Haiti Day 3

Haiti Day Three

What do you do if there are three tarantulas in your room, the biggest around the size of a jelly jar lid?
1.) Kill them.
2.) Try to encourage them to leave the room with a coat hanger.
3.) Grab your Blackberry, Google Wikipedia, and look up to see if you can touch a tarantula.
If you picked #2, you would have picked the second thing they did. The first thing they did was #3. Young city slickers, I tell you.
Let me clarify; they were with us on the trip, but not part of our church.
After seven months, people still stay out of buildings. In a village in Leogone, New Missions has a large church, and the school is being taught outdoors. The building shows no signs of distress, but they stubbornly stay outside. Tim reports that the government, shortly after the earthquake, told people to stay out of buildings. An inspector is supposed to be by soon and approve the building. Tim is confident the children will return to the church building by October.
New Missions hosted all their pastors today- 24 of them. It was a teaching, giving, and encouragement time. I was given the opportunity to speak to them. That’s rather intimidating, as their business is speaking. Giving a talk with an interpreter is interesting as well. You must speak, then allow the interpreter time to speak. After awhile, the two of you get into a rhythm.
Lunch time was special, too, as the leaders’ sponsored kids and their parents were invited to a luncheon and received special gifts. One highlight of the lunch was the fish. Easy to spot, as it was a complete fish, deep fried, looking at you from the plate. It was a pathetic thing. Maybe four or five inches long. Surely a ‘throw back’ in America. It tasted okay. Suffice it to say I didn’t eat all of it, as opposed to the Haitian woman across from me. I understand a Haitian at it all. All. No bones, nothing left over.
Just after lunch finished, the skies opened up. It rained a lot. Water drops bounced off flat surfaces and ran off the corrugated roofs in rows of waterfalls. It stopped briefly (long enough for Haitians to head back to their homes), then opened up again. It must be a mess if you’re halfway home. What do the school children do? Anyway, that axed our plans to go to the high school. Too bad. I wanted to see if they had the same lockers as my high school. Right!
After dinner (pizza) we headed off to church in the city of Leogone. The service had already started, and the congregation was rocking! The Haitians really know how to praise the Lord. And they go on and on for two reasons;
They really love the Lord.
They have nothing else to do.
I know that sounds bad, but Jesus talked about the sower and the seeds. Some fell and grew up in thorns. The cares of the world choked them out. They don’t have that problem. So they sing and sing and praise the Lord. They don’t cut it short to see the latest ‘American idol.’
Garett can understand Creole; he lived in Haiti for a year. He said the Haitians repeat the same thing over and over when they sing. But when they preach, it is repetitive too. Actually, I could tell tonight, as even though I couldn’t understand them, I could hear the words and phrases repeated, a lot.
The drive home is a trip. Lots of muddy roads, huge puddles, and cars, trucks, and bikes missing one another by inches. The new addition to the traffic challenges is rubble piled everywhere, even in the street. There is rubble everywhere.
In spite of the damage and destruction, the church service was uplifting. These people praise the Lord even though their conditions are not good. It is humbling.