Haiti Trip 2016 Update #7

So if you haven’t heard yet, our Haiti team has arrived safely at home. Frank and Sarah took us to the airport at 5:30AM and helped us through check in, all the way up to security check. After quick good byes, got on the plane and headed home. It’s the travel story you hope for, planes land on time, customs is smooth, connection made, and back home again. Praise the Lord!

I’ve taken a few days to conclude the trip because I couldn’t think of a good way to end to bring my Haiti Trip Updates to an end. But rather then leaving a silence, I thought I’d share some joys and struggles of leading teams on short term trips.

The Joys

The joys start a long time ago, way back to when the first student confirmed her intentions of joining the trip.  This is going to happen! Although we had some up and downs with voiced desires and commitments, every time a team member was added to the trip it was so exciting.

I find it exciting because short term trips impacted my life as a student and I want them to experience it too. I want them to see that God is bigger than they could ever imagine. I want them to see that the rest of the world does not experience the luxuries we have in America. Truly, what we encounter in Haiti is more like the rest of the world then our everyday experience here in Akron.

We only had a couple of team meetings before the trip, and two conference calls, but it was a blessing to spend as much time with the team as we could. I could sense God bringing our team together from day one. As a leader, you have no idea the chemistry a team might have. Often it only takes one bad attitude to ruin a trip. What happens when you combine 7 good attitudes? It was awesome.

Sharing brings great joy! A shared experience adds a depth to relationships that is hard to develop any other way. Our hearts were blessed together with the beauty of the Haitian people and landscape, just as much as our hearts were broken together for the poverty and struggle we witnessed.

An old Irish proverb says, “the best thing you can do with your friends is to share them.” It brought me great joy to introduce my team to my friends at Heartline. Every person we encountered had a unique story of how God has brought them to this place. Truly we were all “hand picked” to be a part of this group.

Spending time with people in a foreign country accelerates the development of your relationships. I learned so much about Mark and Phyllis that I may never had known if we didn’t come on this trip. Most mornings, we would be out on the patio with our coffees, doing our quiet times and begin chatting.

Watching Traiana, Bethany, Daisy and Ashely interact with the Haitian children at the orphanage was awesome. They quickly took to loving those kids! They also showed a very hard work ethic and mature attitudes. They grew in their friendships, but also invited others to be a part of their group.

It was a joy to see Mark on Monday, and the girls on Wednesday get to experience a ministry in Haiti that I have not. They each were able to go the prisons and minister by handing out bread and worshiping with the inmates.

The Struggles

As I began to write today, I didn’t think I was going to spend as much time writing about the joys of the trip, although I could probably keep going. However, I believe in part is that I also would love to avoid the struggles. As a leader on trips like this, I can find it hard to process the trip in real time.

I’ve never been one to shy away from showing my emotions in public. After all, I’ve cried in front of my church at the pulpit on a number of occasions. That being said, I don’t like to cry in public, or at all for that matter.

But when you arrive in a place like Haiti and are surrounded by the poor, broken and impoverished, who live in conditions you could never imagine, I felt as if once I started to weep over their state I may never stop. I put guards on my heart. It’s not easy to do, but I told myself I was doing it for others.

I want to be strong for my team. I want them to know, or perceive, that I have strength beyond me. That I’ve seen this before and can handle it. But in truth, I am not all that strong. I can’t get used to it, nor do I want to. “I want to stay a little strange,” is a phrase from a blog Sarah shared with me.

Another excerpt that stood out, “And I need to remember that feeling a bit messed up after such an experience is a good thing. It means that I was not made for this world. It reminds me of a story I heard years ago in Sunday School about a mustard seed and a tree, and a kingdom that was coming.”

I’ve had the privilege of being in so many places in this world, and every time I visit one like this, it reshapes my soul. It can be a strange feeling. It may not all make sense right away, but it is a good thing.

As I was telling the story of a woman’s reaction to receiving a handmade dress, I felt the tears well up in my eyes, my voice cracked and I wanted to weep right before a room filled with people. Why? My soul was being shaped. I was confronted with her deep needs, but deeper still I was confronted with my own selfishness. I was confronted with my materialism. I was confronted with my own sinfulness.

In those confrontations, I was also reminded about the joy of serving, the joy of giving and the joy of being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Psalm 103 is an amazing Psalm, I would encourage you to read the whole thing. But when I consider how weak I am, how I struggle to do the right thing, to give of myself, or to process these things, I reflect on verses 13-14.

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:13-14 ESV)

God knows my frame. He knows that I am dust. To me this is so encouraging. When I stood outside the Canter truck to give a little boy a soccer ball, before I knew it I was caught up into a sea of people. They lived in shanties, make shift tent buildings smaller then my bedroom. Their hands were outstretched for help, love, care. I was a little afraid, I was a little alarmed, but I also wanted to help. But how could I? How can I make a dent in a need so big?

God knows that I am limited. God knows that I am weak. God knows that my resources are miniscule. And yet God allows me to partner with Him to be a blessing to others, even in the small things.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 ESV)

The joys and the struggles, they are the opportunities that God had already prepared for me to walk in. He is still working on me and in the process He allows me to bring others along. It’s His plan, His world, His story. One day He will return to make all things right. In the meantime, we are here to proclaim to the world who He is, participate in what He is doing and love others sacrificially.

And as I bring this post to a conclusion, and our time in Haiti has come to an end, the Haiti Trip Update is not over. It has only just begun. The shaping of our souls will continue. I pray the strangeness never wears off. I hope that I don’t give in to the temptation to pretend I am strong, but allow Christ’s strength to work in and through me.

May the Holy Spirit continue the work He has begun in all of us: those who traveled, those who prayed, those who supported us, those who followed our trip and those who live it every day.