It was 2am and the churches’ PA next door to our rooming
house was cranking out max decibels. A few minutes of music, followed by the
impassioned pleas of an evangelist, then more music. Not even the rooster’s crowing at first light
seemed to dull their enthusiasm. Lack of
sleep aside, my biggest question wasn’t when they were going to call it quits. Quite the opposite. After this 8-hour worship marathon, I
couldn’t help but wonder, “Of those who began this journey, how many
congregants were left standing when the pastor said his final, ‘Amen’?”
With a Carnival Parade scheduled to start mid-afternoon, our
in-country hosts made it clear: if we
wanted to avoid getting cut off from our guest house, we needed to on the road
to the Wynne Ecological Preserve early.
Six days of navigating Port-Au-Prince garbage piles, outdoor
sewage, and wandering farm animals vendors couldn’t have provided a starker
contrast to the lush, green scene awaiting us at 6,000 feet. Started some 60 years ago by a civil engineer
with a passion for preserving the natural habitat of the island, its 70 acres
are now an inspiration for the thousands of young Haitian students who make the
windy, curvy pilgrimage to this mountaintop perch.
Descending the trails, we passed by gardens planted with all
variety of flora and fauna. Blooming
flowers being trimmed for sale in nearby markets, lettuces, fruits…interspersed
with a small selection of farm animals.
Standing on the bluff with a view of the city below, was to stand
between two worlds; one bent on dismantling the other. 
Oddly enough, it wasn’t the city worship that had kept me up
all night. For the past few days I’d
been in conversation with one of our team who’d made the decision to follow
Jesus. She wanted to be baptized and
somewhere, someplace on this walk it would happen. I’d been mulling it over for days, and the
questions only continued to pile up. How
much time would we have for this worship service? Without song sheets and a common music
vocabulary, what would we sing? How
would I know the ‘right’ place when we came to it? How do we incorporate the guests and others
who may wander into our worship? What if
our hosts at the preserve weren’t Christian? 
Standing on the yoga platform, cool breeze blowing through
the trees, our collective prayers were answered as the team, leaders, hosts,
guests…all of us gathered around and witnessed the birth of a new sister in
Christ; as the family of God grew by one.
At the close of our final team meeting tonight, we were all
ready to go home. But not before giving
this new sibling her baptismal gift. Earlier
this week we’d picked off the ground a small medallion, the same one hanging
from the necks of each cribbed orphan we’d spend the morning feeding and
loving. As the gift was presented, these
words were spoken: ‘May you always live
& rest peacefully in the assurance of this promise made to you by our
Heavenly Father today at your baptism:
in his love, you are always…always I’m thinking we’ll all sleep well
tonight. Home.'
Pastor Ned Lenhart
