Hello,
I am writing to request prayer for a couple of events today. The first being a really bad accident happening around 3:00 AM last night. The buses here in Haiti just plow down the main highway at high speeds and honk instead of slow down for cars, motorcycles or pedestrians. As we have shared in the past Carnival is the start of a season of more intense voodoo celebrations leading up to Good Friday, which the people practicing voodoo call Bad Friday. One of the most popular ways to to celebrate is to have a RaRa. Typically they start in the afternoon as a parade that involves music, alcohol and a few whips. But late evening RaRa dissolves into a mob type parade with wild music, voodoo chanting, sexual immorality, violence and most people involved are very drunk. There are vendors with wheel barrows full of alcohol following along with the RaRa. Alcohol being given to anyone regardless of age.
So by the middle of the night most of the people are in no shape to be thinking straight. Well last night one of the buses came barreling through a RaRa in Badjo a village know for its voodoo. Badjo is a small village right next to the village of Debarriers, where we have a church. I don't think either village is more then a few square miles. They are so close to each other it is hard to know where one ends and the other starts. This bus never stopped, going full speed it ran into the people in the RaRa. First reports before 6AM were 23 dead. The main highway to Cap Haitian was blocked off. By 12 noon the highway was open, but with remnants from the accident. The death toll is now at 39. The photos coming in from people we know are very gruesome. The bus hit them head on and plowed through the crowd. The bus headed straight for the police station, most likely to avoid problems. Drivers in the past have been dragged out, killed, and then the bus set on fire. The most horrific part of this is that the crowd was dancing for satan, so most likey they are not with Jesus right now. So please pray for the families, friends and whoever was involved with what happened in front of their eyes, from the photos I can not even begin to imagine the horror they saw. Also this will mean parents not coming home to little children ever again. We have asked three of our churches that surround this village, all within a few miles, Marose across the river from Badjo and Debarriers and Poteou bordering Badjo, to go and pray for the families and people involved. We have asked them to look at this as outreach and to not judge the people that were at the RaRa. Please pray for our congregations that they will reach out and in a healing way.
Our Pastors and congregations are also inviting people from the area to the final night of our crusade in Marose. Pray that God will use the circumstances of last night to heal and draw more people to him. The main witch doctor at the RaRa was witnessed to by Pastor Nathan just last week and he told Nathan "later Nathan later". I hate hearing a witch doctor say those words, it usually means it is his last chance to accept Jesus.
Thank you so much for your prayers, we really need them.
Blessings,
Chris
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