buried alive

Time is flying, and suddenly we realize that this is where we live now. This is our home and our ministry, our job and our future. It is hard to explain how this realization feels, but settling in to such a new and different place brings a lot of good and hard emotions.

As we are making friends with Haitians, little by little, we are brought so much joy! These are friendships we have prayed for for such a long time, and friendships that will not only hopefully encourage them, but that encourage us so much! They watch us everyday, and we are realizing that 90% of our ministry will come simply from the fact that everyone is watching us all of the time. They watch how we act. They watch our marriage, how we spend our money, what we eat, when we do our devotions, what we wear, how we spend our time and how we treat people. The man that tends several gardens on campus will litterally stand outside of our bedroom window and see what we're doing and ask us questions at 6:30 in the morning! (Good motivation to be up and dressed by then!)

However, the hardest part about being here comes from our growing realization how ENGRAINED darkness is here in Haiti, and how very small our light sometimes feels. It is an overwehleming darkness that comes from hundreds of years of decreasing moral standards, increasing poverty, and the ever steady reliance and integration of voodoo in everyday living. Whereas movies and books have portrayed voodoo to be some kind of foolishness surrounding sticking pins in dolls, Voodoo in Haiti is a very real and dangerous thing. Witchdoctors in Haiti are not herbalists or medical doctors, but are instead men in the business of convincing people that their struggles are a result of a curse, which only they, with the help of Satan, can extract (in exchange, of course, for a large fee...for the service of your children as slaves...etc.)

While this sounds like something that would easily be seen as a hoax, it has been SUCH an accepted part of Haitian culture for so long that even the most educated in Haiti continue to deped on it. Even Christian men and women, when faced with hardship, are almost programmed to turn to a witchdoctor or a voodoo practice. When life is hard here (which is pretty much all of the time) it is built into Haitian DNA to seek Satan for help. Just as seeking the Lord through devotional time, giving, worship and service makes people become more and more like the Lord, seeking Satan through witchdoctors, giving, and voodoo ceremonies makes people more like Satan...and we continue to believe that Satan is not even capable of producing anything good. Looking around Haiti at people struggling with so much need, pain, evil and sickness, this seems to prove the point!Recognizing this as a reality in Haiti is quite discouraging for us to face! Any missionary that has been here for long can share stories of people coming to the Lord after years of ministry, only to continue to practice Voodoo alongside. Some days we really wonder what can be done, even if we were 100 people and even if we had 1000 years.

However, Matt brought up a very revelant point the other day. We were discussing this frustration, and he said, "Do you remember when those miners were buried underground in the States? There wasn't much hope for them, and it didn't seem to make a lot of sense to look for them. But in the end, whatever the cost, they HAD to look for them, simply because they knew they were down there."

We believe that part of why we are here today is to tell you that THERE ARE people down here who are so very lost that it seems like they are beyond all hope. Haiti sometimes seems to be too much of a mess to really spend much time and money on. But NOW we KNOW that there are people down here who are enslaved to Voodoo, suffering from poverty and sickness, and dying every single day without knowing a thing their entire lives other than darkness and chains. And they are worth being here for, worth supporting us for, worth praying for, and worth STAYING here for...Because they are here (and we can't pretend that they aren't!) and we have to keep being small lights, have to keep helping, keep teaching, keep struggling and keep being Christ to a people that don't even know what freedom is.

It is not happy days and good friends and lovely weather that has us here, but it simply the knowledge that He died so that people don't HAVE to live like this. Because we know the Lord and live in His full freedom and light, we have to continue trying to give Him to others.

There are people out there dying every single day without know of His great love.

Now you know.



"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name;
you are Mine!
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
And through the rivers,
they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
You are precious in my sight
You are honored,
and I LOVE YOU."
Isaiah 43:1-4