What Does Your Church Look Like?

Well, I meant to write about the excursion to La Gonâve a while ago....closer to when it happened.  Now that I am sitting down and starting to think through what happened and what to write, I'm realizing that I don't remember everything.  Sure I remember the main things and I have the pictures to remind me, but some of the details have become fuzzy in the last month and a half.  Due to my memory, or lack there of, it is probably best to document things as close to their happening as possible.  But, since I didn't do that this time, I'll have to rely on what I can piece together in my head.

At the end of August Chris, Leslie, Olivia, and I went to visit the Hopps.  We stayed the night and in the morning Ben and I got dropped of at the wharf nearby.  We walked down the broken concrete road to the end of the pier where people were selling food and drinks and bought our tickets for the boat ride over.  We had two options for what to board.....the first one:

The second one:

We chose the second since it was only five Haitian dollars more ($0.65 US) and the trip would be faster.  Instead of trying to cram ourselves below, we decided to sit on top where there was more room but also no shade.  Instead of the boat leaving at a specific time, it usually just leaves when it's full.  That could be 10 minutes after you arrive or an hour and a half like it was in our case.  Instead of having your ticket taken prior to getting on the boat, they collected tickets during the journey.  However, some people hadn't bought tickets and somehow the ticket collector got really confused and ended up not collecting enough tickets and money for the number of people on board.  So he proceeded to yell at everyone. Apparently he had to pay for the missing money and wanted us to know how upset he was that someone had cheated him.

As we approached La Gonâve, everyone noticed that we had caught up with the "sail boat" that left before us.  Well, there was no way our captain was going to let the other ship beat him to the dock, so we ended up in a race.  The outcome:  our boat had to swing out wide and we ended up hitting the dock...not too hard, but hard enough that it jolted everyone on board and everyone on the shore started cheering...I guess we won??  After we unloaded our bags, we were swamped by everyone who wanted to give us a ride to wherever we were going.  We grabbed two mopeds, loaded ourselves and belongings on board, and took off for their mission's house.  I wanted to take a picture during our ride, but I figured it wasn't worth falling off since I was trying to keep my balance and hold onto anything I could find on the bike.

After that we unpacked some things and I met one of the pastors that we would be traveling with the next day.  Before dinner we went for a walk so I could see the neighborhood.  The mission's home is huge...I think over 3,000 square feet.  There is almost no furniture and the wall around the property does not allow any breeze to flow through the building.  Instead of trying to sleep inside and sweating uncontrollably, we decided to haul two bed mats onto the roof and try out our luck there.

Roof Access Point

Our Bedroom

It ended up being nice and cool with the breeze that swept over the roof.  It was also relaxing to lie down and see the thousands of stars overhead since the sky was so clear.  At one point Ben and I both saw an extremely close shooting star that burnt green.  It was the first time I had seen one...I was impressed.  The next morning we woke up and started what would be one of the most painful drives I have experienced in Haiti.

Our Transportation

As you can see this is a tap-tap lacking the enclosure over the bed.  We rented it for the day and I estimate we were riding in it for over six hours during the day.  The roads are even worse on La Gonâve and to get to the two churches we wanted to visit, it was necessary to have a vehicle with 4-wheel drive.  In the bed there are wooden benches to sit on...being thrown around on a wooden plank in the back of a truck is fun for about the first 5 minutes, but after that things start to get soar.  After a two and a half our drive we got to the first church.  Ben was going to be preaching and then checking up with the pastor and congregation to make sure everything was going ok.  I wasn't sure what the churches would look like on La Gonâve.  On the main island most churches are typically made of cinder blocks and never look completely finished since they leave the walls unfinished and rebar sticking out of everything.  However, since everything on La Gonâve usually comes over from the mainland on boats like the ones we took, there is never really an abundance of materials.  That coupled with the fact that we were up in the mountains where materials are hard to get, meant that buildings were made out of whatever was close by.  Hence:

The Church

Ben talking with the community leaders

I was pretty surprised to see this, but to everyone there, it was normal.  They didn't know that they were "supposed" to have something different.  It was a reminder to me about how often we think we need a large building, a huge band, or something else for the building/activity to be called church.  The people here didn't have a single instrument.  I will admit that it is harder to hide your voice when you don't have any instruments to drown it out....but no one seemed to mind around me.  After visiting for a while we headed off to the next church that was similar to this one.  On the drive back to the mission's house, we were stopped every so often by people that new the pastor we were with.  They wanted to say hello and give us some fruit for our drive.

The next day we woke up pretty early and boarded the boat to get back to the mainland.  The distance between the two islands is about 14 miles and it seemed like the trip took forever, but that could have been because we got stuck below and had five people in a three person row.  After arriving everyone bolted for the door and we made our way back up to the national highway to meet Ben's wife.  We got back to their house and had a pancake breakfast...that was nice since Ben and I had been eating bachelor style the past few days.