Category Archives: Haiti

7 Tips and Tricks for Enjoying a Haitian Church Service.

I wanted share my experience in Haiti by offering some quick tips and tricks for enjoying a Haitian church service.

1. Arrive Early.

For a service that is scheduled to start at 8:30, you want to make sure that you arrive no later than 8:35.  This helps insure that you get a good seat, and lets you do a little socializing before the service starts.  In the United States, we honor people by honoring their time, in Haiti, you honor people by acknowledging the struggle it takes to even make it to church.  This means that the service starts when most people have arrived, instead of when the clock says it is time to start.  When you don’t have a car and are depending on tap-tap, moto, or walking…it is a little bit hard to be precise.

2. Pick the right seat.

There are a few considerations to keep in mind when choosing your seat.   First, never sit directly in front of the speakers, arriving early will help guarantee you get to make this choice.  Your North American ears are far too delicate to enjoy the unbridled passion that will come bursting out the tattered cones of the church speakers.   Second, ALWAYS choose your seat based on the time of day, and the expected length of the service.  You want to choose a seat that is in the shade, and will remain in the shade for the duration of the service.  Seats in proximity to windows, or locations that have a strong and persistent breeze are great choices as well.   It is good to follow the locals on this, as they often know exactly where the best seats are.  It may be a bit crowded in the good seats, but if they weren’t good, they wouldn’t be crowded.

You can choose a seat in the sun if you want to sit by yourself.   Seriously…no one else is going to sit by you.  Do not ask me how I know this.  Bring sunscreen.  Seriously.

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Don’t sit here…you will regret it.

3. Singing.

If you are in a Haitian church, there is a good chance that you will not understand all of the words to the songs.  There is also a really good chance that there will not be any sort of lyric projection, or hymnals to follow along in.  This is fine.  If you feel moved by the music…you can attempt to learn the songs by listening and doing your best to repeat what you hear.

If you happen to be at a Haitian church that sings some songs in English, there are two important things to keep in mind.  The most important to remember is that they have almost certainly picked the English song because you are in their service.  Haitians do not enjoy singing in English so much that they just do it for fun when no white people are around.  They are honoring you with their song selection.  This brings me to my next point…

If they are singing in English, SING WITH THEM!  I don’t care if you know or like the song or not, they have made an effort to learn enough of your language to at least get the song close, please don’t dishonor their efforts by choosing to remain silent.

4. Offering.

They are going to take up an offering.  You may participate if you would like.  They may count the money at the end of the service, and this may be offensive to you.  If you find yourself feeling offended please consider the following advice.  I recommend you be very careful and think long and hard before you say anything.  This is not your church, this is not your culture, and you likely have more money wrapped up in your home and possessions than most Haitians will ever see in their lives.   If they want to joyfully give to the church in a guys versus girls competition to see who raises more money, I suggest you try to remember the last time your church gave money with so much generosity that the whole church was laughing with joy.  Yes it is different, but if you wanted to see things happen the same way every time, you might as well have stayed at home.

5. The Sermon.

You probably won’t understand what the pastor is saying.  If the pastor or someone else is translating Creole into English, keep in mind that this is a great honor.  The pastor is interrupting the flow of his speech to serve you.  Even if the pastor is not being translated, just sit and listen.  God will speak to an open heart.  I promise.

6. Standing and sitting.

You can pretty much do whatever you want on this one.  If everyone is standing, you should probably follow the crowd, the same goes for if everyone is sitting.  If there are people standing or sitting, you get to pick.  The only people worried about whether you are standing or sitting are the people who came with you.  The service really isn’t about you anyways.

7. Communion.

If you happen to be at a Haitian church when they offer communion, please take a moment to reflect on how special this is.  Churches all over the earth have celebrated communion in honor of Christ.  When you take communion anywhere you are joining with a global body of people who believe in Jesus, God’s son, in remembering his death on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins.  This is a sacred moment, cherish it.

 

Disclaimer: I suspect that Haitian churches can be a lot like North American churches in that they are all at least a little bit different than each other.  These tips are based on my personal experience of  attendance at two different Haitian churches, but by no means represent the whole country, or every church.  Use these tips at your own risk.   Please ask your doctor or your favorite Nurse Practitioner if you are healthy enough to stand during church, and before starting any vigorous dance moves during worship.  Blah blah blah….don’t sue me….etc. etc.  

Each Day Better…Haiti 2014

Gateway Chapel has been sending teams to Haiti since 2011. Each year, the team has stayed at and worked with Mission of Hope Haiti in Titanyen. This year, the team wanted to focus on medical clinics, and chose to partner with Tytoo Gardens in Simonette. We expected something new, but what we got was a glorious mixture of familiar faces and friends, along with new freedoms and ministries. The team began claiming each day as better than the last, and by the end of the trip, it became very difficult to leave. This film is a short glimpse into the 7 days we spent in our new home away from home, Tytoo Gardens.

You can check out photos from the trip here on Facebook.

You can find Tytoo Gardens website here.

I will be traveling to Nicaragua again this summer in a similar media production role…so if you are interested in supporting that trip, feel free to do so using the tip jar feature here on vimeo. Thanks!

This link is my “one take” commentary on the film. If you can only watch one of these films however, make sure you watch the actual film…the commentary is kinda like a bonus feature. I’m hoping to have some more bonus content out in the next day or so…

Grangou

Grangou-Etymology-Possibly from French grand goût (“big taste”)
1. Adjective-hungry
2. Noun-hunger

When is the last time that you were hungry? I don’t mean a little peckish, I mean truly hungry. The “I haven’t eaten in 3 days” kind of hungry. The “Was that my stomach rumbling or did a 747 just fly overhead?” kind of hungry. If you are like me, you may have never gone more than a couple of days without food. On those rare occasions where I don’t eat regularly, I am completely and utterly miserable. I can barely concentrate on the task at hand because I am distracted by my stomach’s constant cries for sustenance. It is amazing how quickly I can convince myself that I “must be dying” because I’m a little dizzy or lightheaded. I’m basically a wimp.

In a few weeks I will be going to Haiti for the 4th time. If I asked the people I will be meeting when the last time they were hungry was, many of them would be able to honestly say “right now” or “always”. I understand that there are hungry people in the United States as well, but the percentages are vastly different. Every time I have been in Haiti, someone asks us to help them because they are grangou. They are hungry.

Here’s the problem though. Our little team of 5 people can’t feed everyone we meet who is hungry. We will gladly help those that we can help, but sooner or later we will run out of resources to do so. Even if we had spent the last year fundraising and somehow saved up enough money to buy everyone in Haiti dinner, the next day, people would be hungry again. That’s the thing about hunger, you can’t cure it, you can only treat it. We can’t feed everyone. There will never be enough.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us that we are blessed if we hunger and thirst for righteousness.

I’ll ask again…when is the last time you were hungry?

When is the last time your heart was hungry?

In the United States, we can find food if we are hungry. It may not be what we would choose to eat, it may not be in the quantities we want, but we can find it. We may have to humble ourselves or steal, but we can eat enough to stay alive. Most of us don’t have this problem and can choose what we want to eat, where we want to eat, and probably even how often we want to eat. We do the same with our hearts. It may not be healthy for us, it might not be what we really want, we may have to do something we didn’t want to do, but we find ways to make sure our heart isn’t hungry. Maybe we choose an abusive relationship, because we need the small taste of love that we get from it. Perhaps we choose to become workaholics because we find fulfillment in being needed. Some of us begin a rabid search for satisfaction, chasing anything and everything to fill the rumbling void inside. The next day we set out again to fill our hearts again, because they growl and rumble and tear us apart from the inside until we put something in them. It doesn’t matter how often we fill our hearts up, because we will always want more.

There will never be enough.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us that we are blessed if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, BECAUSE we will be filled.

We aren’t just heart hungry here in the United States, it is a global need. We all find ways to fill our hearts up just enough to “take the edge off”, but what we really need is a hunger and thirst for righteousness, because only then will we be filled. God doesn’t make promises he doesn’t intend to keep. We can go to Haiti and know that even though we can only do so much for the physical hunger of the Haitians, we have an inexhaustible store of heart food we can share with them. If we go with our own hearts filled by God, we can share freely without fear of being left wanting. The cup will never run dry.

If we continually chase righteousness to fill our hearts, we will be filled.

There will ALWAYS be enough.