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Today we visited Samuel’s fathers church again. It is a cool little church that reminds me of Liberty. It is small in size, maybe 50 people, but they had great spirits. It was a spiritually uplifting. Our friend Marcus went with us, everything stopped, Marcus tells me “your turn” I said “what do you mean? My turn to introduce myself?” Marcus says “No, your turn to preach” I said “no, I can’t I don’t have anything prepared” He says “If you don’t it would be disrespectful, you must” So there I am with my trusty interpreter in front of maybe 50 people, my mind is blank. I introduce myself, and tell them thank you for inviting my family into their church. Then it poured out, a fiery sermon about coming together, about the evils that afflict us as Christians. I told them that our work is not just in Borel, or Descheppelle, or Port Au Prince, that our work is world wide. That we are brothers and sisters in Christ. I told them that at some points we ask “why Jesus, why me? when a bad thing happens. But we must trust in Gods plan, he knows all. Evil tries hard to deflect your efforts the more you do. They seemed to like it. I heard amen! The church is very welcoming to us, even though we do not understand everything they are saying, we are beginning to understand more. Today they gave us tomatoes, onions and figs. Our Creole is getting better, but still has gaps that leave us clueless sometimes. We saw that their last weekly offering was a total of 5 Goudes or .20 cents American. It is hard to imagine operating off of that amount.
After the service The pastor came to find me at the compound, again through Marcus he told me that the land the church is on is rented, and he wants me to help him buy land. 20,000 Haitian dollars, or $2500.00 U.S. Sometimes it is frustrating that everyone thinks that you are wealthy because you are white. I know that they have needs, and I wish I could address them all. I told him I would pray for the church, and think of any ways we might be able to help, but $2500 is a lot of money, and I don’t have that to give. He was understanding as he went.
Today we thought we would go out for a nice lunch after church. We went to Liancourt to get pizza. It might sound pretty trashy but our nice lunch was at a Texaco station. The food was terrible, but the Haitians (Watson and Athesan) ate a pizza by themselves. I guess it was ok food, if you don’t mind that the cheese can’t melt on your pizza. Bronson ate like 2 ½ slices, I could choke down only one. It was good to get away for little bit to talk with the guys.
This week should be busy as we enter our last week. I go back and fourth between wanting to come home and never wanting to leave. I miss hot showers, cheeseburgers that taste like beef, not having to shower in bug spray and having electricity, but I love the weather, the people, the friends, the attitudes, and the faith I see here. Hard to believe that it has been three weeks already.
I am posting a few pictures from today, the inside of the church, If you think yourpaying a lot at the pumps look at this, and Haitian gourmet pizza.
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