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!