CHURCH ON THE MOUNTAIN

I almost didn't go along. When we left at 6:00 am for church, I was fighting a bad head cold after a restless night of sleep. By the time we returned home around 4:00 pm, I was hoarse, exhausted and feverish. I only went to spend a little more time with the team of dear friends visiting from Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, and enjoy one last adventure with them before they returned to the States.

But I got so much more out of it. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, though physically I was wasting away, inwardly the day renewed me.

Our destination was a young church on a mountain top 1800 feet above the small town of Grison Garde. The WV team had been there before. In fact, they had helped their friend, Pastor Job, establish the church two years ago. Job pastors a church in Grison Garde, but he obviously sees the entire area as his parish. When he discovered a handful of people who were making a two and a half hour trip down the mountain each Sunday morning to attend worship services in town, he felt prompted to do what he could to give the mountain its own church.

The WV team had helped him inaugurate that new congregation and had later aided in the buying of property for a church building. Yesterday, they were going to get to see the new property and how the church had progressed since their last visit.

And our sweet friend Hannah had been tasked with delivering the morning's message - a duty she took with the utmost seriousness. On our hour long drive to Grison Garde, and then whenever we paused along our subsequent walk, Hannah had her notes out, not wanting to miss anything that the Lord would have her speak to His gathered people.

The morning was absolutely stunning. Brett parked the truck as far down the river as we could possibly drive, then it was a 3.5 mile walk from there.

Nice and flat and easy at the beginning of the morning.

This was definitely the remotest part of Haiti I have set foot in and I couldn't get over the beauty of this region. I kept thinking in the States, this would be a national park.

The river is spring fed and in places where it narrows it gets difficult to hop across without risking a slip off a slick rock. I love this moment of Pastor Job, deep in the water himself, helping Brett to stay dry. Job has such a humble servant's heart.

Before too long, the path got quite a bit steeper and we were all panting and sweating a bit more and taking frequent rest and water breaks. 

And the views got better and better. In this picture, behind Nathan, you can see the riverbed down below where we started.

After several hours of hiking, our final ascent to the church.

Sunday school was still in progress, so Pastor Job took a few moments to show us around the property.

Just above the temporary structure is a plot of land where Pastor Job envisions a more permanent concrete structure. (That's going to be quite a bit of work! We were trying to imagine the effort involved in hauling even a single bag of concrete up that path.)

He says this flattened mountain top had been cleared centuries ago for a building project of some kind and that the property had even been considered a possible location for the construction of the Citadel in the early 1800s. Now it officially belongs to God. ;-)

For now, most of the seating in the church "building" is a type of bamboo bench I hadn't seen before. (You think the pews are uncomfortable at your church??)

Hannah's sermon, translated into Creole by Brett, was jam-packed with Scripture. She spoke of the believer's freedom in Christ and how to recognize and avoid the traps laid by Satan's lies. When Hannah finished preaching, a young man who was apparently a first time visitor to the church gave his life to Christ! Hallelujah! 

After the service concluded, someone from the congregation provided fresh coconuts to our group to ready us for the journey back down the mountain.

We took a few last pictures from the top and then headed down. Here's Richard and Kat - such the cute couple.

The trip down was much easier and quicker, only lasting an hour and a half. We made only two stops. The first was because Job wanted to make a pastoral visit to the home of a family who had lost a loved one to death the day before. Job shared his condolences and prayed for them and they joined him in singing a couple of hymns before we departed.

Here's the last picture I have to share. It's from our second stop - our lunch break. And I know it's kind of a "you had to be there" moment. But these three young ladies were traveling down the mountain with us after church and when we stopped, they were cutting up and taking pictures with their cell phones the whole time. They kept taking pictures of me on one side, then turning to try to catch Pastor Job in mid-bite on the other side. Finally, I pulled out my phone to take a selfie with them and - this is so Haitian - they look all serious for the photo for half a second then start laughing again and passing my phone around to see what the shot looked like. 

You would never know it from the picture though!

It's gotten late and I'm on Nyquil at this point, so I better wrap this post up. I'll just conclude with a few things the day gave me to think about - when I was able to think clearly:

- I'm amazed at the dedication of Pastor Job and his love for the people beyond the walls of his Grison Garde church.

- Although I teased Hannah a bit, I was thoroughly impressed with her sermon and the seriousness with which she approached the privilege and duty of bringing God's Word to God's People. 

- This team from The Refuge in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, has made a lasting impact on this mountain with their faithfulness and generosity. Only God knows what great things are still to sprout from the seeds they have planted there.

- It is humbling to worship with folks who are obviously unfazed by discomfort or "inconvenience" in their single-minded focus on the Lord.

- I don't know that I've ever praised the Lord in a more beautiful location.

RETREAT, THEN FORWARD AGAIN!

Each (early) spring the OMS Haiti staff gets away together for a retreat in the Dominican Republic. Over the last few years, it seems to work best to schedule it over the days leading up to Mardi Gras - when things can get a little wild in the streets of Cap Haitian and very little work can be accomplished anyway.

This year, because of some political rumblings, we decided as a group that it would be wise to get across the border a day earlier than our reservations allowed and spend one night at a hotel in Montecristi. The CHIC Hotel.

I can only conclude that "chic" means something entirely different in Spanish than it does in English.

But it was a place to spend the night - restlessly. The motorcycles were zooming past our open windows LATE into the night.

Still, we were with friends and family and ready for a break together.

On Sunday, it was only about 3 miles to our final destination, the El Morro, a hotel in the shadow of the local Mountain by the same name.

It was definitely more "chic", but also a whole lot more restful. 

And remote. It really felt like "getting away from it all".

It was Super Bowl Sunday and, although I could have found the game on cable TV in the room, I had no desire to even watch the commercials this time around. Our kids wanted to swim and that was quite alright with Melissa and me.

Mega kudos to the Heckmans and Ayars, our friends from Emmaus Seminary, who had found this location on a DR trip earlier this school year and suggested it would be a perfect place for all of us to gather for retreat. It WAS. 

El Morro had everything we could have asked for, and we were pretty much the only people there.

Here's the screened in dining hall - that was just big enough to seat our whole group for each breakfast and dinner.

It turns out, we were actually on a little island, only connected to the mainland by a small bridge - a truly unique environment with mangrove swamps and a lone mountain, El Morro.

I looked up "el morro" on Google Translate - it's Spanish for "the nose". From this angle, I guess that makes a lot of sense.

Here it is from another angle.

The location is known for harvesting sea salt. The mangroves filter the sea water which is then channeled into little square fields to foster evaporation. The salt is later shoveled into wheelbarrows and stored in this type of shed.

Not as natural, but with its own sort of beauty, Montecristi is also home to actual grocery stores.

And an ice cream shop!

At its core, though, our retreat is intended to be a time of spiritual renewal, for both kids and adults. We adults were challenged each day by this year's speaker, Dr. Charles Lake. Melissa and I were already familiar with Dr. Lake, knowing him as the founding pastor of the Greenwood church which later birthed our home church in Columbus, Indiana. We knew he was a gifted preacher, but we had no idea of the depth of his wisdom or the extent of his personal history with OMS over the years.

From the 4th chapter of Ephesians, Dr. Lake challenged all of us to "put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

We had a lot to chew on.

Dr. Lake brought along some friends, Michael and Brenda, to work with our youth and children. Here's Brenda allowing Sarah and the other girls to cover her legs with marker "tattoos". 

Outside of our Bible study times, we enjoyed activities from shell hunting ...

To mountain biking ...

To early morning runs ...

To wave jumping at the beach...

Or just hanging out with friends.

One afternoon, all 30 or so of us piled into two boats for an up-close tour of the mangroves.

I don't know how it could have been a more perfect day.

Our tour guides gave us a chance to explore the mangroves first hand.

Everyone got a kick out of handling a sea cucumber that Phil Heckman had discovered. 

And just when we thought the tour was ending, the boats swung us out to a small island to explore.

This picture taken from the center of that island cracks me up - looks like it should be entitled "Ethan Heckman and his Entourage".

As Melissa and I are more aware than ever of just how quickly our kids are growing up, we truly appreciated such great family time all around. The retreat was an amazing few days.

We felt rejuvenated by the time we were ready to cross back into Haiti.

The day after our return, we had the great pleasure of picking up our friend, Kelly, from the airport. She came in for a week to help Melissa juggle the kindergarten class with her usual third grade obligations while our lead kindergarten teacher is out for a few months on maternity leave. Kelly was such an encouragement to our entire family.

We put her to work right away making some Valentine's Day cookies to share with Daniel's neighborhood kids on Sunday morning. 

As always, Daniel's place was packed out with eager kids - standing room only.

We brought 70 cookies and barely had enough to go around.

When Monday morning came, we put Kelly right to work at Cowman. The kids LOVED her. And she LOVED the kids!

We thank the Lord for the time of rest and for meaningful work to come back to. We thank Him, too, for good friends like Kelly and YOU, who come alongside us. 

We are blessed beyond belief!

GETTING BEYOND FAT TUESDAY

[This post was meant to roll earlier this week, but weak internet connections prevented it. Hopefully, there is value in giving thought to fasting, even if the Ash Wednesday starting line has already passed!]

Mardi Gras (aka Kanaval, aka Fat Tuesday, aka, Carnival) is celebrated in Haiti with a fervency that (I would imagine) rivals that of New Orleans. I took the opportunity last Friday afternoon to speak to my adult English class about the big day. The students told me about the parades and bands and drinking and raucous celebrations. But when I asked them if they knew why it’s called “Fat Tuesday”, nobody could say.

Do you know?

Here’s a simplified version: Fat Tuesday is, of course, the day before Ash Wednesday. (My students tell me few Haitian churches recognize Ash Wednesday in any significant way - most had never heard of it.) Centuries ago, many Christians began “celebrating” the season of Lent as a time of fasting and repentance. Some people found it helpful to rid their houses of food that might tempt them or that would go to waste before the arrival of Easter - dairy, eggs, beef.  In time, this purging of the kitchen took on a celebratory feel – the last hurrah coming the day before the leanness of Lent, getting "fat" before the fast. From there, it was only a short jump to the notion of “let’s eat, drink and be merry today and repent tomorrow".  Nowadays, I would guess, Mardi Gras is completely disassociated from even a passing thought of Lent or repentance or fasting in the minds of most observers worldwide.

Historians believe that the name "Carnival" came from the Latin carne vale - "farewell to flesh". Apparently a reference to fasting from meat, but supremely ironic if you read "flesh" in the biblical sense, huh?

I wonder how the yearly number of Mardi Gras celebrators compares to the number of Lenten "fasters".

When I told my Haitian students that nobody in Indiana (where I come from) even acknowledges Mardi Gras, they couldn’t believe it. But when I reflected on it later, it struck me that in the United States, it’s not exactly that we don’t celebrate Mardi Gras, it’s more like we refuse to limit Fat Tuesday to one day a year!

Surrounded by an abundance of things, activities, and food - with the TV and radio constantly urging us to get more, more, more - we find it a struggle to get serious, and to stay serious, about our relationship with God. 

Look at how the Lord warned the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8 about His fears that bringing them into the promised land - "a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing" (v.9) - could potentially lead them to FORGETTING Him! 

"10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

Fasting is all about refocusing - taking our eyes off the gifts and returning them to the Giver.

I hope to take the next few posts to reflect on the practice of fasting. (And I also plan to share some thoughts and photos from this past week's OMS staff retreat.)



P.S. Here was my Fat Tuesday indulgence...