Happy New Year!

Even though we didn’t do much as a church for Christmas, New Years is a really big deal in Haiti, and we had a big celebration last night! Just this last week, I saw people putting up Christmas lights on trees near their doorways, and everyone was cleaning like crazy and hanging decorations to welcome in the new year.

Our church organized a service last night that lasted for about four hours and ended just after midnight. It was awesome! We turned the generator on and had some really incredible and powerful worship, with a time of intense prayer in the middle. I find church here really encouraging because so many of the people in our church really and truly worship God, and they mean what they pray, from the bottom of their hearts. Last night, the worship was intense. We had banners that people were waving and everyone was singing and dancing for the Lord. It was much more energetic than the average worship service in North America!
Partway through the service, we had a break time where people handed out bread and traditional Haitian ginger tea. The tea was good, but really strong. I couldn’t drink it very fast, cuz it kindof burns down your throat. After the service was finished, everyone visited for awhile and then we all had a big meal of rice and beans, chicken, and different kinds of Haitian salads. Here's a picture of me eating with my two roommates, Rachel and Rebecca, both from Alberta.






We ended up serving dinner to almost 700 people! The food was all pretty good, and I couldn’t help but think of all the weight I’m not gaining here that I would be gaining if I was in Canada for the New Year’s celebration. There’s just not much variety in food down here... no snacking on chips and cookies. It’s rice and beans every day, but at least the rice and beans are really good!





It was a really good night, filled with great worship and lots of fun with friends. Events like these are great opportunities to build relationships with the people! We all hung out and visited each other until early in the morning and by the time we got home it was already 4:00am!