BARON: the unexpected

The fall after Ezekiel turned 6, it couldn’t be put off any longer.  If their only son was going to get any education at all, a luxury his parents were never afforded, it was time to desann mòn lan...climb down the mountain.

Every single day.

At four am, 6 year-old Ezekiel and his 8 year-old sister would desan, picking their way carefully down the steep, rocky and cacti charged path, finishing the two and a half hour hike (that’s 150 minutes of serious, drenching, breath-taking work) by wading through the seasonally chest-deep river with their uniforms on their heads. 

At noon when class in town finished, they then had the 2.5 hour trek to do again, but this time, monte mòn lan (UP), and on empty stomachs. 

Ti-Ezekiel didn’t know Jesus, but then again, no one did.  With Baron as far away from the surging cities as you can possibly imagine, no one had ever brought Him.  Nobody anybody knew had Him.  No one even knew He was to be had.

So Ezekiel--better known as Pas by absolutely ever single person we passed on the mountain today, Catholic, Voodoo, Christian or otherwise--continued in his state school dreaming of one day becoming a Catholic priest.

With a family member in Port-au-Prince, he was considered one of the very lucky and very few to “get away”…Ezekiel started high school in the Big City.  No life could have been more different from Baron…Ezekiel went from a life with absolutely NO water within a 45 minute each way desann/monte, no electricity, and almost NO influence from the outside world, to the always-abuzz capital city of Haiti. 

And loved it.  After high school, he moved to another large city, St-Marc, to live with his sister, who had also escaped impoverished and out-of-touch mountain life.

But it was in Cap-Haitien, the closest major city to Baron, that Ezekiel finally met Jesus…just 22 when a pastor introduced them. 

Ezekiel died that day with Christ and rose again with Him a new young man.  He was on fire, he wanted more, and he enrolled at Emmaus Biblical Seminary with just 2 months of following Jesus behind him carrying one burden: his mother and father.

For the two years Ezekiel and I were at Emmaus at the same time, I never remember him bringing any other request to my office. 

“Please pray for my parents” Ezekiel would always share, “That they would come to know Jesus.”  Once a month he would return to this utterly impoverished, exceedingly distant and uncommonly traditional mountain village. 

When Ezekiel graduated from Emmaus in the spring of 2009, there was still not one Christian in Baron.

Determined to bring the Lord of his life to his family, 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.

Turning from Voodoo and choosing to be Christ-followers was so highly controversial that many immediately accused them of no longer being Haitian.  Nonetheless, they were anxious to learn more about the Savior they were now following with a child-like faith, and Ezekiel promised to come again bearing Bibles the very next week.

But when Ezekiel monte-d this time, 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.

“This was NOT the plan I had for my life,” Ezekiel panted to me this morning on the way up the mountain.  "I was going to live a big city.  I never wanted to come back here."

But since 2009, every Saturday morning, Ezekiel makes the drive on his motorcycle from town, leaves it at the Catholic church, climbs the mountain, and leads worship, Bible studies, Sunday School, the Sunday service, and the school (more on that soon) and then returns to Cap-Haitien on Monday or Tuesday to be with his wife and daughters and to work to support his family. 

Did I say EVERY? 

EVERY.  He does what almost killed Noel, Junior and I today every. single. weekend. 

“But” Ezekiel continued, “God had a different plan.  When I came back and found that body of first-believers so anxious to follow Jesus, I knew there was no way--after being the only one to bring the Gospel in 25 years to the mountain top—that I could pray that God would send someone else to guide them.  I couldn’t pray that when I knew that God had sent me.”

***

There’s too much to this story to share it all in one post, so I’m breaking this into three posts for this week (yeah, the 5 year anniversary is on hold!  This is SO good!) 

When we finally made it back to the car at the end of the day and collapsed on the steps of the Catholic church before making the 2 hour drive, I was just completely overwhelmed.

It is one thing to feel you are called.  It is something else to do it.  And it is something entirely to do it when it’s somewhere insanely difficult to get to, someplace entirely impoverished, a place that can offer you nothing, a place where NO one will go with you, and a call that requires complete surrender of time, energy, money and self every 3 days for 4 days. 

Totally unexpected. 

What has He called me to that I’m trying to justify with “someone else will do it?” 

What did He clearly burn in my heart that I continued a few times until it got really hard or old or frustrating or exhausting and then I just..kind…of….tapered…..o.f.f………?