In 1989 A wife, her husband, and a man devoted to giving his life to the poor, were given the gift of the darkest corner of the diocese in Haiti by their bishop.
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Norman, Katherine and Father Glen arrived in Kabonal as the first three members of their church and found a goat pen. Even worse, they found that they were in the midst of a society of starving peasants who practiced cannibalism and Satan worship. They decided that their first task was to stem the immediate crisis of a hungry people who needed food for their bodies, in order to better help them later to accept the Bread of Life. In the village the locals were watching to see how the new "Jesus people" fared. After all, they would need to weigh out which god was stronger, their voodoo or this new Jesus. Katherine, Norm and Father Glen began going door- to- door to take a census, introduce them-selves and find out the needs of the families around them. They found that fathers offered their young daughters to other men for a trinket, and sold them as voodoo prostitutes. Pregnancies abounded but the girls were malnourished, the babies starving, and little bundles of dead bodies would find their way down the mountain for burial. Their first dilemma was how to feed the people without fostering dependence, and without introducing foreign foods into their diet.
A related problem was how to stabilize the families so that their children could begin getting nutrition and medication for worms. They came to the conclusion that they would start a "school" where they could give the mothers of the children who would be attending a no- interest loan to grow beans, corn, potatoes, and pitimi. The produce was bought by the mission at higher than street market value and the 28 children attending school received not only this, but milk and vitamins.
Gradually the crisis stabilized. The missionaries began to call forth order out of the chaos around them and real schooling could begin, not just the shell that was formed to meet the basic needs of the children. But they were fighting against powers and principalities that were feeling threatened. A local witch doctor hired five machete' men from Port au Prince to kill the "Jesus people". But a widow who had overheard the planning warned the three missionaries, and UN officials who were in the area to monitor the elections caught the machete' men. She in turn was killed in revenge, and became the first martyr.
On Christmas Eve, Satanic ritual demanded the death of a child to counteract the power of the Coming One. The man who lived outside their front gate made arrangements to sell his pregnant wife for the occasion. Unbeknownst to her, she was to be ripped open and both she and her child would be sacrificed to the Devil. Norman, Katherine and Father Glen began to pray, and through the night they held a vigil of prayer. With gratitude and praise they heard that the woman escaped, and when she returned 7 months later, the witch doctor was dead. Today her child attends school at the mission.
Not only are the local villagers paid for their produce, they are also eligible for a program which has enabled 72 plots of land to be purchased by individuals from their profits. Three hundred houses have been built. Two thousand cooking pots have been distributed to replace the tin cans that were used before. But best of all, as you walk around today you notice air of confidence and equality that is apparent, and Katherine tells of how they leave Kabonal for three months of the year, turning over the entire mission and its finances to their local staff. Even as we walked around, the grounds grasses were being hand machete by the village men in order that "their" property would look nice for the visitors from the States who would be arriving just after we left.
At 3 am the pots of beans and pitimi are put on to boil and about 2000 people are fed daily.
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Young men are being sponsored to attend seminary, both the Protestant and Catholic, and a two-hour interdenominational praise service is held on Sundays before the regular Protestant and Catholic services. Denominational barriers are being pulled down as the mission attempts to gather in the sheep of Christ, and love and cherish each individual.
As confidence among the villagers grew, so did the faith of the missionaries.
Katherine related that they learned to joyfully accept the cross as they coped with the expectations and demands that surrounded them. The need was great, and the Lord responded by putting a joy and love into their hearts, and by opening up many pocketbooks to fund the work.
A miraculous source of water was found, and funds to have it fed into the village by gravity were offered and have provided a healthy water source for the entire region. Today, the 28 children have grown to more than 1,100 and are fed entirely from the produce bought back from the locals, no needy person is turned away.
Link to Terry's work in Kabonal
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