An Exclamation Point for Jean Rabel

When we arrived in Jean Rabel in January, we were greeted by green since rains had been falling for several weeks.  This is a huge blessing for the Jean Rabel area which has been parched from a multi-year drought.

Zach and Gary Schipper congratulate one of thirteen graduates from the Timothy Leadership Institute training in the Jean Rabel area.

The group of visitors who participated in the graduation ceremony.  From left to right: Dextra Wegens (Director of Ministry for Christian Development, the implementing partner for TLT in Haiti), Cara DeHaan (Calvin Seminary Intern serving in Haiti in January), Zach, Fevrier Cherubin (Program Assistant for CRWM-Haiti), and Gary Schipper (who coordinates much of TLT International's work in Latin America)

It would be a huge understatement to say that people in Haiti enjoy graduations.  Haitians savor dressing up, organizing special music, monologues, and drawn-out thank-you speeches.  In nearly five years of training in Jean-Rabel, our Port-au-Prince-based training team never had the opportunity to organize a graduation.  Gary Schipper, a key player in the coordination of TLT in Latin America, is an expert in putting together inspiring graduation ceremonies.  When Gary and several others decided to organize a graduation in January, 2017, they invited Zach and other members of the Port-au-Prince team to participate.  Despite the punishing drive to Jean-Rabel, Zach, Dextra, and Calvin Seminary Intern Cara DeHaan, arrived fresh and ready to participate in an authentic Haitian graduation ceremony.  It was exciting to see the pride and passion of the graduates during the ceremony which was surprisingly short.  Zach even got the opportunity to wash the feet of the graduates as well as issuing his own inspirational monologue and thank-you speech for the edification of the graduates. Please pray that this experience will motivate the graduates to plant TLT throughout the Northwest Department.  Training like TLT is so effective in an area like Jean-Rabel where so few opportunities exist because of distance and isolation.