Christmas in Haiti

There’s absolutely no denying that Christmas in Haiti is nothing at all like Christmas at home. Since Haitians don’t celebrate Christmas at all the way we do at home, I had a bit of a hard time getting into the Christmas sprit this year. There weren’t any Christmas programs or Christmas parades or anything like that… just lots of sun, heat and Caribbean music. Christmas eve, we tried to do a little Christmas program at the mission house. It wasn’t anything big, but it was still really nice to get together and sing some Christmas carols and read the Christmas story from the Bible.

Christmas day, we spent the morning down at the church doing a rice distribution. I have to admit, it was nice to be able to give people food on Christmas day, especially people who I know are truly hungry. I spent the day with Julihomme’s three kids. Julihomme is one of the pastors at our church and I had told him that I wanted to spend some time with his kids, so he suggested Christmas day, since they kids wouldn’t have school. We took the kids to the beach after we finished up with the distribution at the church. It was a very enjoyable afternoon. Some of the guys from church came too, so we had a good time of fellowship.

After we came home from the beach, everyone at the mission house helped make our Christmas dinner. Things didn’t exactly turn out like they would’ve if we’d been in Canada, but everything was edible, and it was nice to have some Canadian cooking again. We invited some of our Haitian friends to join us in our traditional Christmas dinner, and it turned out to be quite entertaining to watch them try stuffing and pumpkin pie for the first time. We made them try a little of everything, and they ended up liking most things, so we were content with that.

By the end of the day, we were all filled with joy and contentment, and to be honest, I was even a bit surprised, because until Christmas day, I didn’t think celebrating Christmas in Haiti would be that great. I’m really glad that God has given me my Haitian family and friends here. I always find that whenever I make a sacrifice and give something up for God’s glory, He always gives me something good to take it’s place.
Praise the Lord, for He is good!

Haitian Weddings

Weddings are a big deal in Haiti. I’ve been to two weddings since I arrived here last October. The first wedding I went to, I ended up singing during the signing in the ceremony. One thing I’ve been learning about Haitian culture is that nothing is really planned out, and if I want to help out in some way, it’s never a problem. I found out three days before the wedding, that I was going to be singing.
Last Saturday was another wedding, and I helped made some food for the reception. I found it really interesting to watch all the ladies from the church, preparing the food. Everything was cooked over charcoal. It was amazing, really. I’ve included a few pictures from the wedding so you can get an idea of what it was like.

Merry Christmas!

Written Saturday, December23:

I've made it through exam week already. It's was an incredibly crazy week, running around trying to get exams printed off, when no one in the whole town has electricity. Fortunately, I found some missinaries with a generator, who were willing to start it up just so I could print off my exams. There's been a lot of exams to mark, so far, and a lot of math to do, while tallying up the student's final grades for the term.

Needless to say, I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off, but still enjoying all the relationships I've been building, especially with my students. People here are very open to listening to me talk about Jesus, even if they are not Christians themselves. The opportunities to share the Lord are endless here and I praise God for that! My students will often ask me theological questions in the middle of class, making me far more than just an English teacher. I've become a role-model and mentor for many of them.

Christmas isn't a big deal around here... most people don't even have any plans at all. There's going to be a rice distribution down at the church, so I'm looking forward to helping out with it! I told Pastor Julihomme that I wanted to spend some time with his kids and he suggested Christmas day. We’re planning on going to the beach after the rice distribution. I’m looking forward to a nice, hot day at the beach! After we get home from the beach, we’re going to attempt to conjure up some sort of Christmas dinner, which should resemble something of a turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and pumpkin pie. I’m pretty sure this is going to be the biggest feast we’ll have had since we arrived in Haiti, and I have to admit, I’m really looking forward to it!


Merry Christmas from Haiti!!!

Jacmel

We had a team of guys come down from Alberta, for a couple weeks, so we decided to take them to Jacmel last Monday. Jacmel is located on the southern coast of Haiti, and is about a two hour drive from Grand-Goave. It’s an absolutely beautiful drive, all through the mountains! Since Monday is our day off here, we had a very refreshing and relaxing time in Jacmel. There were fourteen of us packed inside the van for the entire two hour trip. It was well worth it though. Jacmel sortof a touristy town, and the beaches there are absolutely beautiful!!! We had a lot of fun swimming in the ocean, taking lots of pictures, playing soccer and just exploring new places. There is a picture here of me with my roomate Rachel, my brother Anel, and our cook Elyse, on top of a rock at the ocean. The view was breathtaking, and we really enjoyed jumping from rock to rock, along the coast, even though us girls were still in our skirts.

Car Wash

It’s always fun when Anel(one of my Haitian brothers) takes us to wash the mission van! As usual, it’s different than washing a car at home. First of all, it’s free. Not only that, but we drive it down to where the river meets the ocean, and we drive the van right into the river. It’s not very deep in that spot, so we just stand in the water and use buckets to get the van wet. After the van is wet, we take wet cloths and scrub all the dirt off. Then we wash off all the dirt with our buckets and scrub the van down once again, this time with soap. After washing all the soap off with our buckets of water, we take a brush and start sweeping out the inside of the van. Since there aren’t any vacuum cleaners around here, this is really the only way to clean the inside of the van. So although it’s entirely different than at home, washing the van in Haiti is loads of fun and it always involves a water fight here and there! Hehe!

A Whole New World!

Teaching in Haiti has taught me so much about the culture here. I love being right in with the Haitian people everyday. It strikes me as surprising, really, that Haiti is so close to America, and yet it often seems as though America hardly even exists, when it comes to the average Haitians’ knowledge of American culture. In teaching the English alphabet, A is not for apple, since an apple is a foreign fruit. In Haiti, M is for Mango. Everything is about mangoes here. They don’t just eat one mango, when it’s offered to them… they could easily eat twenty mangoes in one sitting!

Even my students’ transportation to school is culturally different. I don’t have a single student that drives to school, or even that gets dropped off in a car. They all either ride their bikes, or walk to school… with the exception of the guy who sometimes rides his four-wheeler to school. Double riding on a bike is very common here. It’s no big deal at all for me to see parents, giving their kids rides to school, on their bikes every morning. Everyone in Haiti seems to consider it common knowledge that the bar in front of the bike seat, is meant to be used as a passenger seat. I’ve even seen a man give his wife and small baby a ride to church on the bar seat of his bike! Julihomme, one of the pastors at Haiti ARISE, considered it a privilege to give me a ride on his bar seat last Sunday. I’ll be honest, at first I was pretty scared I was going to fall off, but after awhile, I realized that it’s actually pretty fun. The people here have started to tell me that I’m almost Haitian… whatever that means! Haha!

Elections...

The Sunday before last, was the local elections to find out who would be the new mayor in each city in Haiti. I thought the whole campaigning thing was pretty entertaining, before the actual election took place. Since the people here don’t really rely on TV or newspaper to get the word out, each candidate for the election is responsible for finding his own way of making his views known to the people. What better way to do that than to strap giant speakers to the back of a pick-up truck, load the truck up with a bunch of people and parade the streets playing really loud music, and yelling all your promises into the microphone? With this process, no one can honestly say they didn’t hear what the candidate had to say! With no exaggeration at all, we’d be sitting in our house, the week before the election, and suddenly we’d no longer be able to hear ourselves talk while the campaigners drove by our house. Sometimes we’d sit outside our gate and just watch people parade down the street….I’ve been getting the impression that the Haitians just look for any excuse to party in the streets. They seem to really love it!

My Teachers

Living in Haiti brings a lot of opportunities to learn both Creole and French. Since I’m already learning Creole and I can actually speak it fairly well, I decided to ask a couple of my English students, who are well educated and actually even teach English in the private schools in Grand-Goave, if they would be willing to teach me French. Fortunately for me, they were more than thrilled with the idea of being my teachers. Last Saturday night, was my first official lesson. I thought I did fairly well, considering that I haven’t spoken French in five years. I understood almost everything they said, but I definitely need practice in the oral department! I’m glad they’re such patient teachers!!!

In the picture here, you can see my teachers, Colbert on the left and Jordan on the right. These are two of the most amazing guys I’ve ever met. They are incredibly strong Christians, with a contagiously strong commitment to the cause of Christ. After our lesson last Saturday, they stayed and talked with me about their dreams and goals in life. I was deeply touched and inspired, as I listened to them tell me of dreams of being a pastor and a world Evangelist. Colbert has learned to speak four languages simply so that when he speaks to people in English, French, Spanish or Creole, he will be able to tell them about Jesus. Jordan and Colbert are cousins, and two of the most renowned English teachers in Grand-Goave. They are also two of my best students, in my advanced class.

It seriously amazes me how much I learn every day, from the Haitian people, especially the Christians. They have so many struggles and heartaches, and so many obstacles standing in their way, and yet there are so many of them who just work and work, to try to make something of their lives. Several of my students have actually made themselves seriously ill from studying too much. Jordan actually spent a month and a half on bed-rest, because he overexerted himself in his studies. I’ve really learned to appreciate the education that God has allowed me to have!

Just life

This is a picture of me with Luka, one of our pastor's daughters at Haiti ARISE. She is one of the many kids at church that latch onto me every time they see me. I guess you could say that I'm never really lonely! lol





I decided to post a picture of our church, here at Haiti ARISE. It’s really not much of a building, just a tin roof on sticks with some wooden benches inside, but there’s a real heart of worship in their services! It always brings me such joy when I worship with the believers there. I love seeing people so desperately crying out to God, with such a deep understanding that He’s all they have. I have to admit, a huge part of me longs for the churches in North America to learn to worship the Lord the ay the Haitians do here!

It’s been a crazy and busy couple of weeks since the last time I made a blog entry. There was a work-team down from Washington state last week, so it was nice to see some more white people, and to spend time getting to know them while they were here. I’ve posted a picture here of us at the beach, with the team. It’s pretty amazing that people at home will pay big money to exfoliate their skin, and we just do it for free with the wet, salty sand at the beach!


This past week was mid-terms at school, so I was incredibly busy writing the tests, as well as marking them all and still preparing lessons and teaching classes at the same time. I’ll be honest, I’m pretty tired. I’m finding that juggling five classes, with approximately seventy students in total, is very exhausting! Please continue to pray that God will give me His strength to teach and prepare my lessons well, so that He will be glorified in it!