The Following is an Edited Devotional from Eva Cobau. Eva was a
member of the GPUMC who died sadly in November 2018. She visited
Haiti on two mission trips representing GPUMC, once in 2014 and once
in 2016.
Connecting
with Music in Haiti
Read: Colossians 3:14-17
Going to Haiti for
the first time in 2014, the poverty drove me to tears and tore at my
heart strings. I was forever moved and became truly thankful for
everything I had, clean water, food, my family, shelter, this church,
and medical care. As a typical American, I took all those things for
granted. That trip changed my life.
The second time I
was in Haiti I was looking for a way to connect with the students at
the school where we were working. This was challenging because of the
language barrier. The students spoke creole and I only spoke English.
One moment God blessed me and let me connect with someone in my age
group-which had never before happened on this trip and is something I
very much struggle with in my own life.
I was reading
some of the desks that had been removed from the classrooms to be
cleaned and have the student’s doodles removed. As I read the
graffiti on the desks, I noticed lyrics to some of the songs I had
loaded on my cell phone.
In the courtyard
behind the school, I approached a group of boys and asked “Do you
like music?’ They were confused so I asked our interpreter,
Velencia, to help. One boy asked for Nicki Manaj and I played a song
called “Check it Out”. I placed one head phone bud in his ear,
one in my ear and we shared the music.
I asked him if he liked rap. He said he like Eminem. I got really
excited and said “We’re from the same place, Detroit!!”
Velencia and him looked very confused at me. Then I recalled French
it’s called “De-Twah.” Once I said that the confusion
disappeared and Velencia translated my words for him. We then jammed
out to some Eminem. Velencia then translated that he wanted to show
me his music! I was thrilled. The genre was Haitian-Wop, another
type of hip hop. He shared his music and I liked it.
We had become friends through the universal language of music.
Eva Cobau - 11/09/1996 – 11/05/2018
No comments:
Post a Comment