Rehoboth Ministries

This is the first in a series of posts sharing stories from our years in the mission field.

In 1988, my parents were driving from Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital and largest city (where we lived at the time), to Cap-Haitien, to scout out a location for a church plant. The two cities are about 180 miles apart–to get from one to the other, you have to cross a steep mountain range rising as high as 4,000 feet in elevation. The road itself is a narrow, two-lane affair that U.S. Marines built in the 1920s. As such, there are a lot of blind spots and hairpin turns.

On the day my parents made the drive, a national strike was in effect. The trip takes several hours and things change quickly in Haiti, so my parents weren’t aware of the danger they were putting themselves in. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been traveling with two small children and an envelope full of cash to pay for their hotel that evening. (These were the days before credit cards in Haiti.)

As my Dad came around the highest point in the highway, the hairpin turn at Mount Puilboreau (“Pill-burrow”), he saw a car chassis pulled across the road. Suddenly, there were men and women everywhere, surrounding the vehicle. The men were holding machetes and beating on the car, demanding that my parents roll down the windows. When my Dad cracked his, they made it clear that my parents would not be allowed to pass without paying money. After giving them a few bills, my Dad stretched out his wallet to show them that it was money. Clearly dissatisfied, the men started eyeing the suitcases in the back of the vehicle, pondering what to do next. The women started to make faces at my baby brother, whose brown eyes were winning them over from his carrier. My parents started praying that the crowd wouldn’t make them out of the car. There was an envelope full of cash hidden underneath my brother and the car itself was only a few years old.

Suddenly, one of the man jumped on the hood of the vehicle and started demanding that we drive him to Plaisance (the next town up the road). Thinking quickly, my Dad asked the rest of the crowd, “Surely you guys aren’t going to let this guy get a free ride to Plaisance and leave you here to do all the work?” Hearing this, the crowd suddenly turned on the man and yanked him off the vehicle. “What do you mean, ‘Take you to Plaisance’?” they shouted. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here with us.” As people started laughing at the man, someone pulled the chassis out of the road and waved us through. To this day, my Mom thinks my Dad’s question was a word of wisdom from the Lord.

As I grew up, my family made several more roadtrips back to Port-au-Prince to visit friends. Each time, as we were approaching Puilboreau, I would ask, “Is this where it happened? Is this where the Lord gave you that word of wisdom?” It became one of our family folk tales, the time God spared us from a terrible fate.

Sadly, things in Haiti have not gotten any better since 1988. In fact, they’ve gotten a lot worse. Today, due to gang activity, it is no longer safe to make the trip, especially as a foreigner. As a result, I don’t know if I’ll ever see Puilboreau again. I did find a picture on Instagram of the hairpin turn where it happened, though. When I look at it, it reminds me to thank the Lord for how he protected my family in the past and prompts me to intercede for a better future for the Haitian people. Would you join me?