Today is Day of the Dead in Haiti, a largely voodoo holiday here in which there is more darkness being sought and celebrated than normal. I'm not even going to get into it.
I am tempted to despair over many things. Haiti's children are still sitting at home, while children in our home culture are already past fall breaks and posting "50th day of school" pictures, and it kills me. In this huge mess we are in, darkness and confusion are being SOUGHT. Many someones, somewheres, still thinks darkness and confusion and violence and fear might be the answer...how deeply does Satan hold people in his lies. So much has been lost. There is so much to mourn.
I go through phases of mourning for Haiti and her people every day.
But He is just not letting me dwell there long.
Today is the funeral of Yves, Job and Nellie's father, and as we prayed in their home a few days ago, Yves testified that of the nine children, 8 are following hard after Jesus, because their father, until the day he died, was always, always praying for them. There are 8 grown men and women in this village, today, with their spouses and children and grandchildren, following the Lord, because this one man led them to Jesus and surrounded them with his prayers his every day. I rejoice with the heavens, and Matt will rejoice with them today at the funeral, not as the world grieves.
The baby of the young mama who died not long ago from C-section complications/lack of medicaiton is not only alive, but home, with grandma. MIRACLE. They live in the strongest, poorest, darkest, most LOST community I've ever been to in Haiti (read anything I've ever written about Konpech from the above search bar), and Grandma, who also has a 2 month old and five older children, has that baby of her dead 16 year old. I know this could seem depressing, but I am filled with hope and committed to prayer. The Lord has miraculously given this little one his life, and I continue to believe that God has a plan for Konpech and the 150 people enslaved there and for this baby. Next week some of the students and I are going to finally meet this little one, to pray for and with his community, and I have hope for this village that has rejected the Gospel so many times and continues to live in such despair.
Today Carol and Phil and Emily are all here with us, and as we all sat around talking and laughing yesterday evening after dinner, I was blessed again to be in such rich community. We needed this fresh community, even if only for a few weeks, to build us up.
New reasons to be afraid seem to be surfacing daily, in fact, it almost seems that humanity is SEARCHING for things to worry about (do you ever feel that way?) and I'm just going to tell you, we are NOT going to go there.
The Lord has given us our burdens to carry....loving our neighbors well, caring for the orphan and the widow, forgiving our enemies, trusting Him, sharing the Gospel, being faithful...we have more than enough to consume our hearts and minds. The things man keeps inventing to worry about are going to have to be carried by someone else. (don't let it be you, either.)
In the face of so many lies, so many lies (this is what what what Satan does, friends, pay attention to the lies you are facing and believing and cast them OUT in the name of Jesus, the TRUTH), God continues to be faithful truth for us...such an encouragement. Daily, He meets me with whispers of his truth, far louder than the shouts of the day.
One of our 4th year students rose to preach on Wednesday, introduced as Pastor Phanes, and as soon as he got the microphone, he corrected it, unheard of. "She introduced me as Pastor, but I am not ordained...I am your brother, please call me brother." He lowered himself, counter-human, and little treasures like this I am storing up in my heart.
Thursday afternoon our students let all our community studies again, and the 13-20 year old group has grown so much that they are now meeting here on campus every Thursday instead of in someone's yard. What a gift to watch them studying the Truth with our young men and women, transformed, to have Rujerry hand out precious American Halloween candy and pray over them.
Pastor Lucner (our dean of advancement)'s church in Vaudreil is having three days of prayer yesterday, today and tomorrow, and Sunday they are going together to a near-by village saturated in Voodoo over the past 200 years to PRAY freedom, to PRAY light, to PRAY broken chains. They are going, physically, on a weekend dedicated to Vooodoo, they are praying, physically, and as their pastor tells me about it his way...one of the young women who goes there, Gertha, tells me her way, too. She has no schooling. She has no Bible degree. But she has FAITH, and as she pounds my table after lunch over the people in her life telling her not to go, she proclaims, "I will NOT be afraid. If all I say about God is true, I will NEVER be afraid."
Yes, there is mourning in the moments.
But there is fruit that these trials are pushing to sweetness. There is faith that these struggles are firming. There is prayer happening that was previously neglected.
while He works.
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