To Haiti and Back

On Wednesday, April 13, the three of us traveled to Haiti, whose official name is the Republic of Haiti, and we were there until Wednesday, April 20. This was David’s fourth trip to that nation and his second to the same area. For Pat and me it was our first. 

Haiti is divided into ten departments. We arrived at the airport in Cap Haitian, the capital of the North Department, on the northern coast.  From there we traveled in a Toyota SUV on rough, rocky roads over and around mountains into the Artibonite Department to its capital Gonaives and then up to the Northwest Department to the community of Gros-Sable (pronounced “gwo-sab”), west of Jean-Rabel, on the northwest coast. The trip took nearly nine hours, one of which was spent in the dark while waiting for a pickup truck to take us the rest of the way after a front axle broke on the SUV.

Our purpose for going to Gros-Sable was to conduct a five day Bible teaching seminar at the invitation of Pastor Tira Ovide. Our hostesses were Mary and her daughter Lourdy, both of whom speak English. Lourdy was our interpreter.

There is a need in Gros-Sable for good, solid Bible teaching and doctrine. Many people are hungry for it. The topics David and I covered on Thursday through Saturday and on Monday were biblical creation, God’s grace, spiritual warfare, and faith. Pat had two sessions with the women, one on Saturday and one on Monday. She also had a teaching time with the children Sunday afternoon. Sunday morning I preached to Pastor Ovide’s congregation about biblical marriage, and in the evening Pat and I taught a couples session on marriage. Each session of the seminar had teaching followed by a time of questions and answers. 

A big problem in the churches in Haiti, both Protestant and Catholic, is the attempt to combine Vodou (also spelled Voudou orVoodoo) with Christianity. Pastor Ovide, Evangelist Cedestine Durosier, and other leaders and members in Pastor Ovide’s church are doing what they can to combat this problem in the area, and we addressed it in some of our sessions. 

The people of Gros-Sable and the northwestern area do not have the conveniences we so often take for granted here. Their homes, which are constructed primarily of concrete with stone or cinder blocks and without glass in the windows, have no running water. The closest fresh water is an hour’s drive away and has to be transported in containers on foot, on burros, on motorbikes, or in other vehicles. The only available electricity, for those who have it, is from generators or from small solar panels. 

The house where we stayed has electricity in the evenings that comes from a diesel generator. Glass and screens are in the windows. There is a bathroom separate from the house with a shower supplied from a seventy-five gallon container on the roof that has to be filled by hand. And there is no hot water unless it is heated on the stove.

The people of Gros-Sable are hard working and creative. They make their own tools, they farm, and they raise goats, sheep, chickens, and pigs, but seldom produce more than just enough to feed their own families. There is very little rain and many crops do not mature because of that. They have had three seasons with little or no rainfall. During our visit we prayed for rain and God provided a heavy downpour that filled barrels and drums strategically positioned to catch the water, but downpours are not a regular occurrence in Grow-Sable. When the clouds move across the sky, the areas to the east, west, and south get the rain. There is a definite need for a local underground source of fresh water. 

On Tuesday, April 19, our last full day in Haiti, we were taken to Mole Saint-Nicolas where Christopher Columbus landed on December 6, 1492. We had a relaxing time with our Haitian friends enjoying the beach and collecting shells and coral fragments near the ruins of Columbus’ palace. 

Our short stay in Gros-Sable was a blessing that has served to increase and strengthen our faith. We can only hope that our being there and teaching there was a blessing to our Haitian brothers and sisters. We miss them and look forward to our next trip to Gros-Sable. We feel that we now have two earthly homes – northwest Minnesota and Gros-Sable in northwest Haiti.