Joy in the Mountains

16th Haiti Trip – Vol. II

Skip Lindsey arrived with two of his daughters, Naomi and Susanna, along with B.J. who, like Bill, loves to get things done and knows how to get them done (a big plus in Haiti), and two other young people, Jessica and Isaac. After working on the base a couple of days (closets framed in and shelves installed. Hooray!), we headed to the mountains.

The chidren carrying school books up the mountain

Sonel had purchased the books and they had been packaged up with plastic sacks and duct tape so the children from the mountains could come down and carry them up on their heads. It was quite an event to meet the nearly 100 children at the trail head after they had hiked out of the mountains that morning. We had bought some bread the day before and took water with us to give them something to eat before starting back up. I know, bread and water doesn’t sound too great, but fast food choices for a crowd in Haiti are slim!!

We loaded the mules with the projector and small generator so we could show the “Jesus” film to the children, rice and other groceries to cook a meal for the people before the showing, and enough water to last us three days. It took about 3 ½ hours to make the trek on mules to our first stop, Robia.

We had sent the money ahead to buy two goats to cook to go with the meal at Robia. While the women were cooking outside, we had checked on them and saw a big pot of goat meat cooking. We spent most of our time inside resting from the arduous trip and visiting with various people who came through.

When the helpers brought in the three huge pots of rice, the meat came in and there was only a very small pan of it! Somewhere along the way during the hours of cooking, some folks had helped themselves and there wasn’t much meat to feed the over 300 people who had come for the film showing! (The next day at Pelerin, our girls Shirlie and Nono stayed and helped with the cooking all day. No meat disappeared.)

The children of Pelerin waiting to watch the Jesus film

After the meal, we set up the projector to show the film. The church was crowded with over 200 children and dozens of adults standing on benches in the back of the church trying to see. During the last 15 minutes of the movie, I stood in the back of the building praying that God would use this movie to touch people’s hearts and I noticed that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the people became really quiet. We had hoped to talk to some of the people after the movie but everybody just took off right away, some during the ending of the movie.

We spent the night in the church, pushing benches together to put our sleeping mats on. Had a granola bar in the morning and took off hiking to Pelerin, the site of our main school and the home of Poppy and Mommy, Jolius’ parents who take care of us whenever we are in Pelerin. We always spread our mats out on the concrete floor in their little house and are blessed by their ministrations to us.  Mommy will give us a small bar of soap and pour a little water over our hands so we can wash them.  She has to walk to the school cistern to get their water.

Once again, some ladies cooked all afternoon behind the school and we fed over 300 children and adults. The Pelerin crowd was a little quieter and more attentive. Somehow, when it was time to eat, all our guys were not around so I ended up talking with the people (preaching if you want to call it that), talking about the movie they were going see, and praying over the meal.

You should have seen the wide-eyed children watching the movie. What an event for them!!! I was praying that God would speak to them through the Creole edition of the Jesus Film for Children, that even though we did not see the results, that He was planting seeds that would blossom into hearts for Him someday.

Naomi and Poppy

The next morning, to our amazement, Poppy, who is our host when we visit Pelerin came to Bill and Skip, asking them to pray with him. He wanted to invite Jesus back into his life!! Poppy had made a profession of faith many years ago and had been baptized but someone in the church had falsely accused him of something terrible and he had turned his back on God and the church. He said watching the movie made him realize he needed to come back to the Lord! We were so blessed as we had not dreamed Poppy was not a Christian. We just rejoice with the Father that Poppy has come home!!!  Jolius, Poppys son, came to see us on Sunday.  He was just thrilled that his prayers of many years had been answered!

The school at Chapelle after hurricane Isaac

During the hike between Robia and Pelerin, we went out of the way to visit Chapelle, the school that had met in a small church and some plastic tarps held up by poles. But when hurricane Isaac came through a few weeks ago, it took the roof off the church and then the rain “dissolved” all the “mortar” between the rocks (not concrete) and they just all fell down! Nothing was left of the building that had been there but piles of rock. (See the “before” picture in the last update, Starting Up Schools.)

Please pray for us as we seek to raise funds to rebuild the school and continue to teach the children, including the new Christian Character class on Compassion. I just pray God uses our efforts to touch these children’s lives and make a change in the mountains. Thank you for your prayers.