quick to testify

"To say a thing is the sure way of thinking it. That is why it is so necessary to testify to what Jesus Christ has done for us. A testimony gets hold of the mind as it has hold of the heart." -O Chambers, If Thou Wilt Be Perfect

One of the great privileges that comes with serving the Lord here is hearing and taking part in the testimonies of what God has been and done and what God is and is doing in the lives of so many. Something I LOVE about the Haitian culture: There is ALWAYS time to share your life with someone. If I allowed our sharing time before prayer to last until my students were finished each morning, we would never learn a word of English. Walking a few hundred feet to the mission office always takes 10-15 minutes, because each person you pass would love to have a good conversation. Matt's "quick errand, I'll be right back!" always takes 30 minutes...and I know he's talking!

So yesterday was an especially blessed day, in that dad and I spent a few hours with one past graduate, hearing of what the Lord has been doing in his tiny far-away mountain church. And yesterday evening, the seminary presented a program to a visiting team, giving me the opportunity to hear the testimony of a second year student that I had never heard.

I don't have nearly the space to share with you all the details, but wanted to share a taste of the Lord in the lives of your brothers and sisters here.

Petit Sauvelt's parents gave him to an aunt whenever he was very young because they couldn't afford to keep him (a very common practice). He lived with his aunt for several years, but she had no children, and he was lonely. He began running away, but she always brought him back. It finally occurred to him that if he began causing trouble, his aunt would send him back to his parents. So, Petit began stealing things from neighbors, and sure enough, she sent him away.

He retuned to his parents, who abandoned him a second time, unable and unwilling to help a child that destroyed the one connection they created for him. So, at the age of 11, he was homeless, unsupported, starving and had no place to go.

Desperate, there was one place he found food. In the courtyard of a voodoo temple, a witchdoctor and his servants daily sacrificed food to Satan, and Petit, though he remembers disliking very much what they were doing, liked the food they were sacrificing. He survived off of eating this way for a long time, helping them serve Satan and eating the food. He also attended the Catholic church (frequently a very different kind of church here than Catholic churches in the States!) and didn't like many of their practices either.

"Finally," he shared last night, "I began going to a Christian church, because I liked the way they lived." One evening, the pastor (a graduate from Emmaus Biblical Seminary some 30 years ago) began preaching, and "it was like every word he said came right to me!"
He knew that when the pastor invited the congregation to come to Christ, he had no choice but to give Jesus his life. He is now 44 years old, and says that through all of the places he has been since then, he has never turned back or strayed from this decision. After dozens of moves, many more difficult, hungry and homeless years, he married a Christian woman. Year after year, they became pregnant, and she bore four children, each one dying not long after being born. They served faithful, beginning a church, ministering to children, and finally had a son, who is now 10, Samuel.

He is now a second year student at EBS, and pastor a church of 75 in a very remote area, studying all week at seminary and returning home of the weekends to support his wife, son and to work in his church.

How very bright the light of the Lord shines in this humble, gentle and joyful man, and I am so touched just to think of how the Lord has carried him from abandonment at that dark voodoo temple, stealing meat from Satan, to where he is today, carrying many children to the arms of Christ.

Enick graduated from Emmaus last year and was one of Matt's Hebrew students and someone that I tutored in English. He is now diligently serving at another very distant small mountain church that is only able to pay him $25 US each month, less than it costs for him to travel to Cap-Haitien twice a month to take care of his mother and younger brothers and sisters. "I'm actually PAYING money to serve in that church," he told us with a grin yesterday..."Please don't tell my mother!"

The faith this vibrant young man has is unbelievable. Last time we offered him money, he refused it, saying that the Lord was teaching him what it was to be content in ALL circumstances. (you may have gathered by now that this is not something that happens often!)

He came yesterday, however, to tell us about a young woman that he first brought to the Lord, and then has been battling for. Spiritual warfare looks significantly different in Haiti than it seems to in our home culture, so for compatibilities sake, this girl was frequently possessed by demons, fighting to keep her serving Satan instead of embracing her new life in Christ. The stories of her battles are extensive, but the part that touched me the most about her story was Enick's utter confidence in the victory we ALREADY have in Christ.

November is a heightened month of voodoo practices in Haiti, and it was this past November that she was struggling with these evil spirits the most (I recognize this may sound strange, but you've read of such things in the Bible! Matt. 8,9 Mark 1,3,5,7,16 Luke 4,8,9,11 1 Tim. 4...) As Enick and several other church leaders prayed for her, sometimes for days without ceasing, one of the demons spoke to Enick. "Don't you know," it leered, "what month this is? This is OUR month."

"OUR God," Enick shouted back with a smile, "HAS no month of power. He has EVERY month, EVERY day, EVERY moment. I don't care what day it is, OUR God has the power over this woman, and He ALWAYS has the power over you!" (I'm hoping for an 'amen' here!)

I could write a short novel about the rest of the battle for this woman, from flaming shoes to the resurrection of the dead, but what touched me the most was that with each confrontation, she ALWAYS had a choice, and Satan was never able to MAKE her choose him. When she choose NOT to do what Satan told her to do, he HAD to release her. When she refused to serve him over and over and over again, he finally stopped pursing her.

Isn't it the similar with our God? As all-powerful as He is, He cannot MAKE us love Him, won't MAKE us serve Him, won't MAKE us peaceful, won't MAKE us love our brothers, won't MAKE us patient. The choice is ours to GIVE ourselves fully to Him, every moment of every day. The choice is ours to constantly be allowing Him to transform us, to chip away at all that is unholy, impure, or simply not for His glory, in our lives. And when we do, though Satan still works, still tempts, still attacks, God will help us to ALWAYS have the power to refuse Satan. And the more we refuse him, the less interested in us he becomes!

What beautiful freedom we have in Christ! "Let NOT the grace of God you have received be in vain!" 2 Cor. 6:1.