The Highway to Haiti

When mom and dad were visiting us last month, they met and quickly fell in love with, Naomi, who works for us, and her two children. Recently, my parents sent us some Christmas packages, overflowing with goodies! Naturally, one of the packages contained some gifts for Naomi’s family. My mom had bought an adorable little doll for Eman, Naomi’s five year-old daughter. Though my parents had sent these gifts with the purest of intentions, it presented us with a dilemma.

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A few months ago I (Matt) was riding with another missionary named Bill. Along the way, Bill was telling me about his family’s experiences in their first year in Haiti. He told me about strange noises they used to hear. He said every night they would hear something walking on and in their roof. Whatever it was would walk from one end of the roof to the other, and stop right above their bedroom. The tin roof would crunch under its weight and the wooden rafters would shiver and creak as the prowler moved through them. Night after night, they would hear it, but they could never see it.

Bill told me his family began praying over their house—and they prayed with their son who was in elementary school at the time. Sometime later, Bill was talking with another missionary named Ray and the topic of strange noises came up in the conversation. Ray told Bill that the same thing happened to his family in another town pretty far away. Ray said that he had some relatives visiting and they actually tried to trap whatever this roof-walking creature was. In the daytime they planned how they would stakeout the corners of the roof as well as access points, such as trees. In the evening, like clockwork, the intruder began making noise. Within minutes, everyone had a flashlight and got into position. They found nothing. Ray told Bill that in Haiti there is actually a spirit being that is believed to walk on rooftops.

Later that day I came home and told Pam about my day and recounted some of the things Bill and I talked about. I told her about the roof-walker. Just then, she reminded me of something unusual that happened to us when we lived among the Haitian community in Miami last year—something I had totally forgotten about.
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