Two Births: One for the Kingdom, One for this World

It’s all about knowing Jesus. Only Jesus can save us and it’s to Him we must go. Introducing people to Jesus is our mission.

A young lady who has helped us for the last four years on Ile a Vache gave her heart to Jesus two years ago.  Her name is Estane.  Recently, her daughter, Bibin, also decided she would put her trust in Jesus, putting her in conflict with the devil and the voudou religion which most of her family holds to.

Estane and daughter Bebin

She has been around us, like part of our family, for some years and now has chosen to cast out the devil and live for Jesus. She will be baptized with some others at the church while I am away.

Please pray for her and her mother Estane, for their way will not be easy living for Jesus in a culture of darkness and voudou. The victories over the darkness are not easy or many here, but I can only see a little. What will God do with what we give to Him? We say in Kreyol, “Bondye konnen!” which means “God knows.”

On another front, one Saturday morning in February, I was cleaning and organizing things when Dieula came to the gate.  Her daughter, Vanita, was in labor with twins. She had birthed a baby girl early in the morning but the other was not coming.

I took a little skiff around the island to the shore close to their home. The sea was so rough we were afraid we would swamp it. I jumped overboard to steady the skiff twenty five feet from shore in about four feet of water. A couple of guys carried the laboring mother out and we just managed to get her on board. Dieula climbed aboard and then I hoisted myself in. We shoved off, just escaping a dangerous situation when cries of distress arose on shore. We had left the first baby that was born that morning!  It was too dangerous to pick her up so I yelled for them to take her overland to my house where the sea was calmer.

The type of taxi boat that took Vanita to the mainland

Having made our way back to the bay and picked up the baby, we waited for the faster taxi boat to come to take us to the hospital. Vanita was still having contractions and I could feel the baby move so that was good.

Finally the boat came so we transferred her from one vessel to the other. She couldn’t sit so we put her on the floor and I sat behind her and held her head on my chest. The sun was beating down so I unbuttoned my shirt and shaded her head and face with it. All on board, we set out to the hospital on the mainland, about 10 miles of sea from here to there.

After slamming our way across the sea with the sun burning down and poor Vanita in labor, about midday we set anchor amid several other taxi boats about 50 yards from shore.  The ensuing process of disembarking in Les Cayes is almost unbelievable!

Here they send out a small boat to ferry people closer to land. This is a windward shore and the seas are almost always too rough to land a boat. So we had to man handle this poor lady from our boat to this little 15 foot boat with the seas tossing us about like toys. The poor thing. We heaved Vanita over the side while every one else jumped on, the new born twin baby with us, and then held her on as we were ferried toward shore. About 25 feet away, this boat stops plunging up and down in the sea when men wade out and we have to climb on their backs to be carried over and deposited on a steep bank piled with rubbish!  As one English man said after returning from Les Cayes one day, “It’s beyond the ken of man!!”

As it was carnival time when this happened, the usual motorcycle taxis were not available and we started walking toward the hospital with me trying to support poor laboring Vanita. When we arrived, they just wanted to put her in line with the other pregnant ladies but when we finally got the situation explained, they took her in.

I left some money with them (in Haitian hospitals, you don’t eat unless your family can bring you food) and returned to catch the taxi boat back to IAV.

Dieula came the next day to tell us the baby had been turned crossways and couldn’t be born naturally. Vanita had a c-section and a new baby boy was with us.  From the looks of the picture below, taken nearly two months later, they are doing well.

Thanks to all of you who pray for JUST MERCY and those who also support us.  We are grateful for you as we seek to bring our neighbors into the kingdom and serve them in any way we can.  Blessings on you all!!

Vanita with babies Judeline & Judelyn