Haiti

Well, in about three weeks, I will be blessed to be able to go back to Haiti on a missions trip for the second time.  It’s totally a God thing as money was definitely just appearing in my hands over the past year.  I am totally excited to be able to go back.  I still look at my Haiti pictures occasionally and just smile like nothing else. 

For those who don’t know, I work with a group called Mountain Faith Mission.  

Mountain Faith Mission was started in 1945 by Rev. Lee Carroll and his wife Molly. The Carrolls bought land in Mirebalais, Haiti and built a home, school and a church. Later they moved to Saut D’eau and also established a church there. The Carrolls had to leave Haiti in 1980 due to failing health but managed to establish twenty-seven churches during their thirty-five year stay.

Since 1945, God has been able to move in a mighty way.  To tell the story of the mission myself doesn’t does it justice.  I was actually able to sit down with Rev. Carroll last year before our trip and hear him talk about how he landed in Haiti.

On August 29, my pastor and I will be leaving from Indianapolis to fly to Haiti (while making three other stops).  Once there, our group will make the forty-five mile drive (taking over 4 hours) through the mountains in the back of a tap-tap (taxi) which is actually just something of a 1990 Toyota pick up truck with seats in the back.  Once to the compound in Saut d’Eau on Friday, we’ll settle in, hang out, and sleep a bit.  Saturday, I don’t know what will happen, but last year we hiked six miles, taking another four hours as we climbed a good 1500 feet to Labul, where one of our churches in located.  Sunday marks AM church and then VBS starts.  VBS for them is like church camp for us.  Over four hundred students will attend every day.  Hundreds of them will sleep on the compound at night in respective buildings.  Note that there are limited buildings, churches will all sleep in the same room, coed, on cement floors.  It’s just the way of life for them.

Over the next few days we will proceed to have morning chapel, classes, and night services, while hanging out, playing games, feeding them two meals, and just fellowshipping.  The children are the most amazing kids in the world, as they just love the fact that we “white people” would come out to meet them and hang out, while bringing them food and soccer balls.  It’s such a poor place, in fact, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.  Yet, they are the richest people I have met, as their lives are completely consumed with the love of Christ.  

Hmmmm, sounds like a good post when I get back – “Lessons Learned from Haiti.”

For now, I just ask that you would be praying for our trip.  Safety for us, for the churches traveling to VBS.  Pray for a fruitful week.  Pray specifically for me, as I have to teach one of the classes every day to each of the age groups.  It’s scary for me because I want to not only teach well to be able to prick their hearts, but also, I have to teach through a translator, as well as the fact that I must keep the cultural differences between here and there in check so I can effectively reach them.  Just pray that God really places His Word deep inside of me and that this VBS would touch hundreds of lives.  

Crystella – one of the orphans on the orphanage with MFM. Trying to talk mom and dad into adopting her… 🙂

A young boy in the streets of Saut d’Eau

A young girl outside the church at Labul