Revival and Refugees

In late August, RoRo took a group of Bible students and others to Belle Anse, the community of our next church plant. Belle Anse is located east of Peredo, a few hours by truck and about 45 minutes by boat. The purpose of this trip was to make final plans for the revival that will launch the church! Much work needs to be done to get ready for the week-long start of this new congregation.

The revival is set for October 19-22, but the entire week will be full of door-to-door evangelism, advertisements, and megaphone announcements. RoRo and 15-20 Bible students will work in Belle Anse that week, bringing all of the supplies and food needed. Also helping with the revival is Wilner, the captain of the boat they will take, and Destin (pictured below), an energetic believer who has been living and evangelizing in Belle Anse since the summer of 2015. Between now and the third week of October, RoRo will be working on the necessary permits and writing letters to the mayor and police in Belle Anse to let them know about the revival.

RoRo was also able to visit the head of a local Belle Anse women’s group. She had come as a patient to Peredo Community Hospital, and RoRo shared some food with her – both physical and spiritual – as he invited her to the revival.

While RoRo was in Belle Anse, a friend implored him to visit two other areas that are in need of help. The first is a community about 45 minutes east of Belle Anse, Anse a Boeuf, where there is no church, extreme poverty, and no safe drinking water. RoRo quickly made friends with the mayor, Kazek (plaid shirt in photo below and his home), and learned that early each morning men in the community are boating in containers of water from Belle Anse to be sold for $7 Haitian dollars to those who can afford it.

The main “industry” in Anse a Boeuf is making charcoal (pictured in the large bags below) that is sent to Marigot to be sold. While visiting, RoRo took time to share a Bible study with some of the people he met. Then, he, Captain Wilner, and the others distributed boxes of food off of the L’arche De Noe (Noah’s Ark) that was given to HCO from Lifeline and IDES. Captain Wilner and Mayor Kazek are pictured shaking hands below. In October, a team from Outlook CC (IN) and First CC of Evansville (IN) plan to visit this community and distribute some much-needed supplies.

The second community, Anse a Pitres, is “a nice town,” says RoRo, on the Haiti-Dominican Republic border. Currently, this colorful town is home to 5,000 Haitian refugees who have recently been deported or who have fled from the DR. These are people who are Haitian by ancestry, but who have lived so long in the DR that they speak Spanish instead of Creole and who no longer have family in Haiti to whom they can go to for shelter and help. These are people skilled in construction, day laborers, and families of all ages. RoRo met the mayor and explained HCO (pictured below). They stopped by the church and distributed some food here as well. Some relief work has been done, but there is no one doing long-term help in these camps. On Fridays and Mondays the border to the DR is open so that people can go to market in both countries. On other days, if these refugees – who do not have passports or paperwork proving their citizenship – cross the border and are caught, they will be prosecuted.