Haiti was first visited by Christopher Columbus in 1492. It later became a French colony from 1677 and ultimately gained independence in 1804 following the rebellion led by a former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture. Following a period of political violence, the U.S. occupied the country from 1915-1934.

Most of what we know today of this Caribbean nation is still that of upheaval and turmoil. Some 35,000 Haitian refugees were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard as they tried to enter the U.S. in 1991-1992. Most were returned to Haiti. There was a new upsurge of refugees in late 1993.

The United Nations imposed a worldwide oil, arms, and financial embargo on Haiti, June 23 1993. The embargo was later suspended when the military agreed to return power to the duly elected president on October 30^th, but the military again blocked the president’s return. On July 31, 1994, the United Nations authorized an invasion of Haiti by a multinational force. With U.S. invasion forces already en route, an invasion was averted on September 18 by a new agreement with the military leaders. Aristide, the duly elected president returned to Haiti and was restored to office on October 15^th. As of March 31, 1995, UN peacekeeping troops took over responsibility for Haiti, and continue to supervise and train Haiti’s own police force and military.

It was a scene of barbed wire and anti-aircraft guns that first caught my eye as I stepped off the plane in the capital, Port-Au-Prince. A US Marine base of approximately 500 soldiers is visible off to the right as you enter into the main hangar. A band of Haitian musicians plays their guitars, trumpets, and percussion instruments as you stand in line going through immigration formalities.

There is a big sign apologizing for the poor conditions at the airport, and begging patience while reconstruction work is going on. As you look around, there is nothing there even to indicate any reconstruction going on, and the sign looks like it has been hanging there a good while, yellow stained and dirty.

As I approach the terminal, I see a smartly dressed Haitian in suit and tie, holding my name up on a sign. As I identify myself, he beckons me to follow him and escorts me through police, baggage claim, and customs formalities, out to the other side, where Moram Labonte and a delegation of several other men awaits me.

These are some of the preachers who are part of the study program I helped write in French in cooperation with Bill Clark, when I was still in Africa. Moram was holding the French edition of the Bible Class commentary on Romans, by Henry Mahan, which they use in the first course of the study program. He gave me a big hug, as if we had known each other all our lives.

The trip from Miami to Port-Au-Prince is only one hour and 40 minutes, but the change in culture is a lifetime. I had sat next to a Haitian man on the American Airline flight down to Haiti, and used every second to pump him with questions about his country. In all my years of travel in Africa and other countries, I have found that the best way to prepare is not just by reading books, but, contact with the local people.

It was a beautiful view from the airplane as we passed over the Florida keys, around the eastern end of Cuba and on into Haiti, a country that shares the island with the Dominican Republic to the east. I had not realized that Haiti was so mountainous, but later learned that the original meaning of "Haiti" means "high ground."

It was a pleasant 89 degrees as the delegation of six Haitian preachers took me to a delivery van where a chauffer was waiting to take me to my hotel. I had made reservations with one of three hotels that I found on the internet. It turned out to be high up in the mountain overlooking Port-Au-Prince, and much more luxurious than what I would normally order, but I was thankful for a place to stay in security on the first night, until I could get my bearings.

The ride to the hotel convinced me that I needed to hire the driver for the rest of the week. I had come equipped with my International Driver’s license, but you need more than a day to train for driving in Port-au-Prince. The one rule of the road is "priority to the quickest and most courageous."

When I finally got into my room at the hotel at around 4:00 pm, the men who had accompanied me, gathered in a circle around me and held a small Thanksgiving service. One of them led us in singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" in French. They all quoted Psalm 121 in unison, another prayed to thank God for my safe arrival, and another closed with a benediction.

Afterward, we all sat down to plan the rest of my stay there. After a vivid discussion it was decided that we would leave the next morning early for Jean Rabel, Moram’s home town, which is located 200 miles north of Port-au-Prince along the coast. I would spend Thursday-Sunday there (January 8-11) and then return to Port-au-Prince for one meeting there on January 12, before returning to the states on January 13^th.

Moram asked me if I would be all right staying in the hotel room by myself. He offered to have a couple of men stay with me, but I reassured him that I was safe, and looked forward to joining them in the morning. After they left, I took a long nap, and began putting my thoughts together on messages in the days ahead.

It was a quiet, pleasant evening, eating out on a terrace, surrounded by tropical plants, under a beautiful moonlit, starry night, overlooking the lights of the city far below. I ordered a Creole dish of rice, spinach and fish with a spicy tomato and onion sauce.

I was up early sitting on the balcony overlooking the mountains to the east. It was a beautiful sunrise, with thousands of chickens crowing down below. Smoke and haze rose from the early morning fires, as women prepared the first meal of the day. Because electricity is so expensive for many, they continue to cook with charcoal in their backyards.

I went down for a continental breakfast around 6:30 am. As I sat and ate my toast and coffee, overlooking the city below, I couldn’t help think of the contrast between the picture of the struggling boat people refugees, and the relative peace I was enjoying sitting there overlooking the city now. I never want to take for granted the material comforts and blessings the Lord has blessed me with. It truly is only by His mercies.

The hotel was a nice place to gather my thoughts, rest, and prepare spiritually and mentally for the next four days. Like a soldier on a mission, you enjoy a bit of R and R, only to refresh you enough to go to the front and fight in the fox hole.

At 8:00 am Moram and the driver, Mishgar, showed up to take me to Hertz, where I rented a Suzuki 4X4 for the trip inland. I stopped at the airline office to reconfirm my return flight, bought some postcards to mail and then headed out of town on the only road heading north. There was a traffic jam which we spent 11/2 hours getting around, but finally were on our way by 11:00 am. The road, although paved, was full of pot holes and the driver had to skillfully work his way through towns and villages dodging animals and people. In the first two hours of driving he had run over one dog, clipped a number of others, and nipped a lady with the side view mirror. Thankfully, she was not hurt.

Around noon, we stopped for lunch in an indigenous restaurant. I went the safe route and ordered a cheese sandwich until my stomach got used to the change of diet. I ordered only bottled mineral water as well. The other men ate a plate of rice and red beans with a boiled plantain banana on the side. Unbeknown to me, that was to be my main dish for the next four days. It is a customary dish there in Haiti.

After three hours of driving from Port-au-Prince, we turned off the main highway on to a secondary road which was nothing but dirt track and rocks that would shake the daylights out of me for the next three hours. They reassured me that this was one of the country’s national highways and that there were other roads which were even worse.

As we rode along, I endeavored to focus on the beautiful mountains, but found myself tightening up on every bend of the road that brought us close to a precipice with nothing but thousands of feet between us and the bottom of the valley below.

We finally arrived at Jean Rabel at dusk after a 7 hour trip to travel the 200 miles. We immediately went to the police station to report in, since I was the only white man for miles around, and my hosts wanted to assure my protection, and let them know who I was. They used the opportunity to invite the policemen to our meetings. We continued from there to visit with the town magistrates, and then on to the house of Mr. and Mrs. Plancher, who had prepared a room for me to stay while there.

There was no electricity. Although all the houses are wired, the government has not furnished fuel for the generators, so one must use either their own little generator, or kerosene lamps. My hosts had one small 12 volt lamp hooked to a car battery as their living room light.

Mrs. Plancher had prepared a lovely meal of spaghetti, fresh salad, and vegetables. To my surprise and theirs, they had a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce sitting on the table. A little piece of home, away from home.

At 7:00 pm, not even had a shower, they ushered me to the church building where a packed church was already singing and waiting for my arrival. I preached from Romans 1:16,17 on ‘The Necessity of Preaching the Gospel.’ I was encouraged by their attentiveness and seeming joy at hearing the Gospel message.

After the meeting, as I walked back to my room, they informed me that two of the other men would sleep with me in the room so as not to leave me by myself. I reassured them that I would be all right, and fell asleep immediately after a cold shower, which consisted of water pouring out of a pipe over head, from a gravity fed water tower.

Getting to bed early, I was wide awake by 5:00 am. I got up and began preparing for two sessions with the preachers and church leaders from the various churches in town. I talked with them on three main subjects:

1. Who is a faithful minister?
2. How is one to know whether he should preach or not?
3. What is the Gospel message which God’s faithful servants proclaim?

Before the morning sessions which lasted from 9 until noon each day, Moram would take me around to visit various pastors and church people. There are three ‘Baptist’ churches in Jean Rabel that were involved in the meetings that Moram Labonte organized during my stay there. One was the Mount Olive Baptist Church, the other was the Mount Bethel Baptist Church, and the third was the Evangelical Conservative Baptist Church.

I was happy to see that the pastors of each of these churches were encouraging their leaders and people to attend all of the meetings, and even came themselves with their wives and families. There was no outward, visible animosity or jealousy on their part, and were very interested in the messages.

One of them, after hearing several messages, closed the meeting in prayer, asking God’s forgiveness for having preached a false gospel for so many years. He asked for God’s grace to know the true Gospel and preach it faithfully to his people. I thought of Nehemiah’s prayer confessing his own sin and that of the people. They have preached and taught a man-centered message over the years, practicing what they have learned from others, without ever seeing the truth as it is in Christ. I felt much like the apostle Paul who went into the synagogues, and took the Scriptures which they were used to reading, and showing how it all has to do with Christ and Him crucified- Acts 17:3.

During the sessions with the preachers, there were approximately 20 in attendance each day. In the evenings, I preached to several hundred, with close to 500 present on the final evening there. After the first evening, Moram said that everyone asked him to tell me not to finish preaching so soon. A 45 minute message was not enough for them. When I insisted that it was long enough for me, they began to add meetings during the day to where I preached 13 times in 5 days.

They all had so many questions, that I asked them to write them down, and give them to me in advance. I then looked them over and set up a time between 9:30 and Noon to deal with these. It was a good opportunity to answer their questions in an orderly manner, and point them to the Scripture. Here is a sampling of some of the questions.

1. How can one know if they are called of God to preach?

2. How can a preacher with a limited knowledge of the Gospel, make sure that he is preaching the truth without mixture of works or man’s words?

3. What should be a preacher’s attitude when those to whom he is preaching contest the truth? Should he leave and go somewhere else?

4. Are miracles and the gift of healing still possible today?

5. We would like you to come preach for us in some future crusades. Would you accept an invitation to come preach the Gospel for the glory of God?

6. Although Romans 9 speaks of predestination, there are others such as John 3:16 seem to go another direction. How do you explain this difference?

7. One verse of Scripture speaks of "taking heed to the flock over which God has made you overseers. In light of this, are we not to pursue those who have left the flock, and try to get them to come back? How does this fit with what you said about "letting them go," when they refuse to hear?

8. We have heard you say that we are not to tell just anyone, "God loves you" or "God wants to save you." Yet, Christ says, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel." How then are we to preach the truth?

9. How do you explain John 3:15,16 in light of the fact that Christ did not die for everyone in the world?

10. Please forgive me for asking such a stupid question, but I need to learn more about you and your background. How is it that you came to the Lord?

11. When someone senses the call of God and the desire to turn to Him in conversion, is it necessary for someone to lead them in the "sinner’s prayer?"

I am thankful for their honesty in asking these questions, with seemingly a desire to learn. It enabled me to clarify the Truth again with them and show how it affects not only what we believe, but, the very methods we use in communicating it. The man made methods of "sinners prayers" and "altar calls" are the fruit of a man-centered message and not the Gospel.

It became evident that some were struggling with the Truth of God’s sovereign grace in Christ. Yet, I don’t know any who truly believe the Gospel today, who were not offended at first by it.

One of the problems in the churches there is the overemphasis on singing. They usually sing for over an hour, with full bands of guitars, drums, etc., before the preaching. I was able to talk with them about the need to bring everything in line with the Gospel message, and make it the central aspect of worship. I look for changes to come in this matter, as the Gospel finds entrance into their hearts.

During the evening service, I preached from Matthew 15:9 on ‘What is Great Faith?’ Once again the house was packed and everyone was very attentive. They are very open and expressive people. I found it interesting that as I quoted Scripture verses throughout the meeting, they would join in quoting the ones they knew with me.

I took a tour of the town of Jean Rabel since it was market day. There are horses, donkeys and mules all over. The streets are very narrow and resembles scenes from Western movies which I have seen in the past.

There was one telephone in the town which I used to call Mary and let her know that everything was all right. It was good to know that all was well on the home front as well.

I preached from John 4:23,24 on ‘True Worship’ during the morning service. I felt led to use that time to teach them on the importance of hearing the Gospel and how it affects our worship.

In the afternoon, I went over to speak to a group of church leaders and young people at the Evangelical Conservative Baptist church and then moved from there back to Bethel Baptist Church where close to 500 people were gathered. After the services, the people did not want to leave. The message seemed to them as rain on a dry and thirsty land.

Our plan was to leave for Port-au-Prince at around 5:00 am. However, after the service on Sunday night, the police came by the house and informed us that some bandits had set up a road block and stopped some vehicles along the main highway between Jean Rabel and Port-au-Prince. A security officer riding with the vehicle was able to apprehend three of them, but two others escaped and were still on the loose. They advised us to wait until daylight to travel, so we left around 5:30 am.

The stretch from Jean Rabel back to the pavement took three hours to go the eighty miles. Once to the pavement, it took only two hours to get the rest of the way to Port-au-Prince. We passed one wreck where 7 people were killed the night before. The road was littered with abandoned vehicles that had crashed and burned over the years.

Just as we got to the edge of Port-au-Prince, there was a police stop checking for guns and stolen cars. Then it was back into the bumper to bumper traffic, with all the dust, exhaust fumes, honking horns, and drivers yelling at each other.

This time I took a room at the Holiday Inn which was cheaper and more accessible. I relaxed for two hours while the driver and Moram went on to work out arrangements for the meeting in the evening. I enjoyed a nice hot shower, air conditioning, comfortable bed, good food, and a toilet!

Around 3:00 pm we took the vehicle back to Hertz on one end of the city, then had to go clear across to the other end. All told it took 4 hours of travel to traverse the city, because of traffic jams and narrow streets.

We finally arrived at the meeting place in a former voodoo temple. This was now a charismatic church and the preacher had everyone whooped up into a frenzy with loud music, swaying and dancing in the aisles.

When I finally had an opportunity to preach to them, they were quiet and listened carefully. However, as soon as I finished, the preacher got up and got them going again. I thought of the parable of the sower and the seed, how the birds came and snatched away the seed as soon as it hit the ground. I pray that some there may have heard the truth, and that the Lord will draw them to Himself in saving mercy and grace.

Afterward, the preacher did ask me my opinion of the service. I had the opportunity to speak to him briefly of the need to first of know the Gospel according to the Scripture, then, to lead the people accordingly.

I got up early and began packing for the trip home to the States. I enjoyed a breakfast buffet of papaya, bananas, mangoes, and a bowl of Corn Flakes, with powdered milk, with a glass of pineapple juice and a cup of coffee on the side.

At 9:00 am Moram and the driver came by and took me on a quick tour of some of the historic sights of the city. I had to be at the airport three hours before flight time to make sure I guaranteed my place on board. Flights are often oversold and latecomers are found without a spot, even though they have a reservation.

As I sat at the airport, I had opportunity to reflect on the trip and the objectives accomplished by the grace of God.

1. I am thankful that there are a few preachers there who seem to have understood the Gospel of God’s sovereign grace in Christ. They want further teaching!

2. The Lord willing, we will organize a special conference in a center where we can get all the preachers in the study program together for three days and teach them further. We are considering a weekend toward the middle of May for this conference.

3. I pray that the Lord will continue to bless the furtherance of the Gospel in Haiti. Our objective is not to do the work there ourselves, but as God raises up faithful men, to encourage them to faithfully preach the Gospel to their own.