My Week in Haiti

   God is moving in the devastated country of Haiti!  I just returned from a week-long trip there to assist our YWAM Discipleship Training School (DTS) as they were finishing their 2 month outreach in that country.  I didn’t visit the areas that were most affected by the earthquake nearly a year ago.  Instead, while I was there our team focused our attention on the souls of the people who have been kept in darkness by the lack of truth, Catholicism and voodoo.  We were located just to the east of Port au Prince. 
   On my first night there we did an open-air service to the light of one florescent bulb.  Our DTS students did a couple of dramas and then we projected an abbreviated version of the Jesus film, about an hour long, onto a white sheet while the Haitians stood and watched the life of the Savior unfold in their own Creole language.  We worked with a local pastor named Jacques, who translated for our team.  Before I arrived our group helped him to start a new church that met outdoors next to an above-ground tomb.  I preached there on a Sunday Morning and at a different church in the evening.  The message in my heart was about identity and telling the Haitian believers that they can do great things for God.  At Jacques’ new church they strung up some tarps to block the sun and put some boards across some cement blocks for seats. 
   We were hosted by a ministry called Reach Haiti.  The leaders, Mike & Andrea Brewer have an orphanage where we spent time playing with the kids who climbed on me like I was jungle gym!  One little girl named Lovely made me a bracelet of yarn and beads.  Another little girl had just been rescued a year ago from nearly starving to death.  We also did some kids ministry outside of the orphanage, a kids program with music and a Bible story acted out by our students and some Haitian kids. 
   On one evening we decided to do a program in what looked like a garbage dump!  We started with some dramas and then I preached about how God’s Light overpowers the darkness.  A group of people prayed afterwards to receive the gift of eternal life.  Then we showed the Jesus film again.  We had no problem attracting a crowd wherever we set up to do our program.  It was good to see our students preaching and sharing the gospel in different situations.  They did a great job. 
   One morning Mike asked our base leader Bruce and I if we wanted to teach at a Bible school that morning.  So maybe an hour later I was scrambling through my notes looking for a message to share.  I ended up teaching on the need for evangelism.  I shared about how, like Jonah, if we run from the call of God to preach the gospel we will be swallowed by a “fish”.  If we don’t become fishers of men, then  the culture we were supposed to reach will swallow us up and digest us until we become part of that culture- dead and religious. 
   The DTS team returned to Guatemala a day or so before I did.  When I was at the airport waiting for my flight back to Guatemala I got to share the gospel with a man.  Then I gave him gospel tract, not intending to ask him then and there to make a decision for Christ.  But a few minutes later he brought up the fact that he was ready to give his life to Jesus!  So we prayed together.  I may never see him again in this life, but I’m thankful for the privilege of pointing him to the Lord.  And I’m also grateful for the short time I had in Haiti. 
   When I got home I hit the ground running as our YWAM base just received a team from Montana that is doing their 2 month outreach here in Guatemala.  And the story goes on…