Ou Konnen Noye

“Ou Konnen Noye?”

 

That was the question posed to me about thirty minutes in to our evening conversation with Jean Claude and his wife Julienne, our semi-invited Haitian guests. Jean Claude is the Sunday security guard for Chances for Children, the organization that Jessica works with, and his is an always-welcoming and friendly face. When Jessica saw him the previous day, he said that he would love for his wife to meet our family and since he knew the house in which we were staying, they would be stopping by next evening for a visit.  

The knock on the door came right as we were finishing dinner (which is Haitian for I have no idea what time it actually was) and they greeted us more warmly than we (or at least I) greeted them. My extended hand was trumped by hugs and kisses on the cheek. Within a minute, they were seated on the couches in our living room and Jessica had whipped up some pretzels (from the giant Costco tub that we inherited from the mission team from Florida that departed this morning) and Oreo cookies from the same source. I don’t know what Haitian hospitality is supposed to look like, but they seemed quite happy to share the snacks with us.

 

To this point, our limited knowledge of the Creole language was enough to get us through the perfunctory introductions and into our living room eating suitcase-imported Costco snacks; however, it quickly became clear that our guest’s command of the English language was dwarfed by my approximately 3-year-old proficiency in Creole. We proceeded with the conversation given the talking points Jessica and I have learned from 30 lessons of Pimsleur’s Haitian Creole. (All joking aside, I’d totally recommend that program as a starting point.) And so we talked about food and our families, what we did for work and where we lived. We explained how our daughter Bailey, who was still lying in the middle of the floor, had been sick for three days with an upset stomach (vant li fe mal depi twa jou) and had visited the doctor earlier in the day.  

It was just then that my 4-year-old son, Caedmon, came darting into the room dressed as Captain Underpants, his underwear firmly affixed over his head, and ran around laughing hysterically. I’m pretty sure in any book on etiquette (or hygiene for that matter) in any culture that is not a recommended practice, but it sure is a good icebreaker. I returned to the room after relocating and de-costuming Captain Underpants to carry on our conversation which was filled with more than its share of awkward silences, misspoken phrases, obvious lack of comprehension and blatant stops, (to look something up on Google Translate--another indispensable tool in my language-learning arsenal). Then came the question and a fun, albeit awkward, after dinner conversation turned downright beautiful.  

Jean Claude said something about “noye” and I was stumped. As he said “Ou konnen Noye?” I responded, “M pa konnen noye,” which was a common turn of phrase in our nearly hour-long conversation. “Noye” was nowhere to be found in the small Haitian dictionary that Jessica had and so I fumbled once again to Google Translate while making out the words “Bib la” in the background from Jean Claude’s lips. Google told me what I had simultaneously figured out from the context…he was asking me if I knew the Biblical story of Noah.

For the next ten minutes or so Jean Claude, a former water-deliver man turned security guard, proceeded to tell me, a pastor, the story of the Bible from the flood through Babel. While my Creole vocabulary doesn’t quite hold enough water to float an ark, I am pretty familiar with the Biblical story and Jean Claude patiently told the story phrase by phrase to make sure I understood what he was saying. On top of this being an absolutely brilliant way to learn a language, I was amazed and humbled by Jean Claude’s patience, grace and wisdom. Knowing no English to speak of, he not only unpacked for me the Biblical story of human sin and separation from God, but in the story of Babel he pointed out our separation from each other because of our pride and arrogance, the result of which in Genesis 11, was the confusion of our language. 

So there the four of us sat in our rented Haitian living room, humbly listening to and learning from one another despite our many differences, getting just a glimpse of what heaven will be like when, as Jean Claude pointed out, our languages will no longer be a barrier to our communication, but we will hear and understand each other perfectly.  I don’t pretend to know what heaven will be like, but I’m pretty sure he is on the right track. 

As they got up to leave, Jean Claude insisted on praying for our whole family, so we gathered together in the middle of the room. In Creole, he prayed for each of us and while I didn’t understand every word, I sure got the gist of it. When he said “Amen,” I offered to pray for him as well. I started out in Creole, cut back into English for a bit (it’s a bit harder to look at Google Translate with your eyes closed) and I think I managed to pray for them without accidentally calling down fire and brimstone on them or anything. I really think that tonight I got a sneak peak at heaven, minus the Google Translate.