Preaching with Goats and Watch Towers...

 



Here is the Kingdom Hall.  Our congregation is Petionville-Est, and the other congregation is Pernier. 

 

Working door-to-door on a very typical street (minus the people...I'm actually wondering where they all are...I've found that no matter where you go, you're surrounded by people.) 

 

Look at that face!!!! There are goats EVERYWHERE! This little guy was so cute we couldn't stand not taking a picture of him.

 

The service group for the morning (minus Adam and Dorine who were on a return visit.)

 

So far, if I could choose one picture to sum up Haiti, this is it.

 

On the right is a missionary and his partner for the morning preaching to a woman.  On the left, Dorine and I had climbed up a rickety spiral staircase to "knock" on the door upstairs.

 

Service could not be more different in Haiti than back home in Seattle.  While our service back home is relatively productive, we've been blown away by the response here.  Everybody is eager to talk about the Bible.  Service starts at 8:30 every morning, and once the groups are formed, we all head into the same area.  There aren't really addresses here, so we follow the brother's lead on how to work the doors.  And frankly, when I say doors, it's a mix of doors, pieces of tin, gates and just a cloth hanging over a doorway.  Most people are sitting out in the open air, as their home is far too hot to stay in for the day.  People are out and about and walking at all time of the day.  It's so easy to strike up a conversation - if you actually speak Kreyol, that is! 

 

Every street is a mix of rocks, garbage, sludge, goats, chickens, flies, plastic and dirt, and garbage...lots of garbage.  Dust is everywhere!  It's pretty cute that every time we try to chat up with Haitians in our still very limited Kreyol, they always ask <Eske ou vin abitye ak pousye?> which means "Have you gotten used to the dirt?"

 

Guy and I walked down this rocky hill and went to a little cinderblock hut with a patchwork canvas "roof" and a piece of lace covering the door way.  Typically, you call out to let them know you are there.  A little old Haitian woman with caps on what few teeth she had left opened the curtain and invited us in.  Her hut couldn't have been any bigger than 60 square feet, with dirt floors, one plastic chair, two buckets, a small coal burner and a little bed.  She had dirt floors and was walking around barefoot.  Her only other possessions were two goats tied up outside grazing on the sparse grass.  That was it.

 

Petionville-Est has 120 publishers and Sunday meeting the attendance was 258. 

 

We're humbled and grateful to be here...minus the dirt... :)