January 3rd
Sunday
I woke up so excited about the way God communicated to me the night before. For the first time in my life I felt that I truly heard God speak. I’m not talking about an audible voice, but I mean, it was clear that He had something He wanted to say and he used my journal/prayer time and scripture to do it. It was just like the Experiencing God study our women’s group had been doing before the trip. The study talked about how God uses the Holy Spirit to speak to us through the church, circumstances and scripture. If that doesn’t explain the connection God provided for me the night before I don’t know what does. After the disconnect I felt the morning before I felt 100% different. It was wonderful.
We attended Pastor Guanada’s (the Filipino pastor – I’m sure I spelled his name wrong) church. Let’s just say it’s not a Hope-style church. I’ve been able to wear jeans and t-shirts to church for so long that it felt weird to HAVE to wear a dress. The dress I brought to wear was sleeveless. Somehow I missed the memo that it needed sleeves – even in that heat! Luckily, my neighbor had given me a dress to give away in Haiti, and I hadn’t had a chance to do so yet, so I wore that one instead. Haitian church dress code is kind of like what American church dress code was 30+ years ago. The men are expected to wear nice shirts, slacks, and dress shoes and the women are to wear dresses. If you happen to be too poor to afford these kinds of clothes, you’re out of luck. A lot of times you will be barred from entering the church. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me – especially in such a poor nation, but that’s the way it is. That is one of the walls we were praying would fall in Haiti. Before you judge them though, think of what our culture was like a few decades ago. We may not have barred people from entering the church, but I’m sure many gave them the stink eye. But we are very blessed in America that that wall has been torn down.
After church we went back to the Pastor’s house to have some more of his wife’s wonderful cooking. We got back to Jan’s around 1:30 -2:00 and had free time until about 4:00. Knowing that Kids club would be the next morning I started pulling out the things we’d need for that day. It kind of naturally had fallen to me to make the plans for Kids Club (in the states we’d call it VBS, but that wasn’t a term these kids were familiar with). I had prayed and prayed and prayed about what the lessons should be and what crafts we should do. I felt really good about the crafts, but I never did feel comfortable with the lesson. It wasn’t that I thought we were teaching the wrong lessons, I just never felt comfortable with the way I had planned to do it. After much prayer and talking to others who have done VBS in other countries I felt that we were to teach about Jesus’ birth the first day, His death and resurrection the second, and then the third day we were going to show them the Jesus film. All this I felt good about. But on the first two days I had planned on doing a skit to tell the stories. But it just never felt right. However, Kids club was in less than 24 hours so I wasn’t quite sure what to do to change it.
Around 4:00 we went back to Bor Kanal to remind the kids about Kids club the next morning. Two days before when we had been there it was such an encouraging experience to see the smiling kids, and sometimes even their smiling parents. But this day was much different. We still saw lots of smiling kids, but the overall atmosphere was very intimidating, at least to several of us. Not every one felt it, but I sure did. I did not feel welcome there – even though we were still being greeted by crowds of kids – and my buddy Jeffly came running to meet me. I just felt very uncomfortable. The longer we were there the more I couldn’t wait to leave. This next statement may sound crazy to some of you, that’s okay; before this trip, I would have had the same reaction. This was the first time I truly felt spiritual warfare. I literally felt it. Not a physical attack like someone pushing on me, but just this very aggressive presence. There were several times as we walked along that a group of us would just stop and pray because the attacks felt so strong. It’s really hard to explain. When you think of a battlefield you think of the physical part of it. The pain, the cuts, the bruises, the shock of the ground moving. This was not like that. It was all internal. I’ll try to explain, but I’m not sure that I can. As Christians, we each have the Holy Spirit living within us. On a spiritual battlefield, the battles therefore are going to take place within the spirit – thus internally. I felt fear, insecurity, confusion, oppression, sadness. All of this starting as soon as we set foot in Bor Kanal. I wanted to run. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. But here is where Satan gets crafty. Instead of stopping someone and saying, “Hey, can you just pray with me for a minute?” I fell into the trap of saying, “Do you feel that too?” It’s subtle, but my being ignorant of how to handle this just allowed Satan to pull others into it. So those that felt something kind of stayed together and prayed as we walked. I’m not saying that others felt something just because I mentioned I felt something, but I do think it was a tool Satan used to try to make us ineffective. However, instead of just freaking out and spreading that fear, we banded together and gave it to God.
As we were leaving Bor Kanal I felt the oppression start to lift though not completely. As Jan and I walked we talked about Kids Club. I told her that I really wanted her and her family to take the reigns on teaching since they’d be there long term where as we’d be there just this week. She just looked at me and smiled and said, “No, I really don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to go.” (or something along those lines). I told her that I really didn’t feel that I wanted to teach it, I didn’t want to be out front because I didn’t want the focus (my focus) to be on me, but on the kids seeing God through me. She told me that my heart was in the right place and I needed to pray about it and then let her know what her role would be. I love Jan. She has this smile that lets you know she already senses what God is planning, but she doesn’t force that plan upon you. She lets you (and God) figure it out for yourself.
When we got back to the car, someone asked me if I was ready for VBS and I just broke down crying. I couldn’t help it. They asked why and I just told them it was because I just wasn’t sure I had the plans right and I just didn’t want to screw this up. Stephanie told me that she knew I had been praying about this for at least a month as I was making the preparations and that God knew the plan. ***Side note: Ever since we got to Gonaives conversations and scriptures kept coming up regarding teaching. I kept telling people that I never wanted to be a teacher because of seeing first hand, through my mom, how hard teaching is. I wanted nothing to do with it. Looking back I see how God was preparing my mind for what he wanted me to do.*** Several of the people in the car prayed with and for me that I would know clearly what God wanted me to do in regards to the VBS lesson.
When we got back to the house I just spent some time by myself in prayer. After dinner I sat down with my original plans for VBS. Then I flipped the plans over and on the back side wrote the new plans I felt God leading me to pursue. Jan walked by and I told her, “Jan, I don’t think we’ll be doing a skit tomorrow after all.” “Really?” she said with that knowing smile of hers. “Yeah,” I replied, “God wants me to teach the kids how much he loves them. He doesn’t just love the rich white Americans, but he loves the Haitians too.” Before coming to Haiti I had secretly hoped that God would perform a miracle that would allow me to speak Creole without ever learning how – kind of like the disciples at Pentecost. But, as I prayed that night I felt God telling me that love doesn’t need a translator. Christ’s love has no language barrier – a smile, a hug, a touch, just simple interaction would show these kids that we love them, just as God loves them. So that was it. I would teach the next day. Not because I wanted to, but because I felt God told me to.
Here is some of what I have written in my journal from that night:
“Satan used every trick in his arsenal to try to divide us. He started with fear and insecurity, moved on to irritation with each other, the griping and complaining. On the one hand I’m ashamed that I let myself be played that way. On the other, I’m proud of how we were able to come back together as a group later in the evening. We spent 2 hours sharing how thankful we are and what we’re thankful for and praying for each other. It was much needed before we head back onto the field tomorrow. Not just at VBS, but also as Dan works on the house, some of us try to get more paint, some of us head to market & as we attend Women’s Bible study, and have the Elphni family (my adopted family) over for dinner. Satan will have many opportunities to try to divide and conquer us, but we have to stand firm and united in Christ.”
And we're officially half way through the trip. By this point I was exhausted and God kept bringing me to scriptures about endurance and perseverance. God is so good - all the time!
Naomi
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