Blog Repost from The Ayars Affairs: April 2014
meet Bernard!
Bernard is very intelligent, speaks Creole, French, Spanish and English, and pops in my office every single morning just to see how I am. He's bold, easy to talk to, a natural leader, excels in his classes...and says he wishes he hadn't spent so much of his life trying to direct it himself.
All he really wants to do is share Christ, and a "different way of life" with the children of Haiti...But I'll let him tell himself.
Bernard's story as he has shared it with me...
I am married to Mirose and have one son, Samuel, who just turned one last month. We live in the Cite-du-Peuple in Cap-Haitian, but I was born in a zone called Au Bois. (side note: this is where we went to church Sunday!)
I wasn’t born into a Christian family, and as I was growing up my parents raised us up in Voudou. They were farmers, and there were 8 of us children. The only way were able to go to school was because my uncle had a school and he let us all go to his school for free. When I was only 9 years old, my father died.
I always thought to myself that I didn’t want to live and die in his beliefs, and that one day I would be a Haitian Catholic or a Christian.
My grandfather was an assistant to a priest, and I always watched him and listened to how he talked about God, and I always thought I would rather do that than follow in Voudou.
When I was 22, I was in Port-du-Pere, and I was always having a chance to listen to Evangelism through churches and on the radio, and people were always talking to me about God, though I was more in the Haitian Catholic tradition. I wanted to be a good Catholic, and started reading the Bible, and started reading about how God wanted us to live, which wasn’t really how the Catholic Church in Haiti was telling us to live, especially as they were worshipping idols, and that was a problem in my spirit.
When I finished with my high school at the age of 22, I went to Cap-Haitian because I wanted to go to university to be a doctor, and I went to a big church called the Tabernacle, and I joined the youth group there. I finally asked them how to be a Christian, and by now my mom had moved to Port-au-Prince and had also decided to leave Voudou and become a Christian, and so I began to follow Jesus with her blessing. That was in 2006.
I still wanted to go into medicine, but couldn’t find a way, and headed to the Dominican Republic to try to find work. I had a friend there that I hoped would help me. I did some work for this friend, and then the earthquake happened in Port-au-Prince, and I was still in the Dominican.
When I heard about the earthquake, and started to see pictures on the news, and I couldn’t get ahold of any of my family, and finally a few days after the earthquake, I left the DR and headed for Port-au-Prince, where my mom was living at the time. When I finally arrived, I found my family was ok, praise the Lord.
After I ensured they were fine, I returned to Cap-Haitian and to my church in the Tabernacle. This was the time that I met my wife and married.
Now, I was married and thinking and thinking about what in the world I was to do. I had tried many times over the years to sign up to many different universities, but nothing ever worked out. I started to get frustrated and asking God what to do, and I felt like He was telling me that I’ve looked lots of places, leaving God behind me, but that it was time to be behind God…close to God and asking GOD what HE wanted to do with my life.
He brought my family to my mind, most of whom still did not know God, and showed me that they were victims…not just of the earthquake, but they were victims because they were without God, without hope, without means.
I felt it was time to take my life further. I gave it to God truly, along with my wife, and we started looking for a school where I could learn the Bible and learn how to serve Him fully…for my family, and for my Haitian community. I sensed good leaders and preachers was badly needed. Everyone is suffering spiritually.
I took this idea to my pastor at the Temple, and he started searching with me for a place. He told me to head for Emmaus. In 2013 he told me I should come here, and so that is what I did. I came and got more information, and went with all that information to find my pastor, who found it good and promised to help me.
I constantly feel a desire to lift God up for people. I want to be available for God to use me to serve the Haitian people, and I especially have a strong desire to help with kids…I want to help these kids have a DIFFERENT orientation than Haiti has given them. I feel the kids on my heart, and I think the hope for Haiti growing in Christ is in our children raised in Christ. I want them to have a Biblical orientation, and now I am working with the kids at the Tabernacle church and hope to continue to do so.
I wish I hadn’t taken so much of my life waiting to get here…waiting to give Him my life and let HIM do with it what He wills. Now, I come and go from the seminary each day so that I can continue to work in my church and help my wife and son. I praise the Lord for the chance to be at Emmaus, and will continue to dwell right behind God.
Please pray for Bernard with us, and if you feel led to join him in ministry here in Haiti or to join Emmaus in helping him...
(with 365684 BERNARD as your project)
Email me and let me know if you or your family or church have committed to aligning with Bernard...and we'll move on to the next student! Praise the Lord!
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