Blan Yo Kite Ou! Translation: The white people left you!

So after a super intense update, here's a lighthearted story:

Blan Yo Kite Ou! Translation: The white people left you!

That's what the Haitians were yelling at Jessica, Dee, and me (two of the other students) as we ran through their village. Why were we running, you ask? Because the bus of CCC students was pulling away, with everyone else in it except us.

Our team went to an IDP camp this afternoon to share the Gospel; our team's experience (Jess, Dee, and I) was unique from the beginning.I was the translator. So we were going into the IDP camp and a man who told us that he was one of the camp organizers came over to us and asked us to come with him to pray for certain people who were sick. I asked him if there were also people who weren't believers there, and he said yes. So naturally, we followed him (with permission). We ended up going further and further away from the rest of the group. But anyway, we prayed for a couple older Christians who had difficulty walking. And as we walked away from them, this little toddler comes running up to us screaming bawling his head off. And everyone starts laughing around us, so we asked what was wrong. The little kid was screaming, "Blan yo ap pran'm!!" (The white people are going to get me!). He was apparenty running away from the rest of our team because he was terrified they were going to steal him. Our guide was his dad so the little boy jumped into his arms. I tried to comfort him by speaking Kreyol and telling him we were nice people (blan = foreigners as well, so I was also a "blan") and he stopped crying for a bit.Then I asked if I could hold him. He looked at me and yelled, "NOOO!" We hadn't won him over yet. So later on, I started making funny faces at him to try to make him laugh. He kinda smiled...until Dee stepped into his line of vision and smiled. The kid promptly started to cry again. This happened twice. We never won him over.

So we continued to talk to different people in the village, two who were Christians and one man who said "Not yet" to our invitation to accept Christ, which has been a common response. He asked us why God would create us if he knew we would sin, so we delved a bit into the theology of free will and so on. His name is Alfred; please pray for him. And the last man we spoke to was named Yves; he accepted Christ and shared that he had been thinking about it for a while, which was cool. So while we were praying with him to accept Christ, Jess and Dee hear the bus driver honking the horn but they assumed that the driver was just warning everyone it was time to go. We ignored it and kept praying. When we finished, we noticed that more and more people were coming into the village. Then they told us that the team had left. So we started running. In the wrong direction. So the guy we were with had to redirect us. And so I start running full speed. And as we're running out of the village, all the Haitians are laugning and yelling at us, "The white people left you!" We finally get into the "parking lot" as the bus is pulling away. The best part was that no one knew we were gone. Yes, they were going to leave us. My group and the little boy we met had opposite fears. He was freaked out that our team was going to take him. We quickly got freaked out that we were going to be left. God has a sense of humor. Thankfully, it was totally worth almost being left to see Yves decide to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Gabrielle

P.S. Don't try this at home, kids.