Traveling with a group of people can be interesting on so many levels. However, when God forms the group and unites their hearts, the things He will reveal are greater than any human could ever plan. My third trip to Haiti this summer was awesome, as usual.
Our scripture for the trip, prayed over and chosen by our pastor, was Psalm 29. Take a minute to read it if you aren't familiar. The God of glory thundered on this trip. He took us to what has become, for me, a familiar place. It's really a home away from home for my heart. I want to share some of the highlights with you. Hopefully I will stay away from the minute details that might put you to sleep!
Let's start at the very beginning....the drive to Atlanta. We decided that since there was another team sleeping at the school, and since our pastor (who went a few days before us) had said he thought (that being the key word here) he could come up with enough air mattresses for us to sleep on, that we should probably go prepared. So, we stopped at WalMart in Kennesaw. Eleven of us on a mission. A few of us grabbed a couple of bags for packing. One went to housewares to get a bathroom scale. Others headed to sporting goods and we all met there. The clerk was excited to join our quest and scoured the storeroom for enough mattresses. As we packed them in the bags and weighed them to make sure we would be under-weight for the plane we share Jesus with that man who so graciously helped us find what we needed. Ready now to get on with our trip we got outside to find there was a serious lightening storm immediately, directly, right above our van.
Not wanting further delay we continued our journey to Atlanta in that storm. The point of leaving the night before and sleeping in Atlanta was to sleep before the flight the next day. Otherwise we would have had to leave home at no later than 4 a.m. to make our flight. Well, with our side-trip to WalMart, the intensely heavy rain we had to drive through, and stopping at Taco Bell for a "quick" dinner, our ninety-minute trip took us about four hours! Oh well. We had fun - AND we had something to sleep on.
The rest of the trip involved rain. Heavy rain. Both times at Miami we were delayed for hours because the airport was closed due to the storms. None of that matters compared to the feeling of seeing friends when you arrive. I heard a voice behind me as we came out of the airport into the mass of people waiting for their travelers. "Vicki." Turning around I found Ricardeau who quickly came to hug me and kiss my cheek. The smile on his face told me I was in the right place. Arriving at the school, stepping off the bus, seeing the children, and hearing my name again...."Vicki! Vicki! Vicki!"....It made my heart sing! It brings me comfort and peace to my heart to know I am loved so far away from my American home.
It's not an easy trip. We sleep on the floor on air mattresses (well, this time the ladies got two nights on bunk beds in the orphanage.) There is no air conditioning. No grass. Some of the showers have a stream of water due to the ingenuity of the Haitians, but where I bathe I use a bucket to pour water over my body. There is a gate at the road, and a man with a gun. Twenty-four hours a day there is a man at that gate with a gun.
I've never felt like I was in danger. I have never felt like I needed to worry about being where I am there. This trip, though, I heard things that forced me to center my faith on the Lord and purposely be in His will.
Before dawn each morning from the compound next door I heard a call to prayer. The children at the orphange hear it daily. The wonderful thing about it is what happens at the orphanage at night. Those kids gather, and led by one or two of the older kids, sing praises to the God whose voice strikes with flashes of lightning, whose voice shakes the dessert, whose voice causes the deer to calf. They don't sing quietly. They are loud. They mean what they sing. Oh, but you should hear them pray! I can't understand their words, but the passion and their love for Jesus translates plainly and easily. It comes from knowing Jesus is all they have. Honestly, they don't have any hope if their hope isn't in God. When they sing, their neighbors in the compound next door hear them sing of the Lord whose voice is powerful and majestic.
My time on the Poo Crew was surprisingly joyful. We laughed, made up songs, a just enjoyed ourselves. Now, that may be hard for you to believe when I tell you that the Poo Crew detail was to pass five-gallon buckets assembly line style to a dump truck. Buckets full of Poo. Yes, that kind of Poo. We helped clean out the 16-foot deep pit that was below the outhouse which they hard torn down the week before. There really is nothing more I can say about it. You just had to be there!
It all came to reality for me after the Women's Conference. This year we spoke to over 60 women...twice as many as last year! At the end Pastor Franz came to thank us for coming. In what was most likely a few short seconds but what seemed like eternity, he locked eyes with me. Thanking us for coming he said, "You leave your home and come here to stay and sleep in very uncomfortable conditiions, but you do it because you love us. You never complain."
I tell you this not to brag but to share with you that people are watching you no matter where you are in the world. They see how you react or respond to the situations you are in. They sense and know if you are loving them. We didn't have a lot of time to teach that day (and time is even shorter when what you say has to be translated) so I can't wait to get back next July for our Third Annual Women's Conference at Eglise Baptiste Calvair d' Haiti de' Sarthe. (For my Haitian friends, I hope I got that right!) There is so much God is teaching me that I want to share with my sisters there!
Once again this year, after our conference the women of the church set off on their own mission trip to the remotest areas of Haiti. These women who are poorer than any American can realize have given their time and money to ride a cramped bus and walk to areas that really are not safe and have even less than they do. All for the purpose of sharing the name of Jesus.
God, a Gate, and a Gun? The story comes to this question. Wherein do you find your safety? That day after the conference a horrible storm came across Sarthe. At the church we could see what was happening, but were tucked safely inside the big church building. Aware of the storm, we felt safe in the closeness of the walls and buildings around us. Back at the school the area is more open and there aren't many places to go to get away from a storm like that. The winds were hard and strong. The man at the gate couldn't protect from the fierce winds that broke one of the very few trees in the yard. Part of our team found a hallway to huddle in.
But God.
Psalm 29:10-11 say this: The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, the Lord is enthroned as king forever. The Lord gives strength to his people, the Lord blesses his people with peace.
My soul is at peace. I know I will return to see my friends in Haiti, and I can't wait to step off that plane and hear my name!
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