The first week of august was fairly significant in our lives
here at the mission. Not only did it signify the last group of short term teams
for the year, but it was also when all of our interns from the summer headed
home. It’s kind of bittersweet, it’s a
lot calmer around here when all the groups are gone, but it also means that
there is a lot less ministry going on. Plus, saying goodbye to a bunch of great
interns that you have come to know and love. It’s kind of like losing a whole
bunch of your family all at once.
However, I was super excited because my sister Corinna came
in with the last group for a visit! Not only was it great to see here and
visit, but I also was able to go out with her and experience Haiti. It had
occurred to me that other than a coup0le of trips with the Miriam Center kids
to Bonneau, I really had not left the Saint Louis campus since I’ve been here
in March. Not that there weren’t plenty of opportunities in the last few
months, but there just always seemed to be so much to do around here. I had
decided that, since I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Corinna
while she was here, I would take the opportunity to tag along with her group as
they went out around the country.
It was really a great but tiring week! As well as doing all
my regular work around campus, I was able to sneak out and do some “hut to
huts”, where we just went out into the community, going where the spirit lead,
and stopping at homes to talk with the families and to pray with and for them.
This was an interesting experience, just walking out through the area around
the mission, searching out those that we felt led to find, and praying for
them.
We took off one morning for the isle of Tortuga, just about
an hour sailboat ride off the coast of Haiti. It was a beautiful sail to the
island, although I have to admit I’m not a big fan of the ride J Once we made it to
Tortuga, our group split up into two, one providing a VBS and playing with the
local kids for a couple of hours, the other group ran a medical clinic for the
time we were there. Can you guess which one I was a part of? That’s right! I
was blessed to help out the nurse and 2 medical students that were with us that
week, to help organize and disperse the needed meds they prescribed. It was
very interesting seeing the variety of medical issues coming in, but it was
difficult (and I’m sure very difficult for the medical people) to try to help
people with the meager medical supplies that we had to offer. But, they did a
great job, and before you knew it we had seen around 30 – 40 patients and it
was time to pack up our goodies, head to the beach, and wade out to the boat
and start the trip back.
The next day we traveled to Anse Lafleur (pronounced
Awn-sah-fa-lore), a town on the coast where unfortunately the practice of
Voodoo is still extremely prevalent. I was very interested to go to, as I have
been interested in trying to learn more about the “religion” of voodoo, and why
people would choose to believe in a “faith” based in fear, intimidation and
pain. The trip to Anse Lafleur was as uneventful as any other road trip in
Haiti, and soon we were pulling over on a side street in town. We got out and
started walking up towards a pretty steep looking hill. When asked, our Intern
guides said it was an easy 10 minute walk up to the Monument. At this point, I
would like to stop to express my amazement at what some people would consider an
easy walk. As I clambered up the hill, climbing over rocks and past small
Voodoo alters, I began to wonder if this was just some kind of hazing ritual
our interns had come up with to torment the teams, but finally, we rounded a
corner and were presented with a beautiful view of the ocean and Anse Lafleur,
as well as the broken and scorched remnants of a huge cross. The story goes
that many years ago, the Catholic Church built an enormous cross overlooking
Anse, in order to claim the town for Christ. Sometime later, the cross
collapsed in a huge storm, and at the same time a “magic” doll fell from the
sky, so everyone in town took that as a sign, and embraces voodoo and the doll
as their god. The doll is still enshrined in town, and apparently for the right
price, you can get in to see her. Or there are all sorts of comemerative souvenirs for sale in town J
Anyway, back to the monument. We gathered at the base of the
monument and prayed for the people of Haiti, that they would be released from
the bondage of voodoo and come to know the love of Christ. Following our
prayer, we ventured back down the mountain to a small private beach, where we
did a short VBS and spent some time just playing with the kids. A couple hours
later, after we were all thoroughly exhausted, we loaded up, stopped for a
quick bite at a local restaurant, and headed back toward St. Louis.
One Afternoon we took the walk down through town and to the
waterfall, about an hour and a half away. It was a nice, fairly simple walk,
and we soon ended up at the waterfall.
The waterfall itself wasn’t huge, but was quite beautiful, and it was
really nice to see some of the natural beauty of Haiti, and just relax for a
bit.
As we were walking back, I was smacked really hard on the
top of my head by something, hard enough to snap my teeth together and stagger
me a bit. As I turned around to see who had hit me with what, the people behind
were laughing and pointing at a huge mango that apparently had fallen from the
tree and cracked me right on the head. The Haitians all assured me that it is a
sign of good luck, but the lump on my head said otherwise J (and yes, I did take
my vengeance on the mango and ate it)
We arrived and set up for a short lesson and craft with the
kids, then the fun really began! We
broke out tons of bubbles, jump ropes, balls and other fun stuff and spent a
couple of hours just playing with the kids. It was really a lot of fun, and I
think that we were as sad to go as they were to see us go.
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