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We sit here in the Port-au-Prince Airport, rejoicing at Wi-Fi and pizza, and at the same time lamenting at the simplicity that we left behind in Pignon. Our time in Haiti has come to a conclusion but not without it having exposed in us much about our God and ourselves. When we gathered together some seven months ago and began this journey of preparation and prayer, we couldn’t have begun to imagine what God was going to do. Why did He bring together this odd collection of men for the purposes of going to another country? What could He possible be up to?
Each step of the way we began to discover God’s design for our team. We were exposed to a culture that was the exact opposite of our own. We saw poverty and chaos and randomness that made us squirm. We were the minority race, and everywhere we went people turned their heads and stared at us due to the color of our skin. We heard language we did not understand and could not comprehend, and yet we connected with our Haitian brothers and sisters. We listened to them sing songs of worship to our Lord and we hummed along. We heard prayers of praise and adoration to our Heavenly Father and nodded our heads in agreement. We opened up our English Bibles along with their Creole Bibles and we read the same Word of God. Our faith in Jesus Christ made us one with each other, and we found that to be the thread that knit us together.
Our theme for the trip was, “Haiti, we’ve got problems.” We experienced many difficulties along the journey, from delayed flights in the States to lost luggage in Port-au-Prince to flat tires traveling the road. We traveled down roads that would never even make it on a map in the U.S. We got stuck in mud holes and riverbeds that required a dozen Haitians to help us out. We endured the life-sucking, humid heat and the pesky mosquitos. We ate spaghetti for breakfast and goat for lunch. We survived outhouses and cold showers with water we weren’t allowed to get in our mouths. There were times around the kitchen table sharing stories and laughing at each other. We bonded as brothers.
Our morning and nights were spent sitting in the living room and sharing from God’s Word and about our daily experiences. These times were rich as we shared honestly and authentically about our struggles and highlights. The bumpy roads in the back of a “Good Times” box truck as we tried to grasp on to whatever we could to not be eject from it. The sweat that glistened from our foreheads and arms as we labored in the Haitian heat. The subtle and not-so-subtle ribbings that we gave each other as we continued to feel more comfortable with each other. We came to Haiti thinking we were going to help Haiti. But we found that Haiti helped us far more than we could have ever imagined. We taught and we learned. We gave and we received. We prayed for and were prayed over. Everything provided us a greater sense of our God and ourselves. His kingdom is alive in Haiti, and the gospel of Jesus Christ goes out in the hearts and minds of many here. We are so grateful the Lord has walked with us from that opening meeting to each day on the ground here. We anticipate the fruit that will grow as a result of our time in Haiti.