Back To The Basics - Prayer Series

Back to the Basics - Prayer

ME

Today is supposed to be devoted to talking about prayer and I promise that I will get to that but I cannot just come back from Haiti and not talk about that at least a little bit. I do plan to put together a presentation to talk about it more at a latter date.

As pretty much everyone here knows I have been to Brazil several times. When I went to Brazil my life was changed, my world view changed and really I began to understand more of the vastness of God and His love. I saw a poor country with a lot of problems. I think as much as that first trip to Brazil changed me this trip to Haiti has again changed my perspective of things and this world.

First off we are bless beyond belief in this country. Even the poorest people here are well off compared to most people in Haiti. Most people there are just trying to get a meal a day and if they get that meal they have had a successful day. I would assume that many go without a meal for days.

In Haiti the unemployment rate is 73%. There are very very few jobs. The economy is better than it has been in the past. Paul made comment several times about how things are better. For me it is hard imagine worse at least in some of the areas we visited.

I haven’t figured out yet how to fully describe all that I saw and experienced. Honestly I don’t know that I could every have the word to express the full experience. This is why it is important for more to go to places like Haiti and other parts of the world to see they way many people live and the extremely poverty that is there.

Before I went on this trip I knew that Salonique and the ministry of Living Water was doing great things, but until you see it you can’t full grasp it. And even if you see it you would need to spend more time there and get involved in the ministry to fully grasp all that is going on.

The ministry that Sal began there back in the early 2,000’s has grown vastly over the years. The church in Gonavies I understand is about 1,200 people, the school there is around 700. Then there is the Bible College which is training future church leaders. They have a medical clinic. There are plans in the works in a new location in the city for a new Bible College building, a vocational school and tech school and more. And this is just in Gonavies.

Then there is White Mountain where they have a church up and going and plans to build a elementary school. But they are being held up by a couple women who are in opposition to them. There is Marmelade to which we traveled the 30 mile trip to that took us over 2 hours which in the mountains. This place is in the middle of the mountains and in what we would probably say is the jungle. There is a church there and a elementary school which has close to 300 hundred students in.

There is another place called Highland, which isn’t in the high land at all but on very flat ground that they have been building a church and school. Sal said when he first came into that area he was considered the plague. In all the areas Voodoo is practiced a lot but for me at Highland it was the most prominent. The property right next to the new school and church is where they do big Voodoo ceremonies. Matter of fact the property we were on to take pictures of the building was this property.

At one point I asked Sal why educating these children was so important. I asked this question because here we get an education so we will be equipped to get a job. Since there are essentially not jobs there I was wondering about way the need to educate them. Sal said it was very important. The society and the economy will never get better without education. And there education is not just in general studies but they get an excellent Christian education as well.

I took away from that a conclusion of something that is world wide. These people need Jesus. That is not new to me by any means, but for the longest time while there I was trying to think of ways the country could be better off. I know Kortney was too. And she would say if they could do this the country would be better off. I know I was thinking that way too.