Depending on God

My cellphone doesn't know that Haiti isn't on board with daylight savings time, so I wondered what the pounding on my door meant this morning when my cellphone said I had 45 minutes left to sleep. Turns out, the whole team was already up and halfway through breakfast.

Everyday I learn new things, but today I felt especially dependent on God for the physical strength to just keep going, since only the hot and humid weather of the morning took effort. With the thought of 50 children joining, I felt it would be near impossible. The moments when I thought I'd be sitting down for the next 30 minutes, He'd give me a little more to pick a child up, sing a song in Creole, give someone an airplane ride, or try and keep up the their jump-rope games. It's actually pretty cool the way God intercedes when you ask Him, when you have need and when it's His work.

They loved Jump-rope!

There's usually a kids program that's run at the YFC base every Saturday. The children had all showed up and we're sitting in chairs on the right side of the cement building. At about 9am, nobody had arrived yet to give the kids their morning program. Steph and our team were only scheduled for later in the morning, but we decided we might as well run the full program.

This started off in singing Creole and French songs (which involves lots of clapping and stomping and sometimes a small dance move – in which “les blancs” do not excel). Next, we moved into dividing the kids into four teams of about nine and doing relay races. You haven't heard much “team spirit” until you get with a group of Haitian children. It'a all about fist pumping and jumping and yelling the loudest. Steph did well when she chose her whistle from Sport's Experts, rather than from the dollar store. They wouldn't have heard the dollar store whistle.

Finally we sat them all down together and I presented in Evangicube in French, while Steph cued me along in turning the cube to each new face. It's a puzzle cube with pictures that goes through the gospel, and I have to say the challenge for me lay majorly in the language. I'd read earlier in the week “God's word will not return unto me void” and that was my comfort as I presented The story in a tongue other than mine.

I was surprised and happy at how well they listened and there eyes got big when the cube flipped around to form another picture. To this point, I know it was God that was really talking the story through me (the night before I had practised with Steph and ended up saying in French “Jesus died for God”...woops. I just knew anything coming from my mouth in this message to come would need to be spirit given).

Right before I prayed with the children, I told them it wasn't merely words to say, but that God was looking for a real faith from the heart. I told them I would pray and they could pray along in their hearts if they wanted. Unexpectedly, they all bowed their heads, folded their hands and prayed out loud. repeating the words right after me. I know some of them had heard the story before; maybe they had even prayed before. Maybe they were used to repeating prayers and verses. God knows the hearts and I've been promised that “His word does not return void”.

Beanie Babies and Bibles :)

Sarah Heron and I took two kids at once into a room in the YFC house, and gave them each a Bible with a Beanie Baby. We printed their names on the inside, asked if they'd understood the message and accepted Jesus, and encouraged them to talk to the Lord and read the Bible. Many of them confessed to have accepted Him. Whether it was that day, or beforehand, God only knows.

Jonathan helping a young girl read her new Bible

While taking a break on the upstairs balcony, I glanced over the railing to see kids sitting around with their Bibles and Beanie Babies. Mark and Jonathan each had the Bible open with some of the children and were pointing out passages. Later on, two more children came in from the community and asked for Bibles. It seemed they were even more valuable to them than I would have thought.

I've learned the most favoured Beanie Babies among the children were the ones with lots of colours. Anything that has color in it, the kids seem to love. When Steph and I brought out beads to make bracelets, the colorful, round plastic beads attracted the whole yard of girls and boys and it turned into a scrambling match to get around a table built for eight. We had to usher everything out right away and come back with control and instruction so our “peaceful and relaxing beading session with the girls” could go smoothly with the yard of 40 kids.

Eight minutes later they were all done their bracelets and we blitzed to fit and tie each ones to their wrist. I was happy they were happy. I was also happy that the “peaceful and relaxing beading session with the girls” was over.

Al Heron gave Steph and I a little break – taking us in the “fish bowl” (the rental car where we drove by lots of people who all stared back in the windows and would call out “les blancs! Les blancs!”), to the local grocery store. All the food was imported, the same or more costly than back home, and guarded by a man with a machine gun. I wasn't going to try any funny business in the cereal or candy aisles.

It's sad that the food is so expensive when the income is so minimal. Most people couldn't afford the items in the grocery store and many families eat mainly rice and beans for meals. There are no more local farmers since they all moved to the city for work – meaning no local food or exports. The country would be beautiful if it weren't for all the trees they cut down for money. Now it's sitting in dirt with garbage piles everywhere.

Row boat near the shore

We took the rental through a gravel bumpy lot near the shore, and if you crossed out the garbage dump from the left corner of your eye, the view was actually beautiful. The water is so calm and blue and the mountains make a gorgeous landscape. A old row boat sat in the water a few feet out, making a picture perfect post-card...if only they sold those here.

Back at the YFC base, we had another meal of PB&J and “Spam” for all those Spam lovers. I'm glad I brought my fruit leathers, and am constantly snatching them from my bag. At this point, I'm pretty well convincing myself that they're actually fruit.

As soon as the camp kids left, the community kids from all the back alleyways were just waiting eagerly at the gate to be let in. I was at work, painting a cement wall, and seeing we were all working, the 8-10 year-old boys brought their machetes and begin hacking away at the weed-infested dirt yard, 3 feet behind me. Galilee, YFC manager, seemed relatively unconcerned, so I shrugged and continued working.

Once they had hacked the whole lawn, they wanted more to do so they picked up the extra rollers and paint brushes and started diligently going over everything we'd already painted. As much as we enjoyed the extra company and chaos under our elbows in the sweltering heat and paint fumes, we got Mark to divert them to the other side of the yard with a game of “football”.

Can you tell why I love these kids?

By the days end, we had painted 90% of the cement walls around the YFC base and the men had constructed a bunch of wooden benches for the outdoor school/church.

The first thing we do when we arrive back at the hotel every evening, is grab our swimsuits and jump in the pool. And I've noticed that everyday, there is less and less water in the pool. I'm sure half of it was displaced by us during out excitement of water during the first evening we were here, the other half mainly evaporates into thin air.

Day one, we were jumping about and playing water polo - throwing around the ball like mad travellers and clearly, having the time of our lives. Day two, we were slightly stumbling into the pool with a little less vigour, and swam around at half the strength – our main activity being could hold their breath under water the longest. Day three, almost all of us had a float device under our backs and lay in the water like bellied-up fish.

There's not a whole lot you can be certain of at this hotel. Many times, the power will suddenly go off, the DJ music shuts down and suddenly you can hear eachother at the dinner table. It's almost awkward because all of a sudden we realize we can hear ourselves plus others talking and the table goes quiet for a minute. Then the lights and sound go back on and the dinner conversation returns. The internet is constantly wavering, but mostly off. Our bathroom light is an orange-red for lack of normal white light, So every time we enter the bathroom, we can't help but start because it looks like something from a horror movie. You almost expect to find a body when you pull back the curtain.

Yet there is one thing you can depend on – what you're having for supper. Surprise! Chicken, manure-aroma rice and potato fries. (My box of granola bars and fruit leathers are thinning). I couldn't even order more from the internet because the connection is the turtle's grandfather, and even if I did, the post service would hold it in a warehouse for a couple days and probably confiscate it before it got to me. (Can you tell I've been scoping options?).

The evening ends with a round of UNO games. The Herons, by the way, make up the most interesting rules. You have to slap on 7, and the last person gets to pick up a card (always me). You can cut in if you have the same card, and if the color is red, nobody can talk. If you talk, you get the amount of cards for the words you say. It ends up being this huge “gesturing” conversation where someone gets real frustration and starts to mouth words and toss their hands around. A coke bottle gets spilled and chairs get overturned, more cards get tossed around and all the while, the cook is staring from the outdoor kitchen at this mad group of dumb people who are waving and jumping and gesturing in the late night...not making a sound. Welcome to the Heron clan.