Haiti Trip 2013: Sunday

Here's another post from last year's trip with Mission Haiti. I'll begin posting more from the trip in February of this year once I have finished last year's posts.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

The path to the church

We woke on Sunday anticipating going to one of the local churches. Aubrey had volunteered to make pancakes for breakfast and we enjoyed a pretty relaxing morning before heading out.

We dressed for church (polos & Khakis for the guys, dresses for the girls) and started the hike down the road. Aubrey and I planned to do You're Beautiful by Phil Wickham and Troy was preaching, so Aubs and I made plans along the way. We arrived at Antoine's house and took a left off the road and headed up the path to the church. After a fairly lengthy climb on a warm morning we arrived at a pink building inside the skeleton of a larger building where worship was already well under way. I'm not sure if the larger building was something being built or was the remains of something falling down, but we stepped over the cinder block threshold into what seemed more of a courtyard at this point.

We were guided around the side of the church and brought in a side door where we could fill the first few rows and a good number of seats on the platform. I was soaked in sweat from the walk and was glad for the slight breeze coming in the door while Aubrey and I finished our planning. The Haitian worship was spirited and incredibly loud with songs usually lasting close to ten minutes. One gentleman was playing a tambourine that was missing several of its bells and looked like it could fall apart any time he would strike it.

The time came for Aubrey and I to do our thing. I played guitar while she sang and one of the reasons that our planning took so long for such a simple song was that we had originally planned to trade verses, but decided that it would be best to put it in a key that worked well for Aubrey's voice. Of course, she sang beautifully with me adding harmonies. The congregation quickly caught on to the interlude of "oohs" and joined in after each verse. It was absolutely gorgeous to hear them carry those parts and when we reached the end of the song, we let them sing those out as an expression of their worship.

Troy & Patchuoko working through a translation issue

At that point, Pam did a short lesson followed by Troy's sermon, both with Patchuoko translating. After church, there were many hugs and kisses from the Haitians before we made our way back down the hill and back to the mission.

Our only activity for the afternoon was to head out to the island for a little play time. We headed down to Robert's house where three boats with blue tarps for sails were to carry us to the island. We loaded 5-6 of us in each boat and did all we could to stay out of the pilot's way. The boats rode incredibly low and watching the other boats, there were times we worried that they'd take on water. The boat ride was about 20 minutes long and took us to a small island that was mostly sand with a little bit of brush, a few trees, and a whole lot of trash.

We made our way around the island to scope things out and found a jellyfish that had washed up. The jelly was a deep purple and was moved to the brush where it would be out of the way as we began to explore the waters. The water was only knee to waist deep for at least 100 meters before a large drop off that you could see the waves break against. We were on the lookout for more jellies and also urchins which we had been told we might encounter. I wandered out with Aubrey and eventually we did find an urchin. I took a shoe off, scooped it up and we got a closer look. We enjoyed the sunshine, the breeze, and the surf in the background as we hung out near the drop off for awhile before heading back to the island.

We all began to congregate on the landward side of the island where some boys were diving and bringing up starfish for us. They were a red/orange mix and were mostly 8-10 inches across and before long we had a collection of ten or so on the beach. Aubrey proceeded to get down on the sand with them for pictures and was absolutely in heaven. We took a group pic in the water in front of one of the boats before piling back in and heading back to the mission.

Once back to shore, we were walking back to the mission when one of the youth invited us to see his home. We proceeded to go through the gate and, before we knew it, we realized that his mother was just outside the house doing laundry. Completely naked. We stayed for an uncomfortable minute or two while she did her best to cover up and we did our best to respectfully avert our eyes.

Once we got back to the mission, we played a little more basketball with the kids before stopping for dinner. It was shortly after that when we received word from back home about a family from Sioux Falls Christian that had died in a car accident back home. We had two people on the team who knew the family well. Julie worked with the mom at Sanford and Brent's son was in one of their son's class at school. It hit them both very hard and it was a long, sobering night where we all processed loss and helplessness as we thought of friends and family back in South Dakota.