Si Bondye Vle

Si Bondye Vle. A creole phrase that drives me nuts. Translated it means: “If God wants/wills.” Why does this phrase drive me nuts? Many reasons, but the main reason it bothers me is that it bothers me at all. This phrase is often tacked on to the end of many promises and plans made in Haiti. Si Bondye vle. If God wills. 

I will be there at 6….si Bondye vle. 

We will do that Saturday...si Bondye vle. 

I will help you with that….si Bondye vle. 

Bah! The big reason this phrase bothers me is that I feel it is often used as a cop-out for irresponsibility and unreliability. “I’ll be there at that time...unless it doesn’t work out.” In my mind, it should work out. You should be there on time. You should do what you promised. You should keep your word. 

But, before this phrase was used to compensate for a lack of responsibility, I imagine that these words were genuinely said. Yes, if God wills, this will happen. This is a biblical idea as well (James 4:13-17).

Despite how much the phrase seems at times to be nails on a chalkboard to me, I have experienced the reality of this phrase so many times in Haiti, most recently this weekend. Haiti is a fairly unpredictable place and all plans really do need to be made with “si Bondye vle” in mind. 

We had the plan. Leave Thursday around one. Arrive in Gonaives that evening. Leave early the next morning, see the Citadel, return to Gonaives, sleep, return to Port-au-Prince Saturday so that we could go to church and participate in our Easter potluck on Sunday. We had a car. We had a place to stay. We had directions. Good to go, we were going to the Citadel! This place had been on my list for a while and I was pumped.

Our (not so) trusty cage truck. 

Playing cards in the back of the truck on the way out of Port-au-Prince.

Trying to get some sleep on the way. 

But, it was not meant to be. Around 5pm on Thursday afternoon the car carrying our group of ten died. We pulled over to see if it could be easily mended, but it couldn’t. Now, we don’t have the most reliable cars at the school, so this isn’t a freak thing. We were actually surprised this hadn’t happened on any of our other adventures. Breaking down wasn’t so surprising….but where we did break down was. 

In all of Haiti, we broke down about 5 miles from a mission run by people that Robbie & Irene know from the states. This mission is where Robbie and Irene came on one of their first trips to Haiti. For missionaries who have been in Haiti a decade or two it wouldn’t be weird to wind up somewhere near someone you know, it isn’t a huge country. However, Robbie and Irene have only been here a few months. How amazing that the car would break down so near this mission.

As the sun was sinking lower in the sky and the hope of one of us (or the few curious Haitian men trying to help) fixing the truck that night sank as well, Nathaniel and Robbie hoped on a moto taxi and rode to the mission. They returned a few minutes later in the back of the mission’s truck. We loaded all of our bags in the back of the truck while we pushed our broken jalopy off the road until it could be looked at again the next morning. 

As we rode in the back of the truck the short drive to the mission we stopped to think about how fortunate we were. In all the places we could have broken down, we broke down here. Given the state of our vehicles, a break-down is an ever present possibility. It blows my mind how protected we were (are). We could have broken down in a dangerous town, a remote area near no one, anywhere but where we did. How blessed we are. 

We arrived at the mission and went up to the roof. There was a revival going on at the church on their compound so we listened to the sweet music and the preaching as Robbie cooked us a camp meal of rice, beans, and sausage. We sat in the cool evening air watching the full moon appear and disappear behind dark grey clouds, illuminating the sky when it peeked from behind. How blessed we are. 

Waiting for dinner on the roof. 

The mission was sweet! They have been on this compound for decades and the lodging was amazing. We were prepared to just sleep on the roof, but our hosts insisted we take a few of the many bedrooms available. Jill and I went into our bedroom and sat down on one of the beds and were in awe. In case you were wondering, the most comfortable bed in the world resides in La Croix, Haiti. This bed was like sleeping on one of the clouds we had just watched roll across the sky. It may seem like I’m being dramatic, but the bed I sleep in each night leaves much to be desired and this was a great change. The building also had multiple (very clean!) bathrooms and showers and after riding in a cage truck for 5 hours, nothing felt better than washing the grime and dust off our skin. And finally, as if the hospitality, soft-beds, and clean bathrooms weren’t enough, there was an ample supply of Starbucks coffee brewing when we woke up. So very blessed.

Best bed ever!

View from the roof of the mission the next morning.