The Church is one body but its members are different

– By Jean Philippe Paul
This is a comparison written by one of Trinity/HOPE’s feeding program directors who has traveled for us to the United States for presentations.  Jean Philippe is Haitian and shares this experience in English which is not his native language.

Even though Haitian Christians serve the same God with the U.S. Christians, there are noticeable differences between the two. At first the majority of the Haitian members of the Church are youths while the U.S. is Adults. There is more; the members of the Haitian Church know when they go to church they do not know when church will end and they will go back home. A preaching of thirty minutes is too long for the U.S. Christians while Haitians spend two hours on their knees praying to God or hours with hands up worshipping the Lord.

In my understanding it is difficult to explain to someone who has never sees the vapor of a refrigerator what the snow is. It is also difficult to have someone who lives in a desert understand what is a park? Since 2007 I come to the States every year a lot of people talked about Disney World but I cannot understand what it is exactly because I have not been there. I think if you blindfold someone in Jeannite (one of the place where Trinity/HOPE has schools in the Artibonite). Bring him here to the States and then remove the blindfold, he could find everything that can help someone live his life well with a screen which shows how to use them. And finally let him hear a big voice calling him by name in his language and say, “This is the Heaven.” I presume he would believe in, for the first hours.
Then he will understand that he has been deceived when he sees so many peoples who are sick, those who are for job and don’t find, death to quote only these.

The opposite can be the same. If you take a teen who lives his life in the States and you could have an elevator that could lead him blindfolded to some places in Haiti and he hear a voice saying “You are in the hell” he would believe in it, crying and ask for compassion. He could understand he is not in the hell if he goes to church where he will hear messages of hope.

Do you ever imagine you live in a place where there is no electricity, a hot temperature, no fan, no AC, no refrigerator, no drinkable water, no trees to get shade? Well you can find places like that at about 1 hour and 45 minutes by plane from Florida. These two churches sisters are really different.

The U.S. is the richest and Haiti is the poorest country of the western hemisphere. Without comments let me close by telling you that the church in Haiti is the sister of the church in America. The children there are his daughters and his sons. God just wants you to help giving Hope.

God bless you.