Good evening everyone. Greetings from beautiful Haiti.
Today was one of those wonderful days that you wished you had every day. Not that the entire trip hasn’t been wonderful, but for me, I spent the morning with 15-20 Haitian pastors. They gather weekly to pray, study and break bread together. Today I was able to participate with them. Pastor JeanJean asked me if I would speak to the pastors about the importance of discipleship, which is one of my favorite topics. Pastor JeanJean interpreted for me, as we talked for an hour about the gospel and mentoring with the goal of making disciple who disciple. Then the pastor had many questions and I thank the Holy Spirit for His wisdom, and I was able to answer their question from the Word of God.
One thing that I found so amazing is their prayer life. These men began to pray for my wife, Jodi, who has been sick this week. This went on for 15 minutes… Let me tell you these pastors know how to pray. I was overwhelmed with the sense of the Holy Spirit. It was if I could understand their worlds. Prayer is prayer in any language. Then after this time, JeanJean instructed these men from the Word. He has such respect from these pastors because he loves, respects, and he trusts them. He does not lord over them. These pastors are hard set on preaching the gospel and discipleship, and it can be seen because God is changing this island into a Christian nation because of their faithfulness to God. They have no special tech tools, but they have God’s Word and love for people.
And because of the power of God’s Word, they are no longer hearing the Voodoo drums beating at night, and it is because of these faithful follower of Jesus… This time lasted from 8 a.m. until noon, and then they ate lunch together.
The after-lunch time we went to the school to teach English. This was very enjoyable. The kids are so respectful, excited and they are so eager to learn. Their blue and white uniforms so nicely pressed, and the little girls have all these little colorful decorations in their hair. And the boys with their brilliant white smile will melt your hearts.
Then we went to what they call a feeding station. These are areas where poor children are given a weekly hot meal and they sing songs about the Lord. Very much like VBS. These meals are provided by UCI. At these stations we all feel like Jesus’ hands handing out these hot meals made up of white rice, beans, and a vatable type of sauce. It smells wonderful. The entire team enjoys these stations. Kids gravitate to you and love to hold your hand, and they are so willing to let you love them. This is a wonderful ministry that UCI is doing for the people.
Every time that we go to these feeding stations, I think about 1 John 3:17-18 which says, “If anyone has worldly goods and sees his brother in need and yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Let us not love in word or talk, but in deeds and truth.” Folks we have the ability back home to help these wonderful people in so many ways… I pray that God will place on your hearts to give unselfishly towards helping God with reaching Haiti with the Good News.
And the walk to these stations are always fun. Their roads are not like our roads more like a 4-wheeler trail lined with cactus fences. I love these fences; they line everyone’s yard. It a great way to keep stray animals from wondering into their yards.
I praise God for this trip. These wonderful people have changed how I want to live out my life.
God bless you all back home, Pastor Carl
This post written by Carl Sitterud and originally posted at https://healingnations.net/prayer-is-prayer-in-any-language/2020/01/.
