dirty work

Every day Monday through Friday Matt and I meet with a language tutor. She is not a Haitian, but is married to a Haitian, and has lived in Haiti for the last 33 years. Therefore, she has become not only our language teacher, but also our cultural studies teacher. Each day we come to her and talk for an hour, and lately, we have brought of a lot difficult cultural questions to her as they are beginning to arise in our own life.

Last week, we had come into contact with a Haitian pastor, not one from our Seminary, but a pastor, nonetheless, who was clearly financially minded. Only financially minded. He showed us his church and told us how much everything cost, explained to us the many ways we could fund (entirely) the church and himself personally. Several things, throughout the day, revealed his character as being one that was completely self-serving. We were so discouraged! Here was a man, claiming to represent God to people who never heard his name, and yet it was all for his own selfish motives. We brought this burden to our language teacher, and after a while she said this. "In the past 33 years, I have seen the moral standard in Haiti decline steadily. There is no longer a moral standard in Haiti. If it is good for you, it is good. Nothing, neither selling drugs or sharing AIDS is wrong. The immoralilty in Haiti is a WALL built into society here."

Again, yesterday, we went to her with a heartbreaking realization that a Christian Haitian whom we felt like we had known pretty well had just taken their sick child to a witch doctor...after we had given them some money to take the child to a clinic or a hospital. We were devestated, and confused, because this person is a Christian and because we had trusted them! We asked our language helper about this, and her answer was so discouraging! "It is IN the tradition. To ask a Haitian not to go to a witch doctor whenever their child is dying is to ask a child to not be a child or a horse to not be a horse. They learn about God, they love God, and then they are put in a difficult situation, and they go to a witch doctor, even though they KNOW it is wrong and are so ashamed and guilty about what they did. It's engrained. It's built into the wall that is Haiti, that they started to build over 200 years ago when they commited the country to Satan."

"Tell us," we demanded. "Tell us what in the world we are to do as new people here! What hope do we have if all that is evil and wrong here is such a solid part of the DNA of these people, if Haiti is such a brick wall of immorality and voodoo? How in the world do you change that!?"

She grew quite serious with us, and said, "For years people have been trying to help Haiti. And there are things that you can do to help an individual have a better quailty of life. But there are few things being done that are CHANGING people, that are chipping away at that WALL. This is what it takes: You find ONE pastor in ONE class who believes and lives and would die to preach the truth, the truth that you MUST teach him, THAT is how you break down that wall. You have to get up every day and run full force at that wall, and you raise up these pastors to do the same. And a lot of evenings, you will feel like all you did was run into a wall all day long. But you have to get back up the next day and do it again and again and again."


Needless to say, we need your prayers. This is exacltly what we have committed to do, and as each day passes, we realize more and more what a difficult committment this is. There is a different wall in America, in Africa, in Canada, but the people are the same: LOST. We all have so much work to do! Please continue to lift us up, and we will continue to do the same for you. It is dirty, painful and exhausting work, chipping away at walls! But we have One who refuses to quit within us...
Be of good courage!

"Although the Lord has given you
bread of privation
and water of oppression, HE
Your Teacher, will not hide himself from you.
Your ears will hear a word behind you,
"THIS is the way! Walk in it!"...
And you will scatter all your impure things,
and say to them, "BE GONE."
And on that day He WILL give you rain...
and bread...and it will be rich and plenteous."
Isaiah 30:20-23