StoriesAboutGod.org

Your Email:

Your Name:

To:

Subject:

Message:
by: amilam I could hear the evil. --------------------------------- When I was a child, I believed that good and evil were the fanciful extremes of fairy tales and myth.  I was wrong. Haiti is currently the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. At the age of 18, I traveled there hoping to make a difference.  Young, sheltered, and clueless, I only knew that I felt called by God to take this short term medical trip.  I’d even spent three years of high school learning to speak French.  I felt that if could make a decent attempt at the language, I could make a better connection with those I spoke to.  Instead, what I witnessed only made me want to shrink back and disappear.  Because maybe if I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn’t there, then I wouldn’t have to deal with the reality that such a level of suffering and abject poverty existed. We rose early in the morning to pack the truck, a large rusting beast.  When started, the engine would snarl, gears grinding in protest, and I wondered if the machine could get us from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ without breaking down in the middle of nowhere.  Sometimes there were roads, and sometimes there were paths of dust and rock cut to resemble roads.  Fourteen hours later, we reached our destination; a village nestled high up in the mountains.  I was so overwhelmed and exhausted by the end of that day, I graciously accepted a thin wiry mattress as a place to rest my head and pass out.  News of our arrival spread quickly and we had angry visitors that night.  Voodoo worshipers danced and cavorted wickedly around the four concrete walls that kept us safe.  Or maybe the walls had little to do with our safety.  I dreamed of being surrounded by angels, and woke hearing the sounds of Voodoo drums and chanting ‘worshipers’ that sounded like roosters screaming in the night.  I could hear the evil.  I could feel the heaviness of it as it clung to the air like a rotting stench. Their screams and cackles seemed so close; suffocating and relentless.  Pray.  You are safe, April.  Pray.  Don’t be afraid.  Pray.  I thought of the verse I’d learned as a child to cast away the bad dreams. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 Finally dawn broke, and a newer sweeter sound pierced the air.  The village Christians had gathered in the church to sing hymns of praise.  Calm gathered around us and quickly smothered the noise of the Voodoo worshipers.  Soon, all that could be heard was the sound of God’s children raising their voices to Him; beautiful, powerful. That morning my devotional scripture was 1 John 4:4:“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” From that point on, I decided that shrinking back into a corner of avoidance would serve no one but me.  Good and evil are real, and someone’s got to stand and fight.  I’m willing, Lord.  Send me. The morning after that first crazy night, I wouldn’t say I was so alert.  Every detail was sharper.  Every experience had a heightened emotion attached to it. On this short term medical trip, we had within our group an eye doctor and a dentist.  Two separate clinics were set up to take patients that either needed their teeth or their eyes examined and treated.  Aside from the clinics, we also ran a VBS (vacation bible school) for the village children.  The first day I assisted with the VBS, our group leader conducted the class in English while the interpreter repeated everything in Creole.  This was slow process and children are not always patient.  The lot of them quickly turned into a chaotic bunch of youngsters. I’m not good in crowds.  I used to suffer from minor anxiety attacks that would frequently have me backing into a corner to escape and calm down.  And surrounded by this very large and boisterous bunch of children I found myself moving away and seeking refuge on a simple wooden bench along the far back wall occupied by a small group of girls who seemed to act as shy of the crowd as me. One of the girls that had clustered around me looked to be about five years old and so small.  Her right eye was glazed over, and it seemed to produce a lot of tears.  She carried a handkerchief with her to dab at it every few minutes.  She had such a beautiful face, I couldn’t help but to keep looking at her.  And every time I looked, she would return my gaze, until finally she got up from her seat and crawled into my lap.  With that simple move, she nearly broke my heart. I put my arms around her and prayed for what her life would be after we left.  In a day or two we would leave the village and travel down the mountain, and I would never see her again.  I knew that.  But in that moment, I wished that things were different.  I wished that I were older and married to someone who wouldn’t mind adopting a little girl like her.  I knew it wasn’t completely impossible.  Two different families from our church had adopted Haitian children.  I knew that the process took a long time and involved a lot of red tape.  But if only I was older, if only I had a stable job, if only I had a husband, all those things would show the authorities that I would be a good candidate for adoption.  If, if, if.  But “if” doesn’t get you anything more than a hand full of broken dreams. I couldn’t heal her maladies, and I couldn’t keep her.  So I did the only thing I could do.  I prayed for her, thinking of 2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” When I’d finished my prayer, I asked her, “Aimez-vous Jésus ?” (Do you love Jesus?) “Oui, Avril.” (Yes) “Vivrez-vous pour Jésus ?” (Will you live for Jesus?) “Oui, il vit à mon coeur.” (Yes, he lives in my heart.) That was good enough for me.  It had to be. Later that night, we went to sit on the roof top of the compound and gaze at the heavens.  Rumor had it there was supposed to be a meteor shower that night.  Maybe it was because we we’re closer to the equator, but, the stars looked so much bigger and the way they shimmered in the night sky, well, it was like singing.  The magnitude of God’s creation came crashing down on me, and in that moment I felt consumed by His awesome love. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4 A week later we started the long journey home.  We’d been on the road for a few hours, heading towards Port-au-Prince and the airport.  And then it happened. Our truck broke down in the middle of the dessert.  The driver and the interpreters pondered our situation and time passed slowly as we baked under a tropical sun.  All we could do was sit tight and pray.  And I wasn’t afraid.  I can’t explain it, but I wasn’t afraid.  I even took a few pictures while we were waiting. Maybe an hour had passed when a Voodoo Priestess appeared, all skirts and red sashes.  She began dancing and chanting all around the vehicle.  When we asked the interpreters what she was saying, they told us that she was putting a curse on the truck.  “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” They also said she was placing a protective spell on herself and her village, that our Christianity would not infect her or her people.  And still, I was not afraid.  It was almost surreal how calm I was.  For that moment in my life, I totally trusted in God 100%.  And I knew that he would take care of us. Two hours passed and then a miracle happened.  An empty truck drove past us, stopped and came back to see what was wrong.  Understand that trucks are never empty in Haiti.  They are always packed to the bursting point with people traveling from here to there.  Secondly, the driver was a Christian.  Over 80 % of the population practices Voodoo, but here in the middle of the dessert was a Christian with an empty truck who was willing to give us a ride into the nearest town about two hours away. So many dangerous things could have happened to us in that circumstance.  And yet, nothing bad happened.  God provided for us in a very miraculous way. By nightfall we had reached Port-au-Prince.  The team camped out that evening on a concrete porch.  I don’t remember why or how we came about those sleeping arrangements, but I do remember the spider.  I used to be afraid of arachnids.  Those eight-legged beasts gave me the heebie-jeebies.  Then an encounter with a peaceable spider changed all of that.  I woke at dawn to discover a tarantula waking very close to my head, and I wasn’t afraid.  As I sat up slowly, I watched her meander away from me and around my other still-sleeping team members.  Then she leaped off the porch and sauntered off into the thick grass.  I can’t explain it, really.  I can only tell you what happened.  I can only tell you that I was there, that a spider was there, and that God was there.  He was there, He is here, and He will be with us always and forever. View the story online at: http://www.storiesaboutgod.org/index.php/stories/story_page/the-desert-the-priestess-the-spider/

Please enter the word you see in the image below: