I wasn’t from a Christian family at all…my mom served the demons, and my father was a witchdoctor.
I was in the Haitian Catholic Church and school growing up, and one day our Sunday School teacher was having us sing for a program, and we were worshipping all the different members of the nativity, and it didn’t feel right to me. The whole thing didn’t feel right…I had learned the 10 Commandments, and often we were worshipping many different things.
I started seeing more and more that didn’t seem to line up with the Bible, and the more I saw or heard that conflicted with the Word, the more I wanted to study His Word. My job at that time was to sell lottery tickets and to play drums in voodoo services for our priest. One day I was sitting in my booth studying the Bible when the priest came looking for me and he came in, grabbed me, took me to church and shoved me down on a bench.
It was dark inside, so dark that I felt like I could reach out and grab the darkness. I heard people around me, but I couldn’t see ANYthing but totally dark darkness. It was heavy and awful and I NEVER wanted to be in that again. I wanted OUT of there.
What I had seen in the Bible, I kept asking about, and NO one could give me an answer. That day I could see clearly that I didn’t want anything to do with that darkness ever again, there was NOTHING there for us. I left and went to the protestant church in my village and that is still where I am today.
I was walking with Jesus and participating in everything I could in my church, and I loved it. I started dreaming of being a student of the Bible, because studying brought me so much joy.
I had already had two children before then, but since becoming a Christian, I have married the mother of my children, and now we have five together!
In December, I was sitting under a mango tree reading my bible and I saw a man I thought was waving to me. I realized later that he was waving to someone else, but in the end we started talking. He told me he was a pastor who had graduated from a school called Emmaus the year before, and said that if I loved to read God’s Word, Emmaus was where I should go.
When I came to Emmaus, right off the bat, there were two major things I had always believed that I almost immedatily realized in my classes were TOTALLY wrong. I’m realizing how much I was not understanding on my own, and as we study together, so much is becoming clearer. Even though I’ve been seeking the Lord, it’s almost like I never understood anything…the veil is being lifted.
My favorite class so far is the Fundamental Doctrines of the Bible class…I love it. There was much I didn’t understand, or wasn’t sure why Christians believed, and this has been so foundational, with such a patient and open teacher.
My wife died several years ago, so it’s now just me with our children. Pray that the Lord will keep opening my mind and eyes, pray for my children, pray for our family. Life is so challenging, and yet in Him, there is SO MUCH being held out!
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