The Little Stick Church

After a month of inadequate phone service at home at the mission,I'm using the opportunity to finally update the blog while we sit in traffic in Port-au-Prince. It's another scorching hot, sunny day, and it seems as though everyone in Haiti is out in the streets with important business to take care of. Pedestrians carry rags, both to wipe the sweat and for a mask to filter out all the dust and exhaust. The fuel tank is running low, and every lane of traffic backed up.The smog from old, poorly maintained vehicles fills the air. Too much time sitting in this position often leads to dehydration and headaches. Nevertheless, we're doing our best to keep ourselves and the children joyful, singing songs to remind us of God's goodness. 🙂

The little church building is holding regular meetings twice a week. We've been blessed to see a group of regular attendees continue to return each time. Sunday mornings, we leave the house at 8:30 or so to make the walk at a pace the children can keep. The service starts at 9:00 with an opening song and a prayer. There is more time of singing,  which doesn't always have a lot of volume, but with the recent purchase of additional songbooks, we're hearing some improvement. Some of those who have been attending have not been in church much, if at all, before coming here. It's understandable that they don't know (m)any songs, and they appreciate having the words in front of them. After the singing and a brief opening from Pastor Bazalet, Barry has the message.  This past Sunday, however, Benji was here to preach. 

Wednesday  evening is a time of Bible study, currently examining the Sermon on the Mount. This can be a challenge, since this passage contains a lot of meat. In reality, the level of understanding for those present isn't really on milk yet. They had never heard the  difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Most of them had  never heard of the Ten Commandments.  How can someone understand that Jesus came to fulfill the law if he doesn't even know there IS a law? We  pray that this study is helpful in revealing and diagnosing sin for what it is.  Most of them also did not have a Bible to follow along with during the Bible studies, so we were gladly able to purchase some New Testaments that were just recently published. This new edition seems to be a drastic improvement over the older Creole Bible that left out some important details. 

Please join us in prayer for this little church. We have testimonies of people who are seeking the truth and say they want to leave their old lives behind, but soon, perhaps we will have real testimonies of conversion to share!

David catching a ride home from church