In July of 2020, I was able to visit the ministry compound despite COVID-19 circumstances. It was an incredible trip, and I’m excited to share some of my favorite stories on the Connect 2 Ministries blog.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
I woke up at 6AM, got dressed and went out to the front of the compound where the church is by 6:30AM. A handful of people were already inside waiting for the service to start. I said hello to Poyis and the others and observed them as they greeted the people coming through the front gate. In the spirit of the law, they asked each person to wash their hands and they took their temperature before letting them in the church. The people were glad to comply. There was a buzz in the air as the church family hadn’t seen each other in 4 months. While very few had masks, they were careful to not embrace and they maintained social distance. The work that the crew had done the day before to mark social distance in the church paid off.
I observed a couple things about the culture. First, even though church started at 6:30AM with praying and singing, people continued to arrive after 7AM. I found out later that the reason some arrive so much later is because they are traveling a long way to get to church, many come by public transportation, like motorcycles or tap taps. My second observation was how dressed up and nice everyone looked. Even though Haiti is an extremely poor country, Sunday is a big day and the Haitians that go to church dress up for the day. The ladies wore dresses and the men had on nice collared shirts. A few had on ties. Poyis shared with me that quite a few Haitians do attend church and that Sunday is a big day because, as hard as it is to get food, they work so on Sundays they have a meal.
The children arrived from the Home on the bus around 6:45AM. The bus pulled into the compound and it was sweet to see Poyis walk to the door of the bus and greet each child as they got off. They were in order of youngest to oldest. They loved seeing him. It reminded me of The Sound of Music when the kids sing for their father. In this case, though, there were over 100 of them greeting him.
