Holy Week, Haitian Style

Last week we enjoyed another Holy Week in Haiti.  In a society where there is so much death (a very low average age of death among the population) and new life (a very high birth rate per woman), Holy Week is especially poignant.  Zach led a Holy Thursday (sometimes called Maundy Thursday) service at Quisqueya Chapel.  During the service we reflected on the events of Passion Night (i.e., Jesus' anointing, the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus' trials).  Zach preached on Mark's story of Gethsemane, encouraging the congregation to "watch with Jesus" at the foot of the cross and served communion.  On Good Friday, which is a holiday in Haiti, we had an opportunity to climb the mountains outside of Port-au-Prince and meditate on Christ's sacrifice surrounded by fog, green grass and beautiful trees.  Saturday turned out to be an interesting day because several local utility company employees partially cut down a power line outside our home, allowing the remaining portion to make contact with the razor wire on top of our walls.  This had the effect of sending 110 volts through all the razor wire surrounding our home and through the metal gate which serves the main entrance and exit to our home.  All Saturday night, we were entertained by electrical fires and arcing electricity dancing on our walls!  The city power remained on from about 5 pm on Saturday to about 5 pm on Sunday (an extremely rare occurrence), which meant that we were "trapped" in our house by arcing electricity.  On Sunday morning, Zach donned rubber gloves and a wood broom-handle to attempt to push away the offending power line from making contact with our razor wire.  With only a few minutes before the Easter Sunday Service, we finally were able to open the main gate and safely exit our home and go to church!  One of the highlights of Easter is that a group of people from Quisqueya Chapel had taken the cross Zach used for the Holy Thursday service and covered it with beautiful local flowers for Easter (see the picture above).  This picture reminds us of the beauty and power of the Resurrection that not even the powers of death (or those of arcing electricity) could defeat on Easter morning!