Pray for Haiti
Dear Church,
They have demanded seventeen million dollars.
My first trip to Haiti was in the early 1990s. I led a Poiema mission team made up of ten or so university students. We slept at pastor Jovan’s house on the first night before we would head into the interior for our mission work. We began our first morning in Haiti with a short devotion, only to be met by a series of gunshots and loud wailing of our neighbor next door. Absolutely terrified, we asked pastor Jovan what was going on. He said that a robbery had taken place. His neighbor was a well-known money changer, and a robber must have entered his house pretending to change money.
What a reality check that was for the young group of students that morning! In fact, Haiti proved to be a very difficult place for our mission trip that summer. I had the opportunity to visit this country several more times afterward. I remember the eerie feeling when I visited the mass grave of the earthquake victims in 2010. As many as three hundred thousand people might have died when a catastrophic earthquake (of 7.0 magnitude) shook the island nation.
One time I was coming out of a supermarket in Haiti. I looked around and noticed that there was no security guard. Naturally, I became nervous. As I got into the missionary’s car, I looked up and noticed the security guards looking out from the rooftop of the supermarket building. They would pass as snipers. I realized how dangerous and difficult living in Haiti must be.
The Haitian president was assassinated by a group of foreigners last July, and only last week the missionaries and their children who belong to an American-based Christian aid mission were kidnapped. The captors demand one million dollars per person for ransom money. Kidnapping is rather a lucrative business for these gang members in Haiti. A Korean missionary couple was kidnapped last July but was freed shortly after. There seems to be a perpetual cycle of violence, kidnapping, and murder in Haiti, with no apparent solution in sight. Where are those who are well-educated and perhaps able to lead their country on the right course? The truth is that Haiti suffers from a serious case of brain drain. There are sizable Haitian communities in Miami and Montreal.
Well, let us pray that God would have mercy on this island nation and show favor to those who cry out to Him. May the Kingdom of God come to Haiti. Let us remember our brothers and sisters in Haiti who are crying out to God. Let us intercede for Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
May the LORD bless you,
Pastor Minho Song
