Home

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