Category: Blog

Dear Friends,

Hello again! I’m sorry I have not written in so long, but I’ll try to catch you up on what has happened. I went home on the 18th of May, as planned, with my brother. The last week I was at HGM in Despinos, we had a team of 20 come for medical outreaches. We went to 3-4 places and saw 800 people that week. I was tired by the time I went home! Then the second week I was home, we went on a family trip which was quite refreshing! We had a lovely time, being all together for a week! I had been tentatively planning on staying in the States till the end of June then seeing if I could come to Ailegue and work in the clinic here. Well, on the trip, Daddy got a call, and the folks here at Ailegue asked if I could come down right away and help in the cholera clinic. So, I changed plans, packed up and came back to Haiti with Michael on the 7th of June. (Ailegue is back in the mountains about an hour and forty-five minutes from Petit Goave where Micheal lives.) Anyway, I flew down on Tuesday and the flights and airports were uneventful- oh, except in the Miami airport the fire siren went off! It was so loud! (I never did find out what it was about.)

We were met at the airport by two guys who had flown in that morning and were coming back here also. Steve, the administrator here at Gospel to Haiti,and some other folks who had flown in that morning, were out in Port shopping when his truck broke down. So we all got in Michael’s truck and a very small car and went out to meet them. We ended up towing the truck to a mechanics and leaving it for repair. We then left for Petit Goave and had an uneventful trip. Once there, we put some of our things and all of us except Michael (10 adults and 2 children) in two Gators for the trip into the mountains. Michael had to stay out to meet someone the next day. It was dark when we headed back into the mountains, but thankfully it wasn’t raining – yet. It sprinkled off and on later. The trip went well till we got to a river and in crossing it we blew a tire. The tires are tubeless, and what happened was that bouncing over (maybe on would be a better word) a rock bent the rim. The road was quite muddy but we had to fix it there. We had no jack, so the guys lifted the back end while one of the girls stuck in some rocks. Then with the handle of the socket wrench, Steve beat the rim back into place. We pumped it up, and praise the Lord! it held air! It was so funny degajeing in the dark and in the mud! We laughed a good bit during the whole process! We made it safely to the mission and crashed into bed at 1:00 am.

The next day we got settled, and Steve made a schedule for us to work in the clinic. Three teams of three rotating every 8 hrs but the mid-day team starts the next series of shifts. It woks out so every takes turns on each shift. Yeah, it’s confusing until you see it on paper. I was on the shift that started at midnight and went till 8 am. Lisa and Michael and I are on a team, except Michael is not back here yet. So Lisa and I went over to the clinic at midnight. There were 5 patients there, but 4 were well enough to go home in the morning. So we didn’t have that much to do till 3 o’clock when an old man came in. He could hardly stand, so we admitted him. What happens is this: The patients gets sprayed down with clorox water and put in a gown. We immediately give Zofran to stop the vomiting, and bottle of pedialyte, and a bucket. We put them on a cot and start an IV if needed. This man needed it, and thankfully Lisa got it in on the first try. Then we gave him his doxycycline, to kill the cholera. After that we had to soak his clothes for ten min in bleach water, and wash them out. We had just gotten that done when a bunch of people brought in a lady who was so dehydrated she was not responding. So we started the whole process over. But Lisa had to try three times to get an IV started. It was a miracle that she got when she did, because we couldn’t see her veins! While we did that we had to keep an eye on the man, make sure he was drinking, and keep his IV going. Then there are slop buckets to empty and pans to wash out, the floor to clean and people to discharge. It didn’t seem long till 8 am came and our shift was over. I took a nap this afternoon, and I don’t have to go back on shift till tomorrow at 4 pm. Michael is coming in this evening so it will be nice to see him. As far as I know he will be staying here for a while.

Well, that’s all for now. I hope I was able to convey a little bit of what I’m doing down here. I need your prayers and support, and am very grateful for each one of you! Please pray for our safety here and good health, and pray also that the gospel of Christ would be seen in our lives and that people would come to Jesus. Please pray also that the cholera does not get worse and that it can be eliminated from this area. I am thankful for all the other team members here, they are a pleasure to work with! God is good!
If you have a minute, I would love to hear from you!
Blessings to each one,

—
For His Glory,

Virginia

Dear Friends,

Wow! I think I am the most blessed person in Haiti this week! I had so many responses to my last email! Thank you so much for taking time to send me a note! I’m going to try to write as things happen so I don’t forget them.

April 28, 2011 Today we went to clinic and had an average day. It was so hot and muggy here, I prayed for rain to clear the air. Well, it rained! It poured and the wind blew so hard that the top of the coconut tree in the front yard snapped right off! The place it broke was rotten and the woodpeckers had pecked big holes in it. When it broke I thought it was a lightning crack, then I took a second look and thought, “Something looks different.” The top had fallen across the wall, so it wasn’t very obvious. I don’t know what we will do with it yet. The neighbor climbed up on the wall, chopped it up and threw the pieces over into the yard. We will have to clean it up next week as we are going to Petit Goave and Aileg this weekend.

May 8, 2011 Well, the “write as things happen” didn’t work, as you can see. Our trip to Aileg was a very enjoyable. The road back there wasn’t so nice as some, but it has improved since the last time I was back there. The folks there were lovely, and we had a great time! We came back to Petit Goave Saturday afternoon and spent the evening with friends. When we got back to Michael’s place, we saw a rat in the kitchen, so we had a rat hunt. I’m happy to say the rat did not make it through the process. Sunday we went to Pastor Bruce’s church and I was happy that I could understand enough Kreyol to get the gist of the message. Sunday afternoon Junior started to teach Jessica and I how to drive his moto. That was hilarious to say the least! I stayed in the compound and drove (or tried to drive) in the school yard. It was fun, but I never made it past using 1st gear. I’m not planning on driving a moto down here, I just think it would be nice to know how. Junior had fun teaching us too! After that, Michael and Junior got out their bikes and were doing stunts. They were pretty good, and nobody got hurt. We had to leave for Port around 4:00 pm, so our afternoon was short. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were normal clinic days. We painted in the afternoons, trying to get the house ready for the team. Oh, yeah, Monday morning we went to town for supplies because Michael was here to take us. It was nice to do something different on a Monday morning (which by the way, are the same the world around – crazy). Thursday we left at 11:00 am for the airport to pick up April! It is so nice to have her back. It took us 2 hours to drive a distance that normally takes 30-40 minutes! We were at the airport for 15 min, and it took us 2 hours to get back home! Traffic was awful, and it was one of the hottest days since I’ve been here. Thursday night Michael came back to Port to work on Guyteau’s house, and Friday morning he and Junior took Jessica and I to market. I enjoyed that even though there was mud everywhere from the rain the night before! When we got home, Jessica and I cleaned the house we had been painting and got it ready for the team that is coming in Monday. Saturday April and Jessica went to town for supplies, and I stayed with little Michael. While they were gone, and 16 year old came with a 2″ cut on his lower right leg. He said it was from a bottle. I couldn’t figure out exactly what had happened. Well, I wanted to wait for April to come back because it needed stitches. I called her but she said she wasn’t going to be back soon enough. She explained to me over the phone how to do the stitching, and I called Michael as well, and he told me what to use and how to do it. So, I went and did it! It was easier than I thought it would be in general, but harder than I thought to pull the edges together and have them stay. I put in five stitches, dressed the wound, gave him an antibiotic shot, and he went on his way. I know God helped me!

May 10, 2011 Sunday Michael and I went to CAM for church. There was a Haitian pastor visiting, he preached in Kreyol and it was translated to English. It was a good message and the singing was wonderful! In the afternoon, Junior showed me a lizard egg. It looks a lot like a hummingbird egg, maybe a touch smaller. Then Junior scared up a bunch of big lizards and they are hilarious when they run! They stick their tails in the air and look like tiny dinosaurs! Did you know lizards can’t run fast on smooth concrete? Their feet spin out! Later in the afternoon we played a bit of volleyball. Then I helped Darla and her girls make pizza for supper. Mmmm… it was good! Monday, Jessica and I came to clinic. The girl with the bad burn is healing well. I was so excited that I only needed one 3×4 pad instead of three like when I first came! April went to the airport to pick up the team first thing. They got back around 11:00 am, and then we went to a nearby orphanage to treat the children. That was a very different clinic from what I am used to. The team did not have time to unpack and organize, so it was kind of chaotic, to say the least. I’m hoping it gets better as the week progresses. Please pray for me as I am to be the pharmacy translator for the rest of the week. Pray also for safety for Jessica as she is leaving tomorrow to go home for two weeks. She’s excited to get to go home, but it is going to be very strange around here without her! Today I was in the clinic by myself, Jessica and April took the team to another town for clinic. I had a little girl come in with a cut in her armpit. They said a mirror broke and cut her. Then a mason came with the side of his finger scraped off from a rock. The cut I stitched is healing fairly well.

Well, I am going home to the States (Where is home when your family is in one place and yet your heart and work is somewhere else?) in one week! Yay! I’m excited to see my family and some of you so soon! Please pray that God will show me where and when He wants me to come back. I will make that decision after I am home.

God bless each one of you in whatever way you need this week! I am so thankful for each one of you, and for the friendship you give me!
For His glory,

Virginia

Dear Friends,

Thanks so much to all of you that have emailed me. It is a huge blessing and pleasure to get news from you all, and I really appreciate your taking time to make my day special. I wish I could write to each of you individually, but then I would never get anything else done, and I have to work around the finicky internet service. So put your name in place of “Friends” and this is my personal email to you.

I’ve been here a month now and I am still having a very wonderful time. To be sure, I’m a little homesick, but that is to be expected. I know I am where God wants me, and He gives me the strength to carry on. We, Jessica and I, have been alone now for over a week and it is quite challenging sometimes. We don’t speak the language super well, though my Kreyol is growing every day, so sometimes it takes a while to communicate. I have been doing basically the same thing at the clinic, making sure the medical part flows as it should while Jessica takes care of the administrative things. I’m sure glad I don’t have to that part. We have been very blessed to have my brother Michael with us for most of this past week. He has other things he has to do in Port, but he is here in the evenings and the past weekend. He has to return to Petit Goave this weekend and I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to keep him here! I don’t know what we are going to do without him.

Well, for news now. Remember the lady I told you about that gave her life to Christ and burned all her voodoo stuff? We went to see her a week and a half ago, and she was a different person. We had trouble recognising her, she looked so much younger and so happy! We visited with her awhile and she is doing well I think. It is hard for me to know exactly what was said because I didn’t have a translator. On the way home, we had to cross back over a mountain, and half way up the truck died. It had run out of water and overheated. Thankfully we had a couple Haitian men from the church along, and one of them went to get water. After the truck cooled down and we had filled it with water, it started right up! Definitely an answer to prayer! We made it safely home from there.

A couple of days later… (it takes awhile to write all this stuff down). Let me think… it’s kind of hard to remember what all has happened in the past couple of weeks… oh yeah, the clinic. The first day we were alone, we were basically just trying to adjust to the idea of being on our own. It was a bit scary! We prayed that there would only be a few patients, and God in His goodness answered our prayer! We are much more comfortable now with the swing of things, just still praying that no emergencies happen! The little boy with the chopped off finger is healing nicely. His parents must think he’s ok now, because I haven’t seen him in over a week. I’ve been trying to get someone to tell him to come in so I can have a last look at it. We’ll see what happens. I’ve been dressing various wounds, all of which are healing at different rates. I’ve had to give some shots to children, which is definitely one of my least favorite things to do. They always cry, and I don’t blame them! The one type of injection we give the most really hurts!

Today I saw a child with small bumps all over his ear that were oozing. There were bumps other places on his face. I cleaned off the pus and said that he had to see the doctor because I had no idea what it was. Well, Jessica looked in her MMI book and asked if it could be impetigo. We called the boy back and all the signs and symptoms, or lack thereof, lined up. He also had a fungus on his scalp. We were able to treat his problems and it felt so good to know that we hit the nail on the head! I really would like to work directly with a doctor (who speaks English) for a while and learn some of the most common diseases and how to treat them. Maybe there will be a place like that for me to come back to this summer. I’m praying for that anyway. The doctor here knows no English and speaks very Frenchy Kreyol. Even April has a hard time understanding him! So we are kind of stuck with what we already know, which isn’t much when it comes down to treating people!

Last week the clinic was closed due to the Easter holidays. Jessica and I did some painting and caught up on some rest. That was nice except every single time we tried to take a nap someone would bang on the gate! Living here is like always having open house, everybody comes and goes all the time. One day, I think it was last Friday, Jessica and little Michael and I went along with big Michael to where he was working with a construction team. They were building Guyteau’s house, for those of you who know him, so I got to spend a good bit of time with Madam Guyteau. She taught me how to make some Haitian food, and taught me Kreyol. We had a wonderful day. Sunday we went out to CAM for services and spent the day there. It was a very relaxing time. Big Michael was back in Petit Goave, but Vince and Darla were gracious enough to come and get us and let us spend the day with their family.

Please keep praying for us here. We need wisdom day by day to deal with the clinic and the people working for the mission. The truck is broken more than not, so we have to figure out other ways to get water for drinking and such. Thankfully the Pastor here has a car and is willing to help us out. We also need wisdom and strength to care for little Michael. He is a two year old, and needs a lot of attention. It seems like he has gotten every kind of sickness since his mom left. First he had a cold and congested chest, then and ear ache, in both ears, then he got his hair cut which revealed a scalp fungus. After that he had a stomach ache which led to diarrhea! Now he has started skipping his naps so he is super tired at night. Well, I guess it’s good training for the future!

God bless you all and may His return be soon!
For His glory,
Virginia

Its been said that Haiti is 70% Catholic, 20% Protestant, and 100% Voodoo. While this may be true it only partially tells a riveting story. The story of God working throughout the history of Haiti to spread the life saving message of his son is an utterly fascinating one. The following is a non-experts attempt to tell part of this story.

During Haiti’s early history the Spanish and French both imported slaves from Africa to maximize productivity on the sugar plantations in the colony of Saint Dominique, modern day Haiti. As slaves arrived in the “new world”, they were exposed to new Catholic doctrine and belief. Many adopted aspects of the new catholic practice and combined it with their traditional African spiritualist beliefs, voodoo. Voodoo comes from the Fon language of Benin, West Africa, and means “spirit.” [1] Throughout the early history of Haiti, the slaves endured tremendous hardships at the hands of their captors. As time went on, the slaves african spiritualist beliefs became more a point of pride as Catholicism was increasingly viewed as the religion of the brutal slave holders. Voodoo became a means to communicate and organize to fight for their independence. This peaked during an infamous event in in 1791. According to Haiti’s official bicentennial website the Haitian revolution began on a night in 1791 when “A man named Boukman … organized a meeting with the slaves in the mountains of the North. This meeting took the form of a Voodoo ceremony in Bois Caiman in the northern mountains of the island. It was raining and the sky was raging with clouds; the slaves then started confessing their resentment of their condition. A woman started dancing languorously in the crowd, taken by the spirits of the loas. With a knife in her hand, she cut the throat of a pig and distributed the blood to all the participants of the meeting who swore to kill all the whites on the island.” The revolution that began on this night ended in 1804 with the formation of the world first free slave republic.

Soon after the revolution in Haiti, all foreign priests in the Haitian catholic church fled and Rome cut off all relations. This allowed the early Haitian catholic church to form and change without oversight from the outside church. This in addition to the ritualistic aspects of Catholicism has helped voodoo become pervasive throughout Haitian Catholicism and is why the two often appear to co-exist so easily in a system of religious pluralism. [2] For example, today, many Roman Catholic symbols and prayers have blended with voodoo rituals and traditions to make for a unique and typically Haitian religion. Pictures of Catholic saints are painted on the walls of temples to represent the voodoo spirits; at funerals, it is not uncommon that voodoo ceremonies and rituals be performed for family members first, followed by a more public traditional Roman Catholic ceremony presided over by a priest.” [3]

Soon after the revolution Haiti found itself very isolated politically, racially and religiously from the rest of the world. Early leaders feared that voodoo would further alienate them from the developed world. So, the Constitution of 1807 made Roman Catholicism Haiti’s official religion stating that no other religion (including Voodoo) could be practiced in public. Later, Haiti reestablished relations with the Vatican in 1860 and power over the church in Haiti transferred once again to Europe. All the while influential Haitian  voices like Louis Joseph Janvier, insisted Catholicism was an oppressive colonial power and a threat to Haiti’s autonomy. He advocated for the establishment of Protestantism on the grounds that it could be controlled internally rather than by Europe. [4] He did not see voodoo as a solution to Haiti’s problems, and rather saw Protestantism as a means to modernize Haiti, as it encouraged pragmatism and self reliance. [5]

During this time, a few of Haiti’s first protestant missionaries began to arrive. The first protestants missionaries were with the English Wesleyan Mission when a handful of british methodist pastors arrived in 1806. The first American missionary was a Baptist, Thomas Paul, the son of freed slaves from Exeter, New Hampshire. Paul sailed into Cape Hayti (later Cap Haitien) in 1823 with crates of Bibles and tracts, and for six months he preached, baptized, and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the First Baptist Church there. [7] The Episcopal church was introduced in Haiti in 1861 by a group of 110 African-Americans immigrants to Haiti. They established many churches and schools, including St. Vincent School, for many years, the only school for special needs children in Haiti. The adventists arrived later in 1879, Assemblies of God (1945), Nazarean Church (1948), Salvation Army (1950), Pentecostal church (1962), Mennonite Church (1966) and Church of God (1969). [6]  The work of the missionaries was initially focused in the larger cities where they found it tough to make any inroads because catholicism had been so deeply entrenched for many years. At the time, Catholicism thrived in urban areas because the majority of the education available was through Catholic schools and typically served the elite and wealthier populations. Protestants failed to gain much ground in urban areas, and thus focused their energies and attentions on poorer, rural areas with remarkable success.

One of the most significant events in in the Haitian church happened in the early 20th century. For many years people from southern Haiti has been emigrating into Cuba and being hired on as farm labor in large sugar cane plantations. At the time, the evangelistic efforts of missionaries was far greater in cuba than in Haiti. Many Cubans had accepted Christ and were traveling the countryside forming churches and evangelizing the people there. In the process many Haitians came to hear of Christ for the first time. After a number of years the Cuban government began cracking down on the Haitian immigrants coming into Cuba. Thousands were deported back the their home in southern Haiti. After deportation these new Christians set to work sharing the gospel throughout the cities and countryside with great success. Evidence of this exists still with some of the highest concentrations of evangelical and protestant believers in Haiti being in the south of the country, where this outreach was initially done. Much of the initial indigenous effort in evangelism was born of this event, as Christianity spread from south to north over the ensuing years. Foreign protestant missionaries began to make significant inroads into Haiti during the same time periods which coincided with the US military occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934. During this time, the rural parts of Haiti began to have its first direct contact with the western world. Soon after the soldiers arrived, missionaries also began to settle in these areas also. Many of these protestant missionaries brought to the disadvantaged in these areas things some had never had, namely, a steady supply of food, clean water, medical care and education badly needed at the time. This helped the message spread rapidly throughout the rural areas.  Through both indigenous and foreign missionary means the message of Christ propagated rapidly through Haiti during the fist half for the 20th century.

As the 20th century moved on, protestant missions in Haiti, especially rural Haiti, found a strange supporter. It was in fact championed by the infamous dictator Francois Duvalier, the first pro-voodoo, pro-peasant, black nationalist president. During this time, new fears of cultural imperialism and racism began to foster a reaction against continued foreign influence. Catholicism embodied this fear with thier centralized foreign power structure. Duvalier viewed the rise of Protestantism as help to break the power of the foreign dominated Catholic Church. Duvalier also supported the influx of Protestants because Protestants did not pose any immediate threat to him. Protestants were seen not only as apolitical and unwilling to interfere in political affairs, but they were eager to bring development and aid into the country as well. [8] While using christianity for his own ends, Duvalier continued to encourage voodoo also. Throughout his reign, he used the houngans (voodoo priests) to control the rural communities his personal army (the tonton macoutes) could not police. This was done through fear and intimidation, encouraging threats of voodoo spells and enchantments. The effects and continued use of these fear tactics are a major driver in the lives of the people of the Haitian countryside still today.

Over the last 25 years, since the fall of the Duvalier regime, the religious landscape of Haiti has continued to change. A subversive grassroots group of Catholics called “Ti Legliz” developed to help oust the Duvaliers. This group among many others of the period (early 1990s) championed “Liberation Theology“ coming out of Central America and were far more political than religious. This movement drew widespread support from both the rural and urban poor and prepared the political landscape for the emergence of former Catholic priest, Jean Bertrand Aristide, and his political party, Lavalas (“The Flood”), who came to dominate the political landscape. During his reign, voodoo was for the first time given equal standing as official religion of the country. Some believe Aristide did this due to a personal belief in voodoo, while other believe this decision was purely political. It is clear spiritualism in the form of voodoo remains the dominant world view and lens through which Haitians view all aspects of life.

Through the disastrous hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2008 and the earthquake of January 2010 the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been dramatically spread. It remains to see what the long term impact of these events is for the Gospel.

[1] Civan, Michele Burtoff, The Haitians: Their History and Culture, 22.

[2] Richman, Karen, “The Protestant Ethic and the Dis-Spirit of Voodoo” Immigrant Faiths: Tansforming Religious Life in America. Edited by Karen I Leonard, Alex Stepick, Manuel Vasquay and Jennifer Holdway, 166.

[3] Zachary, Casey : A Brief History in the Development of Religion in Haiti, www.realhopeforhaiti.org

[4] Richman, Karen, “The Protestant Ethic and the Dis-Spirit of Voodoo” Immigrant Faiths: Tansforming Religious Life in America. Edited by Karen I Leonard, Alex Stepick, Manuel Vasquay and Jennifer Holdway, 170.

[5] Civan, Michele Burtoff, The Haitians: Their History and Culture, 53.

[6] About Haiti: HaitiChristianity.org

[7] Lundy, Eleanor, Mission in the Footsteps of Peter and Paul, Serving Christ and the People of Haiti for 180 Years. Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society. Nov/Dec 2004.

[8] Rickman, Karen, “The Protestant Ethic and the Dis-Spirit of Voodoo,” 171

Thanks goes to Casey Zachary of real hope for Haiti for much of this article inspired and aided by his on the real hope for haiti blog.