"Up the Hill"

View from the church

When I was told that church was “Up the hill”, I wasn't informed that off-roading was among the Sunday morning activities. This 30 minute drive up the hill, was some of the most bumping, rocking, narrow, steep, rutty ride I'd ridden in my life (and being the sister of two brothers who own a Rubicon Jeep...I've had some pretty wild sessions). Seriously, I wondered if Alan and Jordan would have even allowed Ruby traverse the “roads” we took. The little church “Up the hill” was actually up the steep, mountainous, rocky and rut-filled path – wherein we were dodging men and women, children and donkeys and people on bikes. It was sometimes so narrow that we were up two wheels on a massive rock and down two wheels on some sandy path. We were turning sharp corners and down-shifting up these rocky inclines around blind corners, shared with many morninAdd captiong pedestrians. I've never had such an exciting ride to church. At times, all I saw through the front window was the sky – that's how high the front of the rental was inclining. I don't know how we made it, exactly, but we did.

Church friends and family

The moment we climbed out, we were greeted by the most enthusiastic group of brothers and sisters who wanted to give up all of their seats for us. We squeezed in the back of the little building, perched on a mountain. Strung between to strings were decorations of neatly woven toilet paper with cardboard cuttings of shapes hanging from them. Some were even in the shape of wine glasses. There were more people packed inside than at my own assembly. All the women wore hats on their heads, and those who didn't have one wore dishcloths or towels. (I made a mental note to send headscarves back to Haiti...and Susan even gave her mantilla to a very grateful and sweet teenage girl who had been using a dishcloth).

I've never seen attendance taken in church, but apparently each person is very valued and accounted first in their church. Calling out names and response time took up the first 15 minutes.

Then came an enthusiasm like I've never seen before. Everybody was on their feet, lifting hands, repeating “amens” and “hallelujahs” after the main pastor had said a few words. When one man prayed up front, everyone would begin their own personal prayer out loud. There were no glances around the room at the white people, no drawing back or distractions from what they were there for. There were only hearts and minds devoted to the One they lived and depended on. There was no mistaking the gratefulness and reality in their praise...and their voices were beautiful. Nobody had hymnbooks, but they all knew the hymns and the separate parts. The first hour was like this incredible hymnsing and so touching.

These people have such a spiritual wealth in their life. They look forward to worshipping the Lord on Sunday because they want to thank Him for everything they have – a place to sleep, food to eat and family to love . They can't wait to go to church and learn from the Bible – a book that is so precious and so rare for everyone to have, yet they seek with all their hearts and minds.Their faces radiate contentedness and absolute gratefulness.

I feel sorry for us. Us who are so blinded by material wealth that we stop looking to the Savior for guidance. Us who start to depend on our own power and miss out on experiencing the incredible power of the spirit. Us, who feel we don't have time for Sunday because we have “too much to do”, and we miss out on worshipping the One that marks the reason of our very existence. Our minds stray, our hearts follow, our gratefulness drains and our joy and contentedness soon abandon. Yet, we have every other material wealth we could want.

We try to fill churches by bringing in more entertainment of bands and video clips. These Haitians fill every inch of their tiny cement building with enthusiastic people whose music is of their lips and the clapping of their hands. We water down the word and project it on screens. These Haitians go to church so they can fill a craving they have for the true Word of God which is so rare and valuable to them. We have minds that wander at church and we get restless with everything we have to do and everywhere we have to be. These Haitians will walk miles back and forth to church, so they can worship and give praise to the One they owe their all.

That little girl and I

I picked up a little girl in church who was standing, and turned around right in front of me. She must have been only two years old. She just looked at me with these two huge, brown eyes, put her head on my shoulder and slept. I don't know how she did it with all the standing and singing and praising. The girl I thought was her sister, turned out to be her mother and hugged me like we had been friends for a long time.

I wish I had brought way more Bibles and Beanie Babies to “up the hill”. As soon as we opened the back of the rental and begin to hand them out to the children, we were swarmed and hands were sticking out from every direction for the gifts. I hadn't anticipated the number of children there, and the parents all wanted Bibles also. We gave out everything we'd brought and told them we'd be back on Tuesday, for the medical clinic.

In the early afternoon, the first Human's Love toothbrush was given to a 12-year-old boy who walked up to us and started following our group out of curiosity. We were scouting out some land that had just been bought for a new orphanage. He was intrigued by my camera and happily joined us in on all our pictures.

First receiver of the Human's Love Toothbrush

As we were walking back to our vehicles, I hurried ahead to open the back of the pick-up. Just before we'd left, I'd grabbed a few extra toothbrushes, Beanie Babies and Bibles...just in case. I asked him if he could read and he ecclesiastically responded that he could. With bright eyes, he took the Bible with a bookmark in it, the Ostrich Beanie Baby, the toothbrush and the little tube of toothpaste I happened to have. I asked him if he knew Jesus and He responded that he did, so I encouraged him to read the Bible and share it with his family. We then headed off and I was left with the thought that the Lord didn't come to earth for the masses or the crowds, but the individual souls with whom He'd had a special appointment. It's the individuals who are precious to Him - The lone person who happens to be there at “a random time”, but clearly His appointed time.

The next remaining hours of the day were spent at an orphanage, run by an extremely kind, Christian. The boys jumped right into a game of “football” and grinned over their new soccer jerseys given by someone on the team. The girls engaged in jump rope and constantly put out their arms to be picked up and cuddled. We shared the candy we had, the dolls we brought, beads for bracelets and the love from God to each of the children.

The previous morning, Al shared with us the verse “For I know the plans I have for you, saith the Lord, plans of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jer 29:11. It's a common and a nice verse which we all like, and most of us don't have a problem agreeing and applying it to our lives in a North American perspective. But what about here? Stop and think, he told us, this verse was also written to apply to the Haitians. Where is their hope? Where is their future? “For all the promises of God are yea...” 2 Corinthians 1:20. This verse was written just as much for them as it was for us. We've learned that much of their hope is a real and heavenly hope, but it overflows into a spiritual joy that seems to flood many of the believers lives.

Stanley was made an orphan by the
earthquake in Haiti and was found and
brought to live with 20 other
children at L'Arche. This adorable guy is holding
one of the Beanie Baby we gave him.

Al was right, it was a challenge to apply that verse to the little orphans around me, but God meant it for his little believers just as much as myself. One little guy asked Mark if he could go home with him and told Mark that he would take care of him. Being the nice person Mark is, he tried to explain a little about immigration laws. We can keep praying for these kids and trust the Lord for their hope and future.

Before we left, we gave them the gospel and then were able to hand out the Bibles, Beanie Buddies and Toothbrushes for each of the orphans.

At supper time, we noticed there was no aroma wafting from the plates of those who actually enjoyed this manure speciality. After noticing the rice looked a little whiter, we discovered that it was actually different and decent tonight. Great, it seems they left out the little extra something-something from the fields for one night.

With the chicken were a few extra random “ribs”, which actually happened to be goat. Man, the surprises here just don't stop.

There was an exciting rat killing near the kitchen in the evening. The rodent was discovered and trapped behind a large faded picture outside the kitchen wall. There were many hoots and hollers all around, before they squashed the squealing guy and then a hotel worker came over and finished him off by jabbing it's innards with a stick, while it was helplessly squashed and trapped. I'm watching the supper dish extra careful tomorrow night.