Wednesday


Wednesday was a down day of sorts…no speaking engagements. The day was still filled with things to do. At 10:00am we met with the MEBSH board and discussed multiple things that might be helpful to partner with MEBSH to accomplish. We covered, among other things, the goat farm project and the printing project. We broke for lunch and then headed out to see the mechanical
  presses they are currently using for printing Sunday school curriculum and we visited the goat farm. We had a truly off-road trip to get there having to cross a major riverbed that happened to be dry. I have no idea how they make due when the river is flowing at max capacity (probably 20ft deep and 400-700 yards wide). As usual the people got a kick out of seeing white guys riding in the
back of a pick-up truck (as I write we’ve been here 8 days and have yet to see another white guy in the back of a pick-up).

 It was very sad not to have Rich along (he was prepping for the men’s conference). You see, Rich has fallen in love with goats (not quite as much as his family, but close). He loves to eat goat, to see goat, touch goats, dream of goats, wear goat wool sweaters, I think he may even have picked up a
couple of precious moments goat figurines at the local market. If Rich could be anything in the world, it would be a shepherd of goats. The uniform would be a pair of khaki slacks and a “Goat Nato” graphic tee. If you do not understand “goat nato”, you will just have to ask Rich when he is back. One more thing, Rich is starting a Christmas club with Jeremie Maceno. We were sitting at the dinner table and Jeremy said, We should start a Christmas club!”to which Rich, who was sitting nearby, fork having just shoveled in some goat meat, boisterously said, “I’d like me some Christmas club!”

 We spent the evening joining the missionaries for their evening service. We sang some good old hymns and I preached from Ephesians 2:11-22. The 40-50 folks seemed to enjoy the message. We then prayed over the various requests and finished the evening. It was nice to actually know what everyone was saying…the whole thing was in English! 
 
We then went to Pastor and Madame Alnev’s (the president of MEBSH) house for a late dinner. We had a great meal of Haitian soup and sat around the dinner table learning a bit more about their family, how the Lord saved them, their challenges in ministry, and how we could pray for them. It
was a lovely evening.

Thursday & Friday

 The men’s and women’s conferences kicked off Thursday morning. Actually our morning began with the sound of the women’s choir floating up the  hill, beautiful accapella voices in multi-part harmony (I love the singing here).

 I started things off for the men’s conference, giving the men an understanding of the two main principles we would be using in our teaching – Biblical theology and Christ-centered theology. I explained that the Bible was one big story using the Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration
model to help them understand the basic thought. I also explained that Christ was at the center of all of Scripture – the Old Testament pointing forward to the Cross and the New Testament back to the Cross. We then went on to work through the book of Esther, demonstrating that it did indeed point to Christ. I covered the first 2 chapters and Rich covered the 3rd, following roughly the same model as we do on Wednesday nights with the men of Berean. I tended to focus a bit more on
the story aspect, bringing out the history, literary techniques, etc as we worked through the story and Rich tended to be a bit more toward the concrete categories of problem, resolution, characters, theme, etc as he worked through Ch 3. I believe this was a great combo because the people of Haiti love at least two things – stories and concrete answers. I believe that God worked this out in advance of our coming and intertwined these two things to help our brothers
grasp some new teaching concepts (at least new to most). They really seemed to be focused and interested, taking lots of notes.


Pierre gave us some great feedback, guiding us to ask more questions which helped us engage with and draw out the men even further on Friday. It was fantastic to see them work through Chapters 4-6 and make connections to Christ with gospel application. We also worked through some of the ways we can do it improperly and slip into moralism, liberalism, etc. Even
though there will certainly be some refining, and they probably didn’t all fully grasp the material, we were able to expose them to this type of teaching, and I believe that they did see the importance of pointing folks to Christ rather than Bible “heroes”, moral acts or Christian identity for identity sake. We ran into a snafu the first day causing us to not finish all of the lessons we planned, but we did work through most of the book of Esther together and Rich
did a real nice job tying a bow on things at the end.

 It was exciting to have a fella from the Caleb Ministry (MEBSH Men’s Ministry) ask that we come back and teach at their Caleb Conference (the equivalent of the women’s conference Teren and Christy were sharing at – 3000 women strong!). Pierre shared that this was our desire, to come along side MEBSH ministries and partner with them. He shared more about Levangil and our goals. He asked if they would be interested in teaching like what we had done, but related to the Gospel as it relates to work, and receiving a positive response. Pray that God will open the right doors to open for this and to provide the right teachers.


Another thing we learned is a lesson in patience as taught by our Haitian brothers. We witnessed a wonderful outpouring of patience as these men sat in the heat of the day without water for the first 3 hours and waited for food that should have been ready by 12 and was not available till 2. There was some grumbling (Pierre mentioned today), but I never heard it. This culture has much more patience then ours does. When something goes wrong we tend not to wait, tend toward saying we have failed, tend to grumble rather than adjust and if the power goes out…forget about it! They tend to wait with patience. We have a lot to learn.


The men were very grateful, shaking hands and giving their thanks. One gentlemen from the conference even returned this morning to provide gifts, beautiful shells from the ocean, the big conk shell type. These are the items they sell at the market so this was a real sacrifice for this man and a blessing to us. What a joy to see giving from a grateful heart! Pray that God would bless this man…not for the gifts, but for his Christ like character that drove him to give the gifts.


Today is Saturday, a down day for the men. Teren and Christy are at the women’s conference throughout the day. We attempted to make a trip to see an orphanage that Pierre’s sister and brother-in-law runs, but again God had other plans. Our car didn’t make the last hill (transmission troubles again) so we spent part of the afternoon waiting for help. God sent a man that just happened to be working with Pierre’s sister some minutes earlier. We also just so happened to have a mechanic drive by and stop. God works on behalf of his people, playing out in front of our eyes, the day following a conference where we taught the very same thing – circumstances we didn’t plan for, but that painted a beautiful picture for us. We also got to practice some Haitian
patience! When we returned, we had some local “fast food”…it was great. 
 
It was nice not to be running at full speed today. Regardless of the bumps in the road, what a great trip this has been! What a joy to be among the Haitian church and the body of faith. God is so
good!


Tomorrow I preach at Pastor Tomas’s Church. Pray that God will work as he has been all along. I am excited to worship again in another language…hints of heaven I believe. Pray for energy for Pierre to translate. What a tool this man has been in the hands of the Lord these past 9 days. Pray
that Christ will continue to be lifted higher.


Blessings from all of your brothers and sisters-in-Christ here in Haiti. We miss you and look forward worshiping with you next week!


Brad




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    Team Levanjil

    A written record of the work of God among the people of God in Haiti as members of Berean Baptist Church in Livonia, MI work with the leadership of MEBSH in Les Cayes, Haiti.

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