Pierre

Pierre

Last Friday I met a man on base whose name was Pierre.  This is a different guy than the Pierre I met at the gravel bars on the river.  This Pierre is a Haitian by birth but was in the US military for 25 years.  He recently retired, moved back here in 07 and started working with Pastors in Haiti. 

Pierre is a smaller man, in his early fifties I would guess and wears wire rimmed glasses that are a little crooked on his round smiling face.  He joined SP immediately after the earthquake two years ago and, because of his military training, was basically in charge of the logistics of getting the bases set up and equipped.  In time those roles were assumed by other personnel and he moved into a different role of coordinating outreach between SP and the local churches.

I met Pierre as I returned to the tents after dinner.  We introduced ourselves and struck up a casual conversation.  I had picked up some history on the guy from my prior room mate and moved the conversation over to his current role in working with pastors in the country. 

Pierre has a passion for Haiti.  You can see it in his eyes and his face as he talks about the problems in his native land.  His father and mother were both into Voodou, a native faith intermingled with Catholism.  Proponents have a strange belief system that mixes spiritism and the conjuring of spirits of dead family members to bless their life’s paths or present curses to others who have done them wrong.  Many of the Catholic saints are used to make this bridge.  It is odd, Pierre shared, how they participate in the occult one day and then go to church and honestly think they have done Christian activities.  He has a burden for teaching and instructing local pastors on Christian theology basics that can form a line of sound biblical basis’ to address these and other issues.

Another interesting thing about Pierre, he truly believes that the salvation of Haiti will only come through being taught the things of Jesus by Haitians.  He has noted that when organizations come into the country to give and share the gospel the Haitians are motivated to feign salvation in order to gain the approval and giving gestures of the people doing the ministering.  Their motivation is not to get saved, it is to be in a position of getting more.  He firmly believes that the sharing of the gospel by a Haitian national will be more effective because the message is given on their ground with their terms with no conditions.  That way God can meet them on their own turf with no pre-conceived notions that they will get something other than God’s promises. 

Pierre has found inroads into Haitian TV and radio.  He has done many programs that are aired throughout Port au Prince and the neighboring communities.  He also holds what we would call ‘tent meetings’ in order to get his message out and preach the Gospel.  His goals are to open a location in Haiti to teach the local pastors basic theology and to help rebuild churches of honest pastors that have been destroyed in the earthquake.

Unfortunately, our visit was short as it was late on Friday and he was leaving in the morning for a week long orientation in the States with SP.  I would be interested in visiting with Pierre again before I leave.  He seems to be the first man I’ve run across that believes that the NGO’s should cut back on their giving and work closer in teaching the nationals the basics of God’s Word so they can be the ones to spread the message of God’s redemption for man.

It is an interesting concept, one that I lean towards understanding and supporting.  It will be interesting to watch where this man goes.