then look all the way out to the western end of the southern peninsula, that’s where Chambellan is. Takes about 9 hours to get there even with a 4WD vehicle, and about half of that time is on gravel roads that wind up and down mountain ranges climbing several thousand feet in elevation.
The preacher at the church is Jeriel, the younger brother of Jean Martel, who many of you knew from Hinche. Jeriel and his wife (who met at Delmas) moved out to Chambellan in 2005 and, under JT’s mentoring, started the first Church of Christ that had ever existed in that region. Jeriel’s church has now grown to a few hundred members, and they have also started 13 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.
