 
| Missionaries Risk Danger and Chaos of Mardi Gras To Share Gospel In Haiti |
Missions News: Outreach  (Haiti) -- Thousands of people clogged the streets --men wearing chains holding condoms, women wearing hardly anything at all, and nearly everyone dressed in exotic clothes and make-up, singing, dancing, and fighting.  (In fact, several people were shot and killed that night.) Welcome to Mardi Gras in Haiti.  Despite this chaos and danger, Mike Johnson and his fellow missionaries took the opportunity to boldly share the gospel.  Mike reports, "It was one of the scariest times of my life...but definitely one of the best." The missionary team performed dramas and dances on one of the floats, and when their float stopped in front of a television station film crew, their performances were shown live throughout Haiti.  The next day, they were recognized by complete strangers: "Hey, you are that guy who was dancing" on the float, one girl remarked.  The scariest moment came on their way back to their missionary base. "There was a bunch of guys following our float dancing and lifting up their shirts, punching and kicking each other, swearing and cursing, but they never touched any of us," Mike recalls.  At one point, one of the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) students sitting on the float lost her shoe in the crowd.  Mike Johnson jumped off the float and dived into the crowd to retrieve it. "I felt like I was in the Lion King at that part where Simba was trapped in all of those antelopes," he recalls.  Just as he was about to grab the shoe, someone else in the crowd grabbed it. "I started to follow him and was going to get that shoe back but he ended up giving it back" to the YWAM student. "What a relief...."  Despite this scare, and the real dangers the team faced that night, they returned safely to their base, and report that the outreach was a great success. "This was a place that needed our light to shine through," Mike reports, "and it is God who protected us that night."  Read More: Links The Haitian Blogger: Mardi Gras In Haiti  ______________________________________________________________________________ The International Faith Telegraph |