Bio

"Bainet!” a strong whisper under his breath that took him on a trip to the wide open universe of his past. Every time he looked back, he couldn’t help but fall on his knees and praise God’s son, Jesus Christ, for what he had done for him and his family. Mario was nearing his 47th birthday. Sitting in his favorite rocking chair and thinking about his one great passion, the Christian Church, and how it was a large part of that trip back to the memories of how Christianity saved him from the tentacles of Satan and his supporters. In those days, the whole town seemed to have been the servant of the demonic spirit of Voodoo. Christianity, or rather, Roman Catholicism, had made its peace with this religion of possession. But a small band of Protestants, Pentecostal in spirit and early Christian in faith, started a war against Voodoo and Mario’s mother joined that righteous band of Jesus lovers and changed his life forever. Slowly at first but with increasing authority and religious force, they saved so many citizens of Bainet from the spiritual shackles of voodoo and the seemingly limitless powers of Satan.
            Today was a bit harder for Mario because of these flooded memories. They were like a clear stream cascading through his mind and heart. Once he got up from his bed, all in good health, and washed himself and waited, not long, for his niece to fix his breakfast, he found himself walking to his porch with the dreams of his past heavy upon his mind. He seemed to be two persons today. A distant neighbor and a very close neighbor to himself whereby he had his voice and then somebody else’s voice above his head, outside his heart, but near his ears to know that it was not him speaking. All this pointed towards his responsibility to tell all the stories that were stored up in his mind and heart about how Pentecostalism won the victory against the brutal and manipulative deception of voodoo worship and magic. His head was a whole library of stories and before his dearest Mother passed, she made him promise that he would sit down and tell these stories or isolate himself in the wounds and happiness of time to write the church’s stories and experiences down for posterity.
            The day was so beautifully bright and warm for Mario, almost like the day his mother went off to eternity. It was such an easy and peaceful death. Looking up at the morning sun, he knew this was going to be a very different day, and that his mother was going to dominate his thoughts. “Tell our stories, my child,” she told him, gazing in his soul and yet already at the right hand of God. Mario remembers how he leaned over and touched her forehead with his lips and squeezed her hand as a promise to give each account of how Christ and his band of warriors took on all of Voodoo’s protectors, including the corrupt and murderous government.
            Nobody came on that porch and his niece after giving him a mid-morning breakfast had left for the market and Mario continued to sit long enough to see nature bring some slight rain followed by a lovely mist to the day. He was pleased about this wiping out of a clear day so the world couldn’t see his tears of joy for the life of his mother and he could hear her now, “God has blessed us to find the way and to show others the way too, my child.” Next Thursday would be three years since she had been called away to heaven only three years before and Mario was left with a stubborn, but infinitely fascinating man, who was his father. The father broke his mother’s heart because as his Christian wife, he refused to yield to her wish to try Jesus and Christianity. Ogoun and Legba were his Gods. Voodoo is what he worshipped and it seemed that no amount of prayer or preaching or teaching of the Holy Word would change that. Yes, he was a mystery, but not to God and Mario strongly felt that he was left here on earth to bring the old man into the Christian fold, and when that was accomplished, his father would join his mother and he could leave Bainet and minister elsewhere.
            “It’s not natural to sit for so long,” he said to himself. He got up with his plate and glass and walked back into his house, passed through the living room and dining room to gain the kitchen and placed his plate and glass into the sink, rinsing them and leaving them there. He needed a walk by the waters because he had convinced himself on that porch that he was going to do exactly what his mother had made him promise. He was going to tell the stories of the Christian Pentecostals, like his mother, himself and others, and how they won victory over Satan and voodoo, miracles over magical illusions, human love over human misery, life over death. The stories were going to be told in memory of the old saints and for the healing sake of the young generation in Bainet, those that were still dabbling in voodoo for answers because they are victims of fear and revenge.
            Mario would tell them the story of the curse of Satan and the victory of Jesus Christ in Bainet. He had grow up in these two worlds with a father that was involved in voodoo and a mother who had led him to Jesus Christ and Pentecostalism, the genuine and powerful Christianity that took on and won the fight against Satan and his bloody and greedy helpers in Bainet.
            All of Bainet knew he was a great storyteller, his stories of, the fear, the struggle, and of the despair, which ultimately led to the lifting up of the spirit, and the victory of the Pentecostal faith against invisible, evil forces. He would tell, and must tell, these stories to the new generation of Bainet, and Mario was up to the challenge. Here you will find fourteen short tales. In each one of these wonderful tales we find voodoo to be a very powerful religion that only Jesus Christ can undo what it does. Everyone who reads these hearts felt tales will be affected one way or another by them.