Sunday, June 27th--Day 5

Plans for today:

We will go to the Haitian church this morning--Pastor Doug was invited to preach! We are excited and curious to see how they worship, and to hear their beautiful music and singing.
After lunch, we are going to another tent city to distribute and set up tents.

We are told church lasts 3 hours here. At least. We are a bit apprehensive about this....

Church was quite an experience! It did not last 3 hours...but it was 2 1/2!!
Everyone here dresses up for church--all men wear a shirt and tie, if not a suit, and all women wear a dress. We don't know how they can wear these clothes in this heat--especially the men in those hot suits.
The worship was interesting. There was a mixture of praying, singing, and speaking (similar to ours), but everything seemed to last soooo long! Each song seemed to take 10 minutes...singing the same verse over and over and over. Even though we couldn't understand the language, we recognized some of the music. (we heard "All Hail the Power of Jesus' name). Another interesting thing is that the ushers were very active--if they saw anyone nodding off, they would come over to them and tap them and tell them to wake up and listeneven need, and even thought we aren't perfect, God will help us, provide for us, and guide us on the right path. It was a fun, hot, and memorable worship service for us. ! Also--during the prayers, they would literally hold two long walking sticks, crossed together, in the doorway so no one could leave! (these are great ideas to bring back to Mount Calvary!).
Toward the end of worship, Pastor Doug gave a great sermon about how, even though we don't have everything we want, or even need, we always have the love of God, who is watching over us and taking care of us and providing for us.














After lunch, we headed out to the tent city.

This would prove to be one of our most difficult days.

As we arrived at the tent city, we were once again surrounded by many children (Nick found a buddy who quickly found comfort and a nap on Nick's shoulder!).

Soon, as people realized we had tents to distribute, quite a large crowd gathered. We were pressed on all sides by those who were curious, and even more so by those who were in real need of a shelter.

The only way to make this process somewhat do-able was to allow the village "leader" to tell us which families would receive tents. It wasn't clear how this was decided, but it was very clear that the need was far greater than the amount of tents we had.


Things quickly became a bit scary, as families started yelling and screaming, demanding tents, and pushing others out of their way.

It became scary, and we did our best to stay out of the way, and set up the tents in each site that we were told to.

As we struggled to read directions for tent assembly, the Haitians kindly offered to help, and it became apparent they were far better at setting them up than we were!

This was such an emotional experience--as we finished setting up each tent, the families would dance in their new shelter, singing praises to Jesus. It was such a happy moment...

But then, seconds later, we were approached by several other families, asking "where's our tent?"

...and we had no answer...only to say "mweh regrete" (I'm sorry)

The sheer joy, and the real anger, showed by the Haitians touched us all deeply, and will not be forgotten.

After we finished, we gathered in the make-shift church, said a few words, and then heard the most beautiful song...

One of the women who just received a tent, pregnant and with another child in her arms, sang a sweet Christian hymn in Creole. The quiet and lovely tune struck a deep chord in everyone there...


We left in exhausted silence, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing, and in contemplation of another unbelievable day.