Baron's Beautiful Crisis

In light of all that's happening in the Voodoo world in Haiti, I wanted to share with you an article I just finished for OMS about what's happening in HIS. 

When Ezekiel Deroses graduated from Emmaus Biblical Seminary of Haiti in the spring of 2009, there was still not one Christian in the utterly impoverished, exceedingly distant and  uncommonly traditional mountain village of Baron. 

 

Determined to bring the Lord of his life to his hometown, Ezekiel increased the amount of time that he spent there each week after graduation, preaching the whole Gospel unceasingly until his prayers were finally answered with the joint conversion of two he loved the most: his mother and father.

 

Turning from Voodoo and choosing to be Christ-followers was so highly controversial that many immediately accused them of no longer being Haitian.  But when Ezekiel returned again a week later to bring them a Bible, he found a small gathering of new Christians led to the Lord by his parents.

 

“We want to know more!” they all immediately begged him.  “Teach us everything you know about our Jesus.”

 

Suddenly, Baron had a church, and Ezekiel became a pastor.  Persecution and resistance was theirs in abundance, but under such conditions their little house church grew, and Ezekiel’s four years of study were electrified.

 

 Coming back to Emmaus once a month for prayer, resources and counsel, Ezekiel was exhausted but overjoyed to be able, and well-equipped, to do his Father’s work in his father’s village.

 

However, in January of 2011, Ezekiel came back to his alma mater discouraged and downtrodden.  A newcomer had recently moved to Baron with the desire to plant a church.  Ezekiel’s excitement for help was quickly smothered when the man’s teaching rapidly strayed from the Gospel. 

 

Before long, a second church had been formed, strongly preaching that sickness and poverty are direct consequences of sin, and that Jesus came to offer only a life of comfort, luxury, wealth and continual happiness.  Anything different being preached was quickly coined “Anti Gospel” and Ezekiel, frequently enduring hunger, persecution and unashamedly poor, “Demonic” and even the “Anti-Christ.”

 

His brothers and sisters at Emmaus listened to Ezekiel’s heartbreak, prayed feverishly for their friend, and with a few bills pressed into his weary hand, sent him back to Baron with what he had already been given:  the ability to interpret the Scriptures faithfully and articulate Its theological message in the face of darkness in a relevant way.

Today, with the Bible alone, Ezekiel is dismantling these heretical teachings, along with the false teachings of Baron’s witchdoctors, all meant to keep the people of Baron in bondage.  He is fighting to faithfully adhere to and teach the Gospel that continues to be found controversial, divisive and dynamically orthodox around the world. 

 

Small groups of staff and students are accompanying him as often as they can, inspiring Ezekiel to be faithful in the midst of fire, encouraging Baron’s Christ-followers to dig through, wrestle with and know the Bible well, and to give Jesus to the many who still don’t know Him.

 

“There will be no lukewarm Christians in Baron when this is finished,” Ezekiel shared a few weeks later.  “God gave us the Bible as Truth, and He gave me the chance to study it intimately and extensively.   And now Baron has to KNOW what they believe, and have to know who Jesus truly is -- Praise the Lord.”