Church Hype in Haiti (St. Pierre)
Today we woke up to the beautiful sound of Melissa’s soft melodic voice that jumped us out of bed. We slowly made our way downstairs to eat pancakes the size of our faces. “It’s so fluffy I’m going to die”.
Today marks the first day of the highly anticipated 3 day Youth Conference! The buzz around this conference has been unreal; the pl
anning team has really focused in on inviting and targeting the key leaders of the next generation.
Over 30 churches from across the region have sent their key young leaders and youth to come get training and be empowered! Many have travelled very long distances and overcome many difficult challenges just to be here. There were around 300 young Haitian leaders who were registered and participated today, they expect more tomorrow.
As we prepared for the conference, we buttered and PB&J’d 600 buns for lunch. Then we made our way to the church to kick it off with worship.
In the midst of praise and worship the Haitian people reveal their energy and faith for Jesus through song and dance. Lifting our hands to God we sing, “I am a child of God”. Throughout the conference Pastor Troy Dearborn and Pastor Samuel Bernard spoke about being called into leadership by God, identity, and value. Pretty much everybody at the conference today was incredibly receptive to calls of surrender and recommitment to Christ. The sermons also really connected with the skits, dance pieces that our team had ready! The Holy Spirit really tied everything together today.
Rowena Johnson shared her testimony after the skit and talked about how we put on different masks to pretend to be someone we’re not. “This is what the Lord says your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, the Maker of all things, who stretches out the heavens, who spreads out the earth by myself” Isaiah 44:24.
During break time the band started to play with passion and rhythm. Our team broke out in dance, grabbing one another we invited young kids to join in. Smiles were very contagious from these kids.
As we sit back in our seats. Claudia and Danni became nervous, as it was almost time to perform their dance solos in front of everybody. As they performed both dances were incredibly powerful and inspiring.
During Danni’s solo, she felt led to ask everybody to stand, and then she started leading the Haitians in worshiping God through dance. It was an incredible moment, and next thing you know this led to a full on dance battle! Including Pastor Moses and Lisa Honorat (co-founder of Haiti Arise) who danced vs each other.
The church echoed with cheers and encouragement. It was an amazing moment of freedom after a heavy day of conviction and sober recommitment to Jesus. In conclusion we jammed out to some guitar melodies on the rooftop and we shared our personal observations of how we’ve seen God move in the past couple of days and we ended with prayer for one another.