Prayer Partner Kick-Off Celebration

Prayer Partners Kick-Off Celebration
April 15, 2010

In my last update, I mentioned the Prayer Partner Program I have been working on with a few others over this past month (and for a more detailed write-up by Connie and pictures of the beginnings of the program, you can visit the March 23rd entry on www.HAFFDetails.blogspot.com). A few weeks ago, we paired up students with their partners, and then on this past Saturday, April 10th, we had the kick-off celebration. We called it a “Ti Reyini Ansanm” (Little Reunion Together), and have been planning it for several weeks. This was intended to both celebrate the beginning of the program, and also to help the students form more friendships with one another, especially their partners—and to hopefully help those who more recently came from Port-au-Prince to also feel welcomed into the school.

The “Ti Reyini” was scheduled to start around 1 in the afternoon, so the morning was spent in final preparations. Gabi, Jean-Rony, Edouine, the Wilsons, and Barb (all the others at HAFF currently) all helped preparing the food and materials for the activities later. The morning felt like a hectic time, but with everyone’s help (by God’s grace) things came together by the time we were to start. We would begin at 1 with worship and a talk, then games until around 3:30, and lastly a movie and snacks to finish out the day.

Students started filtering in around 1pm—a couple even coming early and helping with the last few preparations. We began with a time of corporate worship in the school devotions room, led by one of the students, and then a pastor from Pignon gave a talk on prayer. One of the things he stressed was that the prerequisite to petitionary prayer is a relationship with God, but that when that relationship is there, we can ask God anything. During the worship and preaching, more students came bringing the total number to about 45!

After closing in prayer and another song, we gathered in a gazebo in the schoolyard to explain the games we would be playing. As we had decided to do all three of the first three games at the same time, we divided the students into three groups—which would then cycle around to play each of the games in turn. Gabi, Edouine, and I each had one game to direct, and Jean-Rony would call the switch times and help out as needed. Before we split up, we first gave a quick overview of each of the games: Edouine would be directing the sack-race (in Kreyol, “Kous ak sak yo”) station in one area of the schoolyard, Gabi would be directing the water-balloon toss (“Jwet ak blad yo ak dlo”) in another area (students paired with their prayer partners), and I would be managing the tug-of-war (“tire”). The students seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the games, and minus a few small hitches they went extremely well. At one point, stepping in to even out the tug-of-war teams, I was sent sprawling on the ground as the other team soundly beat us. And each time a team won, there was a flurry of cheering as students crowded around to receive candy for their prize.

After the first round of games, we gathered again for the next game: a trivia contest with questions made up by Edouine and Jean-Rony. The students split up into four groups, and had about 20 minutes to answer the questions as best as they could. We would announce the winning group later, after grading their answers. In the meantime, we moved on to our next game: a bread-eating contest (“pen jwet”). Five boys were chosen first, competing to finish eating chunks of bread hanging from the gazebo rafters—without their hands. The rest of the students grew more and more excited, pressing in erupting in cheers whenever one of the boys successfully got a mouthful of bread. The winner got a handful of candy, after which five girls were selected, and had the same task (minus hanging the bread from the rafters, to save some time). Again, more cheering and lots of excitement as one girl pulled ahead and finished with an impressive performance.

The final game was balloon tag (which we called “jwet ak blad yo mariye nan pye”)—in which each of the students, and we also, tied a balloon to each of our ankles. The object of the game was to stomp on/pop other players’ balloons while keeping yours safe. It took a while to get everyone settled enough so that we could begin, but when we did the whole area went crazy—around 50 people running and jumping around, trying to pop 100 balloons while laughing and shouting, with the sound of balloons exploding mixed in for good measure. A good conclusion to the games!

Once the balloon tag wrapped up, we headed back to the devotions room for snacks and a movie. The movie was Facing the Giants—a Christian film about American football, and some themes relating to the prayer partner program as well. The students seemed to enjoy it, even cheering at the ending.

Before we finished, we reminded the students that this day was just the beginning of the program—and that what was most important were those times they would continue to meet together with their prayer partners. This was the only the beginning, and we pray that it will be followed by years of mutually encouraging, edifying, and God-glorifying friendships between the prayer partners.

Several times throughout the whole planning process, we have seen that the turnout and results of this program have far exceeded our expectations. It has been a joy to see so many students eager to sign up even before they knew of the kick-off celebration, and an amazing blessing to be able to see them having such a good time on Saturday as well. What a testimony to God’s grace—in the stress and busyness and completely new experience of planning the program and kick-off day, we had to commit it to God, and He (as He so often does) worked in wonderful ways. Even amidst various technical, scheduling, and logistics-related roadblocks along the way, He showed again that we need not fear, for He “will be exalted among the nations, (He) will be exalted in the earth” (see Psalm 46:10).

What a testimony to His faithfulness. Now, let us continue to pray that these students, in God’s grace and power, would overcome every obstacle to meeting together and building up the Church through these friendships and prayer partnerships. May they be united despite any other differences, and help one another grow and love God more and more. Please join us in prayer that this beginning to the program and kick-off activity would be only the beginning of something so much greater!