Drop Everything and Pray

God has an amazing way of using us when we least expect it.  I was used as his instrument yesterday and it was incredibly humbling, a very gentle reminder to never stop praying, hoping and expecting miracles.

It has been easy for me to get trapped in the cycle of work here, teaching day in and day out, allowing myself to become tired, rather than fully relying on God's strength.  Someone asked me the other day if we ever get to share the Gospel.  Not explicitly I told him, as in church settings, just in our daily activity and interactions with people.  However, this doesn't always turn out the way that we want it to and our best intentions can be stymied by frustration, mistakes and the almighty "schedule".

Yesterday I had a break between classes at Cite Soleil and I went to the nurses office where Stacey works. It is such a joy to be with the tiniest students, the pre-kindergarten kids here.  They always seem to be lined up at her door.  There were only 2 students however and I went and sat with one, dressed smartly in his blue checked shirt and matching shorts.  He had no idea how cute he was.

They sit so quietly and unassuming, you would never guess what is wrong.  I asked Stacey what was wrong and she told me that he had adventitious sounds in his lungs, a new word for me, but to describe it, the sound is like crackling and popping noises, a surefire sign of infection.  I did not listen, but apparently the noises were all over his lungs and had been since 2 weeks ago when she first checked him.  Despite her recommendations, his parents had not visited the doctor with him, further fuelling Stacey's frustration.

I prayed.  Quietly, and under my breath, holding his tiny torso between my much larger hands.  Other Haitians were sitting very close but they took no notice of me and the boy.  Stacey also was preoccupied.  I suppose I could've rallied the troops for prayer, but I felt this was how the Lord wanted me to pray.  As I touched his back and chest, I never did feel the irregular respirations happening inside him and perhaps even just at that moment he was healed.  I do not remember what I prayed exactly but it was straight from my heart and I knew I truly believed for healing.

I asked Stacey for the stethoscope.  I let Dorsaint, the little boy, play with the stethoscope first before listening to his chest.  As I had not listened before I prayed, I was not sure what to listen for.  As I played doctor, even in my ignorance I was pretty sure I heard nothing.  I asked Stacey to listen, she's the nurse after all.  She checked him out calmly and discovered nothing.  You prayed for him didn't you? she asked.  Ya I did, I replied smiling.

Just 20 minutes ago, Stacey was very worried for the kind of care this little boy would receive when she left him again until the following week.  Her eyes were welling up and I could see that she had witnessed a miracle, and could fully release her worries because of the work God's healing power had done.  She reiterated to me how terrible his breathing sounded.  Furthermore, she asked me if I had been imitating his breathing while I sat with him (while unbeknownst to her I was praying) because she said she heard loud gasps, which I did not hear, though I was holding Dorsaint close.  The illness literally escaped his body as I touched him and prayed.

There are no words to describe miracles and even now I am dumbfounded how He uses His people to make these things happen.  The recipe this day, was immediate obedience, to address a need prayerfully, with very little background knowledge, even less medical experience and a mustard seed of faith.  I was reminded as I prayed just how much God loved Dorsaint and that if I did not pray I was denying him the love that surely Christ would've given him.

A verse I have meditated on this week reads "I will sing a new song unto you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you."  (Ps. 144:9)  I don't have a harp, but I have a new song in my heart, its playing very loudly, often without words, but with obedience, sheer joy and newfound hope.  "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; His greatness is unsearchable." (Ps. 145:3)

The Difference in a Life

After living in Haiti for 2 ½ months now, Jeremy and I have recognized that the Haitian people do not need handouts - this is only a hinderance, and something that some have come to rely on.  Haiti needs opportunity.  The Haitian people need jobs in order to work for themselves, to provide for their own families, to instill pride in themselves.  In Haiti, jobs are very limited.  There is a 70% unemployment rate, and it isn’t because the people don’t want to work.  The jobs that are available are for those who are educated, which also means having fluency in French and English.  The people who do not have education try to sell anything that they can to make a living … fruit, vegetables, pop, gum, shoes, purses, combs, anything.

The school in which we live and work - Terre Noire - educates approximately 580 students; Cite Soleil has about 330 students; and Ibo beach about 220.  In Haiti, there is not public schooling, so the children have to pay to go to school.  At the HOM schools, the children receive a multivitamin, one hot meal, textbooks, school supplies, educated teachers, instruction in French (as well as English class), medical, and a uniform with shoes.  Although the parents are unable to afford the $360.00 a year to send their child to school, the school requests that they pay something (whatever they can afford, which isn’t much), then the rest comes from sponsorship.  Currently there are 71 students that are receiving education but do not have sponsors.  The schools do not turn down the children, they merely have faith the funds will be provided.

There are many children in Haiti that do not attend school for the simple fact that parents cannot afford it, and for those children the future is dark.  Without education, the chance of getting the limited availability of jobs is next to none.  Education is truly paving the way for these children and giving hope for their futures. 

Many people who sponsor a child will follow their child all through school (age 3 to grade 12, and sometimes college.  As long as the child does not take a year off school, they are sponsored to go through college as well).  But this is up t o the sponsor.  You can even come down and meet your child at school!

With the Christmas season approaching, I encourage you to carefully consider if $30.00 a month is something you can afford to make a difference in the future of a child.

To find out more information, visit the Haiti Outreach Ministries website at: www.haitioutreachministries.org/.

Happy Birthday Jean Gaudy Estor

Yesterday it was Jean Gaudy’s birthday.  Jean Gaudy (pronounced Goody) is my best friend here in Haiti.  He is a good man.  He is a man that loves God.  From the moment I saw him I knew that there was something extremely special about this man, something that looked so humble and gentle and it drew me in.  I couldn’t wait to be his friend.  He had just been hired at HOM, and as I admired his quiet demeanor, someone expressed annoyance that Jean Gaudy had been hired without being consulted about it.  I am not involved in the hiring that takes place here but I was offended at this remark.  From what I observed, they just made a once in a lifetime hire, the best man that I had never even met yet.

Jean Gaudy is educated.  He has a degree in Sociology.  He speaks four languages and that includes his intermediate English, which I am helping him out with.  Jean Gaudy has never had a job that was permanent, nor did he ever land a job in his field, much like many educated Haitians in this country, a perpetual problem.  When he was hired by HOM, I can guarantee it wasn’t for a lot of money, certainly not what he would be worth, if we are forced to measure the human spirit in monetary terms.  Jean Gaudy came to work a month early.  He came to work on his English so that he could do a better job serving here.  He came even though he wouldn’t be paid until his official start date a month later. 

When Jean Gaudy celebrated his 36^th birthday, he wore a homemade party hat with an array of balloon drawings.  Too bad we didn’t have real balloons.  He read a homemade card that was signed by various people that live and work here.  He picked it up and read it again.  And again.  I asked him if he understand what everyone had written.  He nodded.  Every word.  Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t stop reading it.

I do not celebrate birthdays well, either for myself or others.  Perhaps this is a personality flaw though my wife would never let me hide behind that poor excuse.  Celebrating Jean Gaudy’s birthday was of great importance for me though (and Stacey).  To celebrate his birthday meant to acknowledge him as a person, express appreciation for his friendship, honor the man that he is.  It didn’t matter if it was his birthday or not, it needed to be said!  Because truthfully, it probably rarely if has.  

As transparently as I can encourage people at home, without feeling silly or strange, in Haiti, this is a foreign practice among people.  When presented with the card that read Happy Birthday Jean Gaudy Estor and the words inset We Love You, his roommate on the compound, another Haitian man didn’t want to sign it.  What would I say to him, is what he said.  I was saddened, but not all to surprised.  Forget birthdays going unnoticed, think about your life going disregarded for long stretches, maybe your whole existence.  What I have noticed in Haiti is a failure for the common man to communicate love to his neighbor, and yes I know we can observe this at home but we still know it happens.  What if you never even saw “good friends” practice it? 

In Haiti I have observed people in great physical need, but the spiritual needs are much greater.  If people do not start loving each other with the love of God that so, so many of them are aware of, this country will never change.  Many people lose loved ones all the time and life has ceased to hold value.  Many die without knowing that they were loved, and if the love of God is not expressed through God’s people, even the love that we inherently know God bestows on us, can be forgotten.  

There’s multiple layers to this cultural problem and I am not doing it justice in a couple paragraphs.  I hope you can begin to see what I am addressing and I hope to expand more, at least in my own writing, so that I can examine my own heart and what this means for me as a Canadian living in Haiti and how it will affect what I do about it, in what little or big ways I can.  I believe we were at a birthday party though. 

Next week we’re going to a soccer game, so we drew a ticket on the back of Jean Gaudy’s birthday card.  Today he learned what the word REDEEM meant.  What do you buy for someone who has so little and expected nothing to begin with?  This is a truly humbling conundrum to encounter and you feel stupid trying to think of anything that would even remotely suffice.  A ticket to a soccer game is a good gift for a Haitian, but the truth is that the best present was what was written inside that card, the message that was read several times before the night’s end, and will hopefully resound deep within him for his truly special life.  Happy Birthday Jean Gaudy Estor.  We Love You.

the Day of the Dead

Sitting on the roof of our compound, we can hear that the festivities of the evening (and that of the upcoming 2 days) are well underway.  Around the community is the sound of commotion and "pop pop", and my first thought is gunfire.  A Haitian friend also gets up a couple times to look nervously out over the community, then finally realizes that this is the sound of firecrackers, a sound that is not as familiar as the first.  November 1st and 2nd is the celebration of the 'Day of the Dead'.  On these days Voodoo believers go to cemeteries to pray to dead spirits with candles, food and alcohol, followed by dancing all night in Voodoo temples.

Since coming to Haiti, we have heard a number of stories involving the Voodoo belief; and even those who don't practice believe strongly in the "results" of Voodoo.  It is common to hear claims of family members being cursed, then dying.  People who don't practice will even go to Voodoo priests to have curses reversed.  Twins are dangerous in Haiti as they only have to link fingers together and are then able to curse another person; thus, (it was told to me that) people try to kill off one of the twins to remove that personal power.
We have heard accounts from friends who have seen Voodoo priests change into animals, then back into people.  There have been a couple different individuals who describe the gang members as having a protective curse over them, where bullets are unable to pierce their skin; for the this reason the gangs were able to take over Cite Soleil in 2004.  (The police were unable to shoot and kill the gang members. Apparent witnesses claim that bullets bounce off the bodies of these gang members; therefore any time someone tries to take out a gang member, the gang will turn around unharmed and come after that individual).

Even though Haiti is predominately Christian, Voodoo goes hand in hand with the Catholic religion.  Jeremy asked a friend jokingly if a Christian pastor did Voodoo at home, and his response was, "I don't know what he does at home."  Voodoo is just so prevalent here…. it is part of the majority of Haitian's worldview, and is engrained into their culture.