Sowing Seed for Fruit in a Barren Land
An exercise to visit Haiti sprang from our activities and involvement in the West Indies. On a return trip from Dominica in March 2001, Doris and I, along with Mark and Vaunda MacPherson from Moncton, NB, made a brief day-and-a-half stopover in Port au Prince, Haiti. Earlier, the MacPhersons had spent three weeks in Dominica to assist in the replacement of the floor in the Roseau Gospel Hall. We had about 1000 Seed Sower texts with us with John 3:16 in French on one side and in Haitian Creole on the other. Our purpose in going there was to see what liberties we would have to distribute the texts and literature, and what further direction the Lord might give us. The response was excellent. After about an hour and a half in the morning and the same time in the afternoon, all our texts were gone. We wished we could have brought twice as many texts.
A Second Visit
This gave us the desire to return at a later date with more materials and more workers to share in the distribution. Ross Vanstone and the saints involved in Seed Sowers in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, offered to print 50,000 John 3:16 French and Creole texts. That impelled us all the more in our interest and exercise about the Haitian people. The Lord has graciously allowed us to make two further visits. Last year, Gerard Roy from Green River, NB, two other brethren from the Maritimes, and a couple from the River Road assembly in Ottawa, Ontario, accompanied us on a four-day visit to Port au Prince. We carried about 24,000 Seed Sower texts in the fourteen bags that we checked on the plane. Our baggage was processed by customs, and soon after checking into the hotel, we began the work of meeting people and distributing texts and literature on the streets, in the large nearby public park, and to the teachers and students in six of the area schools.
A Return Visit
In the goodness of God we were able to make another visit again this year, this time for a week. Brother Gerard Roy and the two brethren who were with us last year, plus a brother from the Carleton assembly in Vancouver, went with us. All were bilingual. This was beneficial for the distribution work and necessary for conversation with the people. Our time there this year was just as profitable and even more encouraging than last year. There were opportunities again to meet people and pass out Scripture texts in the public areas – streets, central park, schools, hospitals, and business places. Midway through our visit, we hired a driver to take us to the town of Jacmel, about two hours away on the south coast. We took 5000 texts with us. This proved to be enough for just over two hours of distribution in the streets and market place there.
Encouraging Responses
Our driver commented that he saw one of the texts, nicely framed and hanging on the wall of a house in a town about two hours from the capital. This would have been from our previous year’s activities. We found a respect for the Scriptures during our distribution, but were glad to get this further confirmation of an appreciation for the Word of God.
A young man working in the hotel asked us to go to his village on the outskirts of the capital for a gospel meeting. He was a believer and wanted his family and relatives to have the opportunity to hear the Word of God. It was encouraging to have fifty or more people seated in the outdoors and listening respectfully to the message of the gospel. Another young man, also a Christian, came to ask if we could come to his home for a gospel meeting with his family. Two of our brethren were able to comply with his request. A final encouraging feature was a visit from a young man to tell us that he had been saved following a conversation and reading the gospel literature given to him by one of our team. We believe that there are many more like him in that very needy country. The Lord is able to work through the poverty and hardship in their lives to draw precious souls to Himself. Please pray with us for the people in this area of such great human and spiritual need.
