S
snowfloater
Guest
Sorry I tried to copy and paste to quickly.
The story of my trip to Haiti began 7 months before I left Alaska. This was when I applied for my passport under the belief that God wanted me to go on a short term mission trip. I was fully convinced that God wanted me to go to Haiti and bought my plane tickets within the next two weeks. As time passed I grew more and more excited. Then, four weeks before it was time to go, I received a letter from the government telling me that they could not process my request for a passport because their records showed I already had one. Yet another testament to how far out of a drug haze Jesus has brought me. I don’t remember ever applying for, much less receiving a passport. I filled out a lost or stolen passport claim and they said my claim would take priority.
Priority in a system backed up for months could mean anything but I couldn’t get a straight answer from them. Suddenly I was being hit on all sides by doubt and disbelief. Did I really hear from God? Maybe God doesn’t want me to go to Haiti! Is this one of those times I’m supposed to say your will not mine? But I remembered the voice I heard when Pastor said he was going to bring people with him. I remembered how absolutely sure I was that God told me I was to go with him. I began confessing the word over my situation and every time someone asked me about my passport I would reply, “I’m going to Haiti.†Every time my thoughts would cloud with doubt I would remind myself that I am one of His sheep, His sheep hear His voice, and His voice told me to go. Two days before we left I received my passport in the mail.
The day after I received my passport I became very sick. I hadn’t been sick in almost a year and now that I was leaving I could barely get out of bed. The memory of my flight to Haiti is clouded in a congestive blur but I kept telling my self that I could do all things in Christ and that I was healed by his stripes. By the time we arrived in Haiti I was still sick but feeling a little better. When we arrived at Mother Workman’s she asked if anyone had anything to say after a welcoming praise session. As I stood to answer her I became dizzy and the pressure in my sinuses swelled to new heights but as I confessed my hope to all in attendance God healed me of my cold on the spot. My confession was, “I was sick when I got on the plane but I am healed now!â€Â
Driving from the airport was my first experience in a third world country. As we got farther away from the main hub of Port-au-prince the lack of infrastructure became evident. The rivers we passed over were choked with garbage and human excrement. The streets were a chaotic jumble of ostensibly out of control cars, heavy laden pedestrians hawking their burdens, and small starving dogs dodging traffic and feet while rummaging in the garbage for a scrap of nourishment.
Among the passing images that were indelibly marked upon my memory was a boy around the age of two. Traffic had stopped us next to a side street and there was this child. He was naked on his hands and knees pushing a rock through the filth of the alley. I could see his lips reverberating from making the sounds of a truck and the look of importance on his face as he imagined driving his rock. It occurred to me then how content we all can be when we don’t know anything better exists. What a perfect illustration of why we must be purveyors and examples of the Gospel.
For the first week at the Haitian Christian Outreach we were blessed to be a part of a pastoral convention. Hundreds of Haitians came with their pastors to attend this yearly event. There were people who walked for 3 to 5 days to get there and sleep on a concrete floor with a wicker mat for a bed. For some, that and having two guaranteed meals a day was better then what they had at home. The level of commitment, the drive to know Christ more, and the determination this modeled encouraged me then and continues to do so now. What are you willing to do to be with the greater body of Christ? What are you willing to endure to know your King more intimately? How far will you go for your God? These are questions that have new depths of meaning for me now.
During that week I spent a lot of time moving benches, playing hack with kids, finding interpreters, and talking to young adults about what it means to trust God. A lot of the young adults would only talk to you if they thought they had a chance to get “sponsored†or receive a pair of shoes. For the first few days this was great! It gave me the chance to tell them who Jehovah Jira is. Once they found out that I had nothing to give them but the Word most went away angry. I know His Word doesn’t come back void and I praise God for the work He will do in everyone of them. Still, after several days of this I became discouraged. “I can’t meet your needs!†I would say. They would turn away as I told them who could. I poured my heart out to God one evening voicing my frustration, my want to be able to help them, and my feeling of helplessness.
Just as I was broken and ready to scream at the next person to ask me for something a young man came up to me in the orphanage. I had met him on the first day and told him that I thought his t-shirt was really cool. It had a picture of a boy surrounded by lions. The backdrop was an angel with his wings spread protectively around the scene and ethereal chains in his hands holding the lions back. The caption across the bottom declared “DARE TO BE A DANIELâ€Â. With this t-shirt in his hands he approached me. “I have nothing to give you for that!†I said with more acid then I wanted as he offered it to me. He said, “No, No, gift, I give.†Can I tell you that God has perfect timing! Here is a young man who might own two t-shirts and he wanted to give me one of them because I told him how cool it was. His generosity among so many looking for a hand out touched me profoundly.
At the end of the first week everyone went home. While I was excited to be on my own, as was planned from the beginning, I have to admit to being a little apprehensive as everyone I knew drove out of the compound. Soon after I realized why none of my plans for “adventure†and hiking worked out. Hundreds of people had lived in the school for a week. These are people who have no concept of what it means to take care of their garbage. There are no landfills in Haiti. There is no trash service and recycling means to use something for as many possible purposes until it is useless. Waste builds up in piles until someone burns it or it gets washed away in torrential flooding. In some cases it just takes over entire dilapidated buildings where the goats rummage and the children play. That week I spent cleaning out the school, taking apart the food tables and storing the wood, drying and storing the wicker mats they used for bedding, taking the bunk beds apart and moving them from the missionary rooms back down to the girls’ rooms in the orphanage, moving the tables and benches from the church back to the school, and playing hack and Frisbee with the kids.
There were many things I saw there that discouraged me concerning the paid laborers and the older children. After telling so many people about how our focus on the circumstances in our lives brings us off of our focus on the only one who can change those circumstances that are beyond our own ability, it would be hypocritical to speak of that discouragement. I have spoken with God as have many others and I know that the Christian Haitian Outreach is in good hands and will continue to prosper for Gods glory.
My original plan was to hike from Kenscoff to Marigot and stay on the beach for a little while during my second week. As it turned out I was able to leave the CHO compound two times. Once I hired an off duty cop to take me into downtown Carfour and have a look around. He kept assuring me that I was safe with him as He showed me his police ID and the .44 tucked in his belt. Everyone watched my every move. I suppose being the only white man for hundreds of miles makes for quite a spectacle. For the most part even the harshest face softened to a smile when I said, “bonsoirâ€Â.
There were still strong looks of asperity and hungry looks of depravity that my ever vigilant protector conspicuously steered me away from but for the most part I was just a peculiarity that briefly disrupted the ever present flow of lives bent on survival. On my second trip off the CHO compound Pastor Jometre barrowed an SUV from a friend and drove me through the mazes of shanty towns, open air markets, and public beaches to the outskirts of the city. He showed me that there was a middle class in Haiti, albeit small, and I saw how easy it would be to fall in love with its land. God’s glory can be found in all the earth!
The story of my trip to Haiti began 7 months before I left Alaska. This was when I applied for my passport under the belief that God wanted me to go on a short term mission trip. I was fully convinced that God wanted me to go to Haiti and bought my plane tickets within the next two weeks. As time passed I grew more and more excited. Then, four weeks before it was time to go, I received a letter from the government telling me that they could not process my request for a passport because their records showed I already had one. Yet another testament to how far out of a drug haze Jesus has brought me. I don’t remember ever applying for, much less receiving a passport. I filled out a lost or stolen passport claim and they said my claim would take priority.
Priority in a system backed up for months could mean anything but I couldn’t get a straight answer from them. Suddenly I was being hit on all sides by doubt and disbelief. Did I really hear from God? Maybe God doesn’t want me to go to Haiti! Is this one of those times I’m supposed to say your will not mine? But I remembered the voice I heard when Pastor said he was going to bring people with him. I remembered how absolutely sure I was that God told me I was to go with him. I began confessing the word over my situation and every time someone asked me about my passport I would reply, “I’m going to Haiti.†Every time my thoughts would cloud with doubt I would remind myself that I am one of His sheep, His sheep hear His voice, and His voice told me to go. Two days before we left I received my passport in the mail.
The day after I received my passport I became very sick. I hadn’t been sick in almost a year and now that I was leaving I could barely get out of bed. The memory of my flight to Haiti is clouded in a congestive blur but I kept telling my self that I could do all things in Christ and that I was healed by his stripes. By the time we arrived in Haiti I was still sick but feeling a little better. When we arrived at Mother Workman’s she asked if anyone had anything to say after a welcoming praise session. As I stood to answer her I became dizzy and the pressure in my sinuses swelled to new heights but as I confessed my hope to all in attendance God healed me of my cold on the spot. My confession was, “I was sick when I got on the plane but I am healed now!â€Â
Driving from the airport was my first experience in a third world country. As we got farther away from the main hub of Port-au-prince the lack of infrastructure became evident. The rivers we passed over were choked with garbage and human excrement. The streets were a chaotic jumble of ostensibly out of control cars, heavy laden pedestrians hawking their burdens, and small starving dogs dodging traffic and feet while rummaging in the garbage for a scrap of nourishment.
Among the passing images that were indelibly marked upon my memory was a boy around the age of two. Traffic had stopped us next to a side street and there was this child. He was naked on his hands and knees pushing a rock through the filth of the alley. I could see his lips reverberating from making the sounds of a truck and the look of importance on his face as he imagined driving his rock. It occurred to me then how content we all can be when we don’t know anything better exists. What a perfect illustration of why we must be purveyors and examples of the Gospel.
For the first week at the Haitian Christian Outreach we were blessed to be a part of a pastoral convention. Hundreds of Haitians came with their pastors to attend this yearly event. There were people who walked for 3 to 5 days to get there and sleep on a concrete floor with a wicker mat for a bed. For some, that and having two guaranteed meals a day was better then what they had at home. The level of commitment, the drive to know Christ more, and the determination this modeled encouraged me then and continues to do so now. What are you willing to do to be with the greater body of Christ? What are you willing to endure to know your King more intimately? How far will you go for your God? These are questions that have new depths of meaning for me now.
During that week I spent a lot of time moving benches, playing hack with kids, finding interpreters, and talking to young adults about what it means to trust God. A lot of the young adults would only talk to you if they thought they had a chance to get “sponsored†or receive a pair of shoes. For the first few days this was great! It gave me the chance to tell them who Jehovah Jira is. Once they found out that I had nothing to give them but the Word most went away angry. I know His Word doesn’t come back void and I praise God for the work He will do in everyone of them. Still, after several days of this I became discouraged. “I can’t meet your needs!†I would say. They would turn away as I told them who could. I poured my heart out to God one evening voicing my frustration, my want to be able to help them, and my feeling of helplessness.
Just as I was broken and ready to scream at the next person to ask me for something a young man came up to me in the orphanage. I had met him on the first day and told him that I thought his t-shirt was really cool. It had a picture of a boy surrounded by lions. The backdrop was an angel with his wings spread protectively around the scene and ethereal chains in his hands holding the lions back. The caption across the bottom declared “DARE TO BE A DANIELâ€Â. With this t-shirt in his hands he approached me. “I have nothing to give you for that!†I said with more acid then I wanted as he offered it to me. He said, “No, No, gift, I give.†Can I tell you that God has perfect timing! Here is a young man who might own two t-shirts and he wanted to give me one of them because I told him how cool it was. His generosity among so many looking for a hand out touched me profoundly.
At the end of the first week everyone went home. While I was excited to be on my own, as was planned from the beginning, I have to admit to being a little apprehensive as everyone I knew drove out of the compound. Soon after I realized why none of my plans for “adventure†and hiking worked out. Hundreds of people had lived in the school for a week. These are people who have no concept of what it means to take care of their garbage. There are no landfills in Haiti. There is no trash service and recycling means to use something for as many possible purposes until it is useless. Waste builds up in piles until someone burns it or it gets washed away in torrential flooding. In some cases it just takes over entire dilapidated buildings where the goats rummage and the children play. That week I spent cleaning out the school, taking apart the food tables and storing the wood, drying and storing the wicker mats they used for bedding, taking the bunk beds apart and moving them from the missionary rooms back down to the girls’ rooms in the orphanage, moving the tables and benches from the church back to the school, and playing hack and Frisbee with the kids.
There were many things I saw there that discouraged me concerning the paid laborers and the older children. After telling so many people about how our focus on the circumstances in our lives brings us off of our focus on the only one who can change those circumstances that are beyond our own ability, it would be hypocritical to speak of that discouragement. I have spoken with God as have many others and I know that the Christian Haitian Outreach is in good hands and will continue to prosper for Gods glory.
My original plan was to hike from Kenscoff to Marigot and stay on the beach for a little while during my second week. As it turned out I was able to leave the CHO compound two times. Once I hired an off duty cop to take me into downtown Carfour and have a look around. He kept assuring me that I was safe with him as He showed me his police ID and the .44 tucked in his belt. Everyone watched my every move. I suppose being the only white man for hundreds of miles makes for quite a spectacle. For the most part even the harshest face softened to a smile when I said, “bonsoirâ€Â.
There were still strong looks of asperity and hungry looks of depravity that my ever vigilant protector conspicuously steered me away from but for the most part I was just a peculiarity that briefly disrupted the ever present flow of lives bent on survival. On my second trip off the CHO compound Pastor Jometre barrowed an SUV from a friend and drove me through the mazes of shanty towns, open air markets, and public beaches to the outskirts of the city. He showed me that there was a middle class in Haiti, albeit small, and I saw how easy it would be to fall in love with its land. God’s glory can be found in all the earth!
I broke it up into paragraphs to make it easier to read. 8-)
.... well, your trip to Haiti was excitement, put the second part 
: ...