“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7
Yesterday morning, the temperature here in Normal, IL was -4 degrees with a windchill of -25 degrees; depending where you may have been standing. There is about 4 inches of ‘dry’ snow in my backyard, where my “trained” squirrels have to dig through the cold white powder to find the ears of corn that I left them. I can still recall while working on a survey crew in Kimball County, NE in the early 70’s that I was given a small chart the size of playing card that gave the bearer the ability to determine the windchill index and we were to apply that to another formula so we would now know how much to add to the length of our steel chain while measuring. We quickly labeled this new resource the “index of misery.”
To the many Christians who have lived in Haiti all of their lives, the reference to ‘snow’ in Psalm 51 is truly foreign to them. Probably 90 percent of Haiti still does not have electricity in their homes and the only way for them to get close to anything cold is to purchase ice from a street vendor; man-made ice in a ten-pound solid block or perhaps a small plastic bag with a pound of cubes. While living in Haiti it was very early on when I stopped drinking anything with ice cubes when I discovered a fly in a cube of my water at Hotel Kinam. Snow, a gift from God, is something that is very distant from them.
When North Americans travel to Haiti and visit schools and worship on Sunday, they are always amazed at how brilliantly white and clean the children’s clothes appear. The Haitian teachers, principals and pastors are asked what kind of detergent they use through an interpreter and their question too is foreign because the Haitians just use plain dry soap that typically has no brand, just a bag of white soap flakes. Again, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have Laundromats but they do have and ample supply of time, energy and rivers and canals.
Lori Wolfe-Beerenstrauch from Lincoln, NE captured the attached photo of a woman doing her laundry in a canal near Gonaives. This woman is cleansing each garment with a small quantity of soap and an ample supply of elbow grease. Everything is there, wash water, rinse water, the wringer and the drier is on the rocks behind her.
While living in Haiti I preferred to use Woollite on my laundry in the small bathroom sink and was blessed with a clothesline on the top of my apartment where the Haitian sun would dry my clothes. Nobody ever stopped to ask me how I got my clothes so clean; guess I used the wrong brand of soap.
The children attending the Lutheran and Christian schools in Gonaives learn about washing clothes and also about the washing of their sins through Baptism. Their sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ; they are whiter than snow. Thank you for supporting their Christian education in Haiti as they take their daily Scripture lessons to the lost into neighborhoods where the lost souls reside and still live in darkness.
Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
May God be with you…Jay