For months I, Sharon, had been asked to come to the annual Belledere women's conference for the Christian Reformed Church of Haiti in the region of Belledere. This is a small town in Haiti near the border of the Dominican Republic. Leading up to this event, I was excited and ready to go. I was asked to speak at the event and lead the spiritual component of the event. A few days before the event, I was told that the focal text for this event was as follows: Proverbs 20:30 which in English reads as follows: "Blows and wounds scrub away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being" (NIV). My heart sunk. Why was THIS text chosen to be the focal text? There is already more than enough beatings in Haiti. Yet, this verse from 2 Timothy 3:16 kept coming through my mind again and again: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (NIV). I knew that this text was chosen for a good reason and I knew that with God's help, I could proclaim His good news.
A godly Haitian women I know well read this text and she told me that she thought this text meant that you really need to beat your children when they don't listen to you so that they will obey you. Mmmm. . .not exactly what I would exegete this text as meaning. I prayed and sought wise counsel searching for the good news in this text that I needed to proclaim to these women. After much prayer and talking to the director of the women, I still included this verse but shifted the focus to the topic of Biblical parenting and different models of parenting we see in the Bible. Specifically we looked at good examples and terrible examples of parenting. Ultimately we talked about how to be a good parent who is loving and uses discipline. To do so, I used biblical examples and had the women suggest with me real life examples. At one point of time, I took a big risk in order to teach biblical parenting that is both high in love and discipline. . . I asked a mother in the congregation if I could use her child as an example.
This little girl, whose name is translated as "Carole" helped me proclaim the good news.
Amazingly, she did not resist and God must have been smiling on me because she let me take her and carry her around and use her to teach how to be a biblical parent. Little did I know that I had actually chosen the pastor of the church's granddaughter. I think it was no accident that the moment I took her to show biblical parenting, in hushed attention all seventy-five of the attending ladies fixed their eyes upon what I was doing. Their questions were poignant and painful windows to their lives at times while at other times joyful stories emerged. One woman asked me what to do with her fourteen-year-old son who is gone from 6 am to 6 pm. Every night when he comes home she beats him even to the point of needing to go to the hospital because she doesn't want him gone all that time. Yet, she reached out for help. With God's help and the authority of scripture which far surpasses any authority I might have, we addressed situations such as this.
Woman clasping her hands over her heart during the women's conference.
Sometimes I wonder how much of an impact I am making. Yet, when the women responded in small groups with great things that they had learned and when so many of them embraced me with appreciation, I was reaffirmed once again that God is using me to proclaim His GOOD NEWS to all people.
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