The First Week, and Thoughts on Grace

Dear Friends and Family,
February 7, 2010

Thank you all for your responses to my initial email from HAFF! It is always so encouraging to hear from each of you, and know that I am so blessed to have the prayers of so many family and friends. I love reading your emails, and it is good to be able to stay connected with home even through my time here! I have now been here for ten days, and am settling in more.

The first couple days did not really involve any particularly ordered schedule. Mostly, I spent time settling in, meeting several of the workers around HAFF (and enjoyed speaking some Kreyol with them), helped out working with some work on the campus, joined some of the community leaders in distributing relief supplies to local families who are housing refugees from Port-au-Prince (PAP). If I remember correctly, there are over a thousand refugees in our area already, so some households have expanded in size beyond what they can provide. HAFF’s benevolence committee (made up entirely of Haitians) then seeks to provide for those with the greatest needs in the community.

Some other random highlights from the past week: Kyle (a really neat guy who is here for a couple months, who is staying in the same house as I am) and I were invited over to a nearby church, where we participated in a choir practice. A rather amusing time—though enjoyable—for me, as I am not particularly blessed with the ability to hold a tune! Everyone was happy to have us though, and was extremely welcoming. Then, a couple times since then, Fabius (the choir director) actually came over to our house to tutor us in some of the Kreyol worship songs. Such a privilege, and enjoyable to learn a Haitian song. And in addition, our cook—another really fun and friendly lady—also taught us another song in Kreyol as well. As she doesn’t speak much of any English, it is always fun communicating as best we can in Kreyol, with lots of laughs throughout.

We went to church on Sunday, and the pastor preached a good sermon (one of the other missionaries—Connie—translated for me) on Romans 8, after which we went with some others to a prayer/worship service for a woman who it seems has Typhoid. There are many strong believers in the area, with both established churches and newer church plants. One evidence of their faith are the nearly daily, 3:30am-5am worship services right across the street!

By Monday, I was able to begin with more of my regular schedule. I am observing and helping Barb (one of the missionaries) with teaching four English classes a week, and actually was able to teach one on my own last Friday. That went well; and at the students’ request, I actually ended up teaching a song to them. Rather amusing for me—but hopefully through my time in this culture that loves singing, some of their skill will rub off on me by the time I leave! I also will be helping with a girls’ soccer team, which met last Wednesday. That was a great time, and I also was able to later join the head “coach” a couple days after to play with a number of other guys in the community. One of my other regular roles will be to tutor one of the missionary’s daughters in a couple subjects, to help free up her mother’s time; however, this is currently on standstill as they are in the States for a week or two.

Finally, I wanted to mention that I received an email from HAFF’s treasurer, and she said that I have surpassed my goal for support! Thank you all so much for your amazing generosity!! Those at HAFF will also be very grateful to be able to use that which exceeds my own support, I would believe towards aiding with relief efforts and/or investing in their ministries and equipping work in the area.

In lieu of your gifts towards ministry here, as well as these past couple weeks in the Florida area, God has really been teaching me about what it means to receive grace. I have come to realize that we should not and cannot earn those gifts we are given. I realized that I too often try to earn gifts that I am given, whether by trying to reciprocate or by thinking back to something that I did to deserve it. This, however, is antithetical to our faith as Christians. The very foundation of the gospel is the belief that we can never earn or deserve the grace given to us, and that it is given to us despite our undeservedness. In experiencing the amazing generosity of so many this past month (from staying at friends’ houses in Florida, to your gifts that have allowed me to be here, to the grace I have been given in so many good friendships throughout my life), I have begun to learn how to better receive grace. May we all come to see, day by day, how this is true for every one of us: every bite we eat, every moment of rest, every breath we breathe, is given to us from the hand of God, and we can but respond in gratitude and obedience for these ever-present graces. So I thank you for your graciousness, and may we each better see God’s grace every day Also, I wanted to mention that I will soon be posting past emails, as well as perhaps other notes, on a blog from now on, as well as sending out weekly or bi-weekly emails. Here's the address: http://bonjoufromhaiti.blogspot.com/

Pase bon joune! (Have a good day)

Jonathan

P.S. Thank you for your prayers for Pastor Eric. He seems to be feeling better now after his hospital stay, and may fly back to the states sometime within the next week!