The Travelling Picture Show

Over the past few years, Bruce (the missionary that I'm working with) has had a vision to be able to show the Jesus Film at the churches and at evangelism events in the area that we work. It has taken a while to get all the pieces together, but this summer everything finally came together. A projector, a dvd/vcr, an amplifier, a large speaker, a microphone, and a whole mess of cords were put into a medium size box and tied down to the back of a four-wheeler. I went to about 5 or 6 different places to show the film, each with its own challenges and successes. On the whole, the Haitians were in awe at seeing the stories of the Bible on "the big screen" in their own language. It was quite a blessing to watch them recognize stories of Jesus healing people, to see them mouthing the words that Jesus was speaking which they had memorized, and to see them all gasp when a big snake comes on the screen to tempt Jesus. Two of the times I showed the film stick out in my mind.

The church at Cabaret was having a week long conference and evangelism/outreach event. I happenned to be staying in the town at the same time to some surveying of the water system there, so one of the nights we decided to show the Jesus Film. There was a short-term team from Florida staying at the church to help with the week's festivities, so they spread the word about a free movie about Jesus being shown. The night came, and we set up all the equipment and the sheet on which we project the movie. Not too many people had come when we started the film, probably between 100-150 people (which is not much for the size of town we were in). After about 15 minutes, I took a walk outside to make sure the generator was running fine and to say a prayer that God would bring the people He wanted to speak to. I came back to the church and the place was packed. Probably about 500 people were packed into this church, not an empty seat to be found. And people were still coming!! By the end , we had throngs of people huddle around doorways, peering in through windows, and just sitting outside where they could listen to the dialogue. Over 700 people came!! it was a huge success and all to the glory of God.

Another night, we had decided to show the film at the church I had been attending in Moulin. I loaded the equipment onto the back of the four-wheeler and the pastor showed up on his mototaxi (like my hog), and we started off toward the church. Off in the distance the sky looked ominous and rained seemed imminent, but in Haiti, it can rain in one valley and in another valley just a few hundred feet away, not a drop could be falling. So we pushed on praying that God would hold off the rain for our arrival at the church and for the showing of the film About halfway to Moulin, the rain came down like a flood. With about 20 minutes left to go, we drove through the hard driving rain barely able to see 20 feet in front of us. The mud was getting pretty bad, and the pastor was barely able to drive on in his moto. About a half mile from the church it looked like we were going to be able to make it, when suddenly my four-wheeler just died. It would not start, and we had to resolve to push it (with all the equipment on the back) the rest of the way through the mud and the rain, over hills and through calf deep pot holes. By the grace of God we arrived, and it appeared that the equipment had not been damaged. After some poking around, we thought maybe it needed some more gas although it appeared to have some left. Since it was still raining hard and we did not think we were going to be able to show the film anymore, we decided to empty the generator of its gas and put it into the four-wheeler. After this ordeal, the four-wheeler still did not start. So I was stuck there with no way to get home. And then the rain stopped. We asked one of the guys with us if people were still going to come to the movie, and he said he thought they would. Just then some people started to show up! So we decided to show the film anyways. But now we had no gas to run the generator to make electricity for all the equipment because we put it all into the four-wheeler!!! So we found a little jug and told a kid to run as fast as he could to the nearest big town (about 45 minutes away) through the ankle deep mud to get a gallon of gas. Off he went, and we began to pray that this would all still work out. We set up all the equipment and were waiting for the gas, when it began to rain again. We cried out "God, do you not want this film to show tonight? We will be faithful in doing all we can and leave the results up to do." Despite the rain (which Haitians loathe to be out in, they never venture out in the rain), about 70 people came and packed out this little church, and the gas came not to long after as well. God completely brought it all together. It's amazing when you get to the end of your rope and abilities and just have to let God work everything out.