The Reality of Voodoo

This past team, Miss Beth and I gave the voodoo/abuse talk we do with teams to give them a glimpse of life in Haiti. Miss Beth covered the abuse part and I covered the voodoo part. It was SO hard! It was SO hard preparing for that talk. I did not want to do it. A lot of it was because I actually had to think about how I had personally seen how voodoo has affected the people I know and love. It's not that I don't ever think about that, I do. But to actually have to think through and process what I was going to say, just brought me to tears. It was also pretty intimidating because some of the team members had heard Jody give this talk and she has many more stories and examples then I do. 

I started by shared some of the basics of voodoo and the different reasons why people practice voodoo or go see a witch doctor. The most common reason for going to see a witch doctor is because someone in the family is sick. The witch doctor will make the family pay a lot of money or sacrifice something and then give them this "special" potion that will only cure the sick person because there is actual medicine in it. But the family doesn't know that... So they will go on believing that their family member was cured by the witch doctor. 

 I then asked the group to think for a little while about magic and vampires in America. In America, we make zombies, vampires, and witches into movies, games, and television shows. People love these things and at first glance they may seem harmless. What we don't realize is that they can open a door. They can create a foothold for Satan and his lies. We start out thinking that watching this show will be harmless to me. Then, we think that it's not a big deal to do the next thing, then the next, and before we know it we are faced with the reality that the Devil is alive and actively working on pulling everyone he can away from God. 

The next thing I shared was some of my own encounters with voodoo. I shared about taking groups to the voodoo capital, Ansefleur, last year and just how heart breaking it all is. How heartbreaking it is to see families spending all their money to live in a temple for a porcelain doll because they were told that is what they must do so that their sick relative may be healed. I also shared how heartbreaking it is to climb up a mountain where a cross, something that is meant to bring glory to God, is now a stump of what it once was and is used as a place to offer sacrifices. Just by looking around where that cross stands, you are overwhelemd with the fact that God's creation is screaming out who He is and that He is the One that should be praised and glorified, not some doll. 

There are many beliefs of voodoo that I don't understand, like man-eating chickens or vulture-like birds that carry you to hell or Miami and it's very difficult to try to explain them. But the hardest thing to share was this sentence, "These are things that you will probably not experience during your week in Haiti, but you will see the evidence, the scars, and the fear." Just typing it, I'm starting to tear up, because that is reality. That is my reality. I have never seen a voodoo ceremony or been in Haiti during Mardi Gras, but I have seen the scars on a little boy that are still healing years later because he was used in a voodoo ritual because he was special needs. I have heard the screams in the streets of children who are being beat and whipped by the people that are suppose to be loving and hugging them. I have heard children answer the question, "What are you afraid of?" with the answers, "Satan." "Zombies." and "Mardi Gras." You can try if you want, to tell them that what they saw was only in their imagination or a shadow, but that won't change what they saw. To them it was real and it is holding so many of them captive. 

Our job is not to attempt to explain away or rationalize their fears, but to tell them about God. To tell them about His love and His power and His plan for each and every one of them. I can tell them about how God not only wants to deliver them from the fear that weighs so heavily on their hearts but to give them power and courage over that fear. He wants them to be free and to assist in freeing those around them that are still captive. 

Even though giving this talk was extremely painful, even though writing about it was also extremely painful, it opened my eyes and my heart to how God is continuously breaking my heart even more for these people and this country. I want so desperately to see these people freed from their fears!