My last full day in Haiti was _____ (honestly, I don’t have a word)
We started off delivering cots that someone from the states had donated to one of the thousands of tent cities around Port au Prince. This one was a three-block walk from where we’re staying. As we walked through the village we got in bunches of conversations. A young mad named Michelson who lived there showed us around – another horribly hard existence. He said that around 1500 people live there and he couldn’t name 10 that had a job.
We crossed the street and walked along what at one time was intended to be a boardwalk. Now the park area is another tent city. Young guys were sitting on the railing and one young man spoke English. Life is not only tragic for these people, but also frustrating. Not only do you lose everything you have, but remember it wasn’t just residences that were destroyed, it was markets, government buildings, schools and universities and churches. So you have no house and you probably lost whatever job you had.
The afternoon was open so we invited a couple of pastors over to talk more about “church to church partnerships.” I was feeling led to a pastor named “Eduard” (go figure). His church is near the orphanage that I talked about a couple of days ago. He agreed to come over and chat so Marko, myself, a couple of translators and some staff from AIM sat down with him and talked for a couple of hours. It couldn’t have gone better. I think we have an opportunity to make an impact on his community (Carrefour – click here for Wikipedia art) through that local expression of the body of Jesus.
Later Doug met with “Pastor Max” who leads the Sons of God orphanage. We are hoping that Eduard, whose church is a 5-minute walk can partner with Max’s work. It’s also looking good for Doug & his church to get involved with Sons of God orphanage. So it’s kind of Church-to-Church to Church to Church.
Along the way we heard a little more of Max’s story came out. You may remember that Max is also a MD. Guess what kind of MD? If you guessed OB/GYN you are right. Any guesses how he used to make a living? If you guessed that this man did abortions you would be right. One night he had a dream. A figure appeared to him (the Lord?) and said, “I’ve been building and you’ve been destroying you have two months to stop.” In trying to deal with this, he went to the mountains for a month to pray. I say, “God you certainly a God of the unlikely, the ironic, the amazing.”
If you go Journey, or even if you don’t – I’ll keep you posted here and on FB – get ready for some opportunities to change life for a Haitian community.
