Emily's blog

Hi, this is Emily Gerber and I’m with the Malone group on this trip. Last night we got the opportunity to celebrate New Year’s Eve at the church Crystal attends here in Carrefour. Generally in order to go to church in Haiti you have to be dressed in a specific way and unfortunately if people are not able to dress that way they are excluded from church, but at Crystal’s church all are welcome to worship no matter how they are dressed. 

To say that the church service was different from what we usually see in the US would be an understatement. When we first arrived the pastor on stage was speaking in tongues with occasional Creole phrases interspersed – this was something that I have never experienced before. During this time everyone was walking around the aisles praying. Then the pastor instructed the people to find people sitting on the opposite side of the church and give them a hug to demonstrate God’s love for them. After returning to our seats we held hands with the people standing next to us and prayed for them for a long time. For me this was one of the most powerful parts of the service. Everyone in the church was praying for their neighbor out loud, it was amazing to hear so voices mixing together and calling out in prayer. During prayer time the song “His love endures forever” came into my head and mixed into my prayer then later during a scripture reading we read Psalm 136 where every statement ends in “His love endures forever”. It was a really cool God moment for me. Following prayer and scripture reading we began worship. We were able to observe the Haitians dancing and praising and we all joined in soon after. It was a very free, joy filled time of worshiping God together.

I am oh so thankful for the opportunity to worship with our brother’s and sister’s in Christ. Though the styles of service may be different we are all worshiping the same mighty God – how cool! We appreciate everyone’s prayers back home and are so excited to see what the rest of the week will bring us!