poured out

One of our students has been asking us to come to his church since it was demolished in last year's flooding. Because of Lily and how far away the church was, we hadn't taken him up on his invite yet. But this morning it was our great honor and pleasure to worship with his congregation of 20 under a tarp in the middle of, well, nowhere!

We took a few other students with us, picked up the pastor at his home in town, then drove to the base of the Citadel. Having a beautiful church is something that seems to be very important to Christians here (well, everywhere, I guess!) so we were surprised and encouraged to see such a faithful group of men and women meeting under this tree with nothing more than a tarp, some fake flowers and a few plastic chairs.

There was no sound system, no benches, and a dinner plate was passed around for the offering, but the worship was beautiful and the people we worshiped with were sincere and eager in their faith.

On the way to church, I had asked our friend if he would be preaching, or if he had another pastor there that would be preaching.

"Oh," he laughed, "Pastor Matt is preaching!" We all laughed, knowing this student to always be teasing and joking.

However, when the service began, he introduced the "visitors", and introduced Matt as the one that would be giving the sermon! Thankfully, this gave Matt 30 minutes to prepare, and I was grateful to witness the Holy Spirit working through and speaking through Matt to deliver a powerful and inspiring sermon, prepared or not.
We were blessed by these brothers and sisters today! When we dropped our friend off back home, we ran inside to see his wife and daughters. I hadn't seen them for about a year, but a reunion I expected to be joyful was a bit heart-breaking, instead. Their daughters are 2 and 4 years old, but I found the two year old huddled in a dirty puddle on the corner of the porch, covered in a scaly rash from head to toe, and noticeably smaller than Lily. She was dazed and weak, and our student explained that she had been sick.
His other daughter and wife were doing a bit better, but both of them quite a bit smaller than they had been last time we saw them, and the tiny apartment, before the size of a small bedroom, was now half the size that it used to be (for renters and extra income). I could see that our friend was uncomfortable as the 6 of us stood shoulder to shoulder, barely fitting in the dark hot quarters, and he shrugged saying only, "the economy. you know."

We see the poverty here so frequently that I can honestly say that most times it is quite 'normal'. But today, as I held an active, chubby, bright-eyed Lily, fighting to keep her from squirming away to play, I felt sick, seeing two other "Lily's" right there, emaciated, listless, glassy-eyed and oh, so small.

It might be said that we have made sacrifices to be here: No Wal-Mart, no Dairy Queen, no family close by. But today I SAW some of the sacrifices our students, and their families, are making to Study God's Word. To preach it to their neighbors. To drive almost 2 hours every single Sunday, and pay for the gas themselves, to pastor a tarp-church of believers who can't afford to pay him and have nothing to give him. I was so humbled. God is at WORK here in Haiti, and it is through men and women such as these, who are pouring themselves out because they TRULY believe, and back it up with their actions, that Jesus is sole thing that Haiti needs.

The Body of Christ, family. I am so humbled and grateful to be a part of it.