HER FIRST WEEK in Haiti had drained Kaylan emotionally, but on this muggy Sunday morning, she had never been more spiritually filled. Sweaty bodies in their own versions of Sunday finest packed the small church just outside the slum. Torn and dirty dresses, hats, and suit coats adorned each Haitian. Kaylan had donned one of her sundresses for the occasion.
She had never experienced worship on this level. Several men and women stood in front of the congregation leading the songs. No screen with lyrics, no microphone, no instruments—just the beautiful voices of Haitian believers singing about the goodness of God.
Kaylan’s eyes welled with tears. She struggled with missing Nick or wondering how her future would work out. These people didn’t even know where their next meal would come from. Their children looked several years younger than their actual age because of malnutrition. Yet, they praised the Lord with lifted hands. They had seen hurricanes devastate the island, Westerners promise help and fail to deliver, their crops fail to grow, their coasts devoid of fish. But even then, they sang and they trusted and showed up in the best they had to worship.
After an hour of standing and singing, Abe stood to lead the church in prayer. He led first in Creole and then translated his prayer into English. “Lord, we thank You for the chance to worship You. We pray that we would follow You and know You better. Amen.”
The congregation sat, squeezing together to fit everyone in the room smaller than Kaylan’s living room back home. A lazy breeze drifted through the open windows, and gnats buzzed around Kaylan’s head. She wiped sweat from her forehead. She had never been more thrilled to be in church.
Sarah Beth caught her eye, and a smile lit her face. As the pastor passionately shared his message with loud responses from the congregation, Sarah Beth leaned close to Kaylan’s ear. “I think this is what heaven will be like someday. How are we so subdued in worship back home? It’s like we’ve missed it.”
Kaylan couldn’t help but agree. After experiencing church Haitian-style, she couldn’t imagine returning home and worshipping the same way ever again. These people with nothing truly showed Kaylan that God was their everything.
Kaylan arrived back at the clinic for the afternoon after a Sunday lunch at Rhonda’s house a few blocks away. While Sarah Beth played with local kids and Rhonda worked with a patient in the main room, Kaylan took advantage of the lull in activity to familiarize herself with the supplies.
A shout filled the street outside the clinic, and Kaylan dropped the needles in her hands back into the drawer and ran into the main room of the clinic. Stevenson ran through the door, Reuben in his arms. Blood dripped from a jagged, deep cut on Reuben’s leg onto his brother’s arm, then trickled to the floor.
“Lay him here, Stevenson.” She rushed to clear the space. Rhonda appeared at her side to help.
“He needs stitches. You want to watch or try it?” Rhonda remained detached, professional. Her hands moved nimbly and gently around the cut. Kaylan wished she could gain that emotional distance. This was a child, a child she had just gotten to know but already loved.
Kaylan gulped. She needed to learn how to do this to help Rhonda, but the thought of making a mistake terrified her. She clenched her hands to still the shaking and took a deep breath.
“Kaylan?”
“I got it. Just stay here in case, please?”
“Of course.” Rhonda squeezed her arm as she applied pressure to the bleeding.
Low, lilting Creole sounded in the small room as Rhonda reassured Reuben. The boy whimpered, his jaw clenched, but he fought his tears. Kaylan admired his strength. He was a young leader in the making for his people, and he didn’t even know it.
Stevenson’s eyes resembled saucers as Kaylan gave Reuben medicine to calm him while she cleaned the wound. She concentrated on keeping her voice steady. Her confidence grew as she moved her hands quickly, preparing the needle and thread. “What happened, Stevenson?”
“He cut on metal.” He motioned wide. “Sharp, big. He climb on roof of house.”
Kaylan looked at Rhonda. “Will it get infected?”
“We’ll just have to wait and see.” She spoke more to Reuben in Creole. A small smile lit his face. “I told him he shouldn’t be crawling on rusty roofs. Even tough little boys get hurt.”
Reuben pointed to Kaylan. “Eske ou se yon gerisè?”
“What does that mean?” Kaylan prepared Reuben’s leg for stitches. She silently prayed for steady hands and a strong stomach.
“He ask if you ‘healer.’” Stevenson’s eyes darted uneasily from Kaylan to his brother, looking like a caged animal. “Eliezer say he heal us with help of loa. Spirits. My brother should not say these things about you.”
She turned her focus back to Reuben and began to stitch. Reuben’s breath caught, and then his body relaxed. He watched her work as the medicine numbed his pain and made his eyes droop.
“I’m not a healer, Stevenson. Only Jesus can heal. I can only help you feel better.” She smiled to herself. “Sometimes I can’t even do that.” She continued to work while Stevenson translated for Reuben. The boy fought grogginess and sleep as if his life depended on it.
“He want to know who Jesus is. He say you make him better, so where is Jesus?”
Rhonda chuckled and ran her hand over Reuben’s head. “From the mouths of children, you get the most difficult questions. Good luck.”
Kaylan gently tugged the thread, praying for the right words. “When your mom tells you to do something while she is away, you remember her words even when she is gone and you complete the task.” Rhonda translated, and Reuben responded in Creole.
“He said that sometimes he likes to play instead.” Rhonda rubbed his head again, laughing with Kaylan.
“I like to play too.” She was glad he was distracted. The cut was long and deep. “Jesus came a long time ago from heaven, because His Father wanted Him to save people.”
“Like you come to help Haiti?” Stevenson’s eyes locked with hers.
Kaylan had never thought about it that way. Jesus had come to a broken and hurting earth to give people hope, like what she wanted to do. She’d come to heal bodies. He’d come to heal souls.
“Yes, Stevenson, like I have come to help you. Only Jesus came because He loves you.”
Rhonda translated, and Reuben pointed to himself.
“You too, Reuben. People didn’t like Him, so they killed Him. But He didn’t stay dead.”
Reuben’s eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.
“He came back to life again three days later. But His Father wanted Him to come home to heaven. So Jesus went back to be with His Father because He’d finished his job. And He is alive and making a home for us someday, if we choose to believe He died on the cross and rose again.”
“So how do we meet this Jesus? Is He in Haiti?”
“He is in every country. He lives in the hearts of people who love Him.”
“So he is like loa? A spirit?”
“We have His Spirit with us. But He is the only God, Stevenson. He is not a loa. He speaks to people personally.”
“So, how He be healer?”
“Jesus helped a crippled man walk again. The blind could see. The deaf could hear. The dead were raised and the sick made better. But He didn’t come to heal our bodies alone. He came to heal our hearts.”
“People not like Him, like Eliezer do not like you.”
“That’s right, Stevenson.”
“If He healer, why they do not like Him?”
“Because they didn’t understand that He loved them and came to give them hope and healing.”
“Haiti need hope and healer.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Reuben want to know how he can see Jesus someday.”
Kaylan continued to tug the thread, closing the wound. “You have to tell Jesus you love Him, that you know He died to heal you and that you believe He rose again. Then you promise to follow Him and obey.” She smiled into his eager face. “Even when you want to play instead.”
Kaylan bandaged his leg and watched the brothers’ exchange. “He say he will talk to this Jesus and want to know if He like soccer as much as Reuben.”
“He made every bone in your body, and He made you good at soccer. I bet He loves to watch you play.”
Reuben looked down at his leg and brushed the bandage with his fingers before pointing at the ceiling. “Se jezu sel ki kon geri. ”
“Wi, Reuben. Jesus is Healer.” As the boy finally succumbed to the medicine, she put away the supplies and moved to other patients. Deep in her heart she knew Reuben would come to know the Lord. Maybe her mission in Haiti was simpler than she thought.
Later that evening Kaylan lay in bed reading one of Nick’s letters from his deployment.
Dear Kaylan,
You’re on my mind daily. Micah calls you a distraction. I call you a regret, a dream I walked away from. I’m surrounded by heat, dust, hurting people, and enraged militants, but when I think of you, the world fades away. It makes me groan to think how sappy I sound, but one of my pivotal mistakes was not sharing my heart with you the last time we were together.
I can’t tell you what we’re doing here, though I wish I could. My body is primed for combat at every second. When we aren’t in the field, I’m in the gym or writing to you. Fear hangs like a canopy in this place. I feel less than a hero.
Kaylan paused. Nick had always been a hero, even when he’d walked away. The description of his assignment in the Middle East made her skin crawl. She’d feared coming to Haiti. Nick had chosen and committed his life to serving other people. He didn’t walk away from a dream. He embraced the calling of a bigger one. Her eyes found his words again.
I’m afraid, Kaylan. As I lie on my bedroll, I know men plot to take my life. I know they use their sons and daughters to lay the IEDs that take American lives. I know death is a part of their culture, less of a tragedy and more of a daily event. How do you fight a mentality? How do you war against a religion? In my fear, I remember God is in control. Yet He seems so distant here. Micah reminded me today that bravery and courage are not the absence of fear, but rather the acknowledgement that we serve the One who has promised a peace despite the circumstances. Our story is already written.
Kaylan remembered Eliezer’s confrontation. His eyes had bored to the core of her being, daring her to speak the name of Jesus. She knew voodoo was a cultural practice in Haiti. She knew many Haitians often mixed Christianity and voodoo practices. But never had she faced such animosity toward herself or her faith. Nick did daily. He was hated because he was an American and Christian.
Shame colored her vision. Fear had quickly turned to anger in light of Eliezer’s veiled warning. Nick seemed to rest in who Christ was. Kaylan kept discovering just how weak her faith was when challenged.
My mom used to call me her “mighty man of God.” I’m just now coming to accept that. I don’t fight against flesh and blood. These men and women are products of a warped culture. I fight my fear, my desire to run to alcohol, my anger, my desire to control. I fight what I can’t see and am equipped by a God who is invisible yet ever present. Does that calm you, Kaylan? The Lord is training me to be His mighty man. I fight for my country because I love it. I fight for my faith because I want the freedom to share it. And I will fight for you because you are more than worth it.
With all my heart from the deserts of the Middle East,
Nick
“Kayles?” Sarah Beth entered the room, dabbing her wet hair with a towel. The curls multiplied in the heat and humidity. She sat on Kaylan’s bed and nodded at the letter in her hand. “Missing him?”
“Yeah. It amazes me that words he wrote months ago help me today.”
“God sure knows how to time things, doesn’t He?” Sarah Beth shuddered and shifted closer. “Did Eliezer make you nervous yesterday?”
“A little bit. It was more his manner than what he said, you know? Like he could see through me, like he was in total control.”
Sarah Beth nodded. “You ever wonder how people can be so confused? I was talking to Rhonda about voodoo, and she said that many people mix it with Catholicism here. Like the saints are equivalent to spirits in voodoo. Apparently, it’s a pretty relaxed religion. People are one with nature and the earth.”
“Sometimes the most accepting religions are the most dangerous.”
“Rhonda said we should be careful. We won’t accomplish anything by offending his culture.”
“True. But how do you love someone who has such a hold over a young kid like Stevenson? I mean, if it was just Eliezer, it might be a little easier to be sympathetic. He’s bought into a lie. But to take Stevenson with him? It makes me angry.”
“I understand.” Sarah Beth squeezed her hand. “This is when the gospel gets tough.”
“I never expected to come down here and deal with religious clashes. I thought they would just want to hear about Jesus. This battle of religions was not in the game plan.”
“And was Haiti in your game plan?” Sarah Beth laughed. “Looks like God had even bigger plans for you than just coming to Haiti. He wants you to use your gifts to make an impact.”
“I can’t do it by myself.”
“Girl, you’re not alone. Rhonda’s been here for years. I’m here. Don’t be discouraged in doing good. The Lord’s bigger than the problems in this country or the dysfunction in America.” Her eyes shone, and in response an invisible force seemed to well up in Kaylan, increasing her determination. She longed to be as strong as Sarah Beth and as rooted as her family.
As night descended on Haiti, Kaylan fell asleep planning her first meeting with the young mothers.