A Dinner Invitation …
More and more weeks seem to go by and I am still sick. I am pretty sure that I caught the flu from someone that came into visit a couple of weeks ago. It is truly bizarre, because I started out with a fever and vomiting, and now I have symptoms that resemble a sinus infection and yet still have a fever. My hope is that I am all better by a week and a half for when we journey back to the United States for my brother’s wedding. This seems completely doable, except for the fact that this sickness apparently likes to linger.
We have also been in the midst of about 10 straight days of rain. Honestly, today is the first day without rain that I can remember in the last two weeks, and some of the days in rained a lot. Having all the rain, though, was kind of nice – a change of pace, and a subtle reminder of what it means to be somewhere that the seasons actually change. Probably the worst day of rain that we have had in the last two weeks came on last Saturday night. This was extremely unfortunate considering this was the night that one of my Bible College students invited Lorraine and I over for dinner, because I was unsure whether or not the dinner date would still be on. Fortunately, our dinner plans were still on, but it was just a matter of dressing appropriately.
To be truthful, neither Lorraine nor I knew what to expect with our dinner invitation. This was the first time that either of us had been invited over to a students house. Sonlight Academy students usually invited their teachers over to their house to meet their parents, but this was even different from that because my invitation was from my student, who is a parent. Lorraine and I dressed like we would when teach, so that we made sure that we were not under-dressed for the occasion, and we had ourselves ready to go promptly at 6pm.
As we were being picked up, we came to learn that my Bible College English student has four children that attend Sonlight Academy. I knew Mr. Robinson had at least one child at Sonlight, but I did not realize he had four, and that his oldest is in 8th Grade. He oldest daughter Kewin was with him and his wife and this help to make our conversations go so much better and smoother. Robinson speaks pretty good English, but he does not yet know a lot of vocabulary, and so having Kewin, who has had English for nine years really helped out. Robinson, himself, is a very important man in our city, because he is the Minister of Finance. Besides this important government position, he and his wife also run a professional school that teaches Haitians how to use computers and other things essential for business. Most importantly, though, Robinson and his wife are very strong Christians and they faithfully attend a local Baptist Church in the heart of Port-de-Paix. They are a great family and Lorraine and I had an absolutely wonderful time.
Initially, we thought that the dinner invitation was for us to go to their house and share a meal, but when they arrived they took us to a restaurant. As it turned out, the restaurant that we ended up eating at was owned by one of our Academy student’s parents. Lorraine and I both teach the Freshmen class for different subjects, and it is our student Laurie whose parents own Club Rendez-vous. We had never been to this restaurant before, and so we knew we were in for a treat. The Rendez-vous sat right out on the ocean, which at any other time would have been absolutely gorgeous, but like I said previously, we received torrential winds and rain on Saturday. For dinner there were two options: goat or chicken. Lorraine and I both chose goat, and more specifically fried goat. It came with some fried plantains and was extremely tasty. Going to a restaurant in Haiti, though, is much different from the US, because it make take up to two hours for you to receive your food, and so you kind of have to plan for an all-nighter. This was fine for us because we were enjoying talking and fellowshipping and learning more about each others families.
Before we left, Mr. Robinson found out that Lorraine likes Conch, and so he was determined that we come over for dinner again, so that we can all have Conch. This seemed very nice to both Lorraine and I, and we will eagerly await our next dinner invitiation.
The Jones family has had a “tough year” so far, but that certainly does not mean that the Lord is not using us, or that the Lord has left us. Nights like last Saturday with Mr. Robinson and his family firmly remind us why we are here in Haiti. Blessings!
