Arranging our transition from Haiti to the Dominican Republic was one of my first responsibilities as a logistics person for my squad. I only slept for a few hours the night before we left Haiti, because I was anxious about whether our transportation would arrive on time and whether the other details would work out despite language barriers. But, my worries were unnecessary; God continues to amaze me in His faithfulness of seemingly small details.
The day was quite eventful, but thankfully we arrived in San Juan, Dominican Republic after 13 hours of traveling. I got motion sickness during the first 15 minutes of the ride, which left me out of commission for most of the day, but my teammate Kendra wrote about travel day so I’ll post her thoughts! My teammate Rachel also wrote about our interesting day to the market in Haiti so I will post that as well. I think it’s great for you all to get an insight to the beautiful people that I’m spending my days ministering with.
Specific prayers for Haiti:
Jean Claude’s church and ministry
Violence in the tent communities, many women are raped on a daily basis
There is a spiritual revival happening in Haiti, pray for preachers to rise up and walk in the truth
The Haitian government…they’re shady and most of the people in Haiti want to overthrow the government (foreign aide for the earthquake hasn’t been released because the government is so corrupt)
I hated how dirty it was.
I hated how dirty I was.
I hated that I didn’t have yummy food.
I hated that I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying.
I hated not being able to go out whenever I wanted.
I hated that I got sick for 3 days and had to walk 20 minutes to the hospital because there weren’t any available seats on Tap-Taps.
I basically hated all things Haiti.
I liked our ministry and the people were cool, but I just couldn’t seem to shake my bad attitude. It wasn’t an obvious bad attitude. It was more of an internal bad attitude.
I had a lot of time to think and pray while I was sick, considering I was in bed for two days while my team was doing ministry. God pretty slapped me in the face during that time. I had to get up off my tush and be the hands and feet of Jesus. So, that’s what I tried to do with my time left in Haiti. I put on a smile even when I didn’t feel like. I played with kids that hadn’t bathed in weeks. I made relationships with people in the house we lived in even though we couldn’t always understand each other. And, that time changed my heart. I loved everything about being in the house after that. Saying goodbye to the kids and friends I had made was hard. A lot harder than I would have pictured it being at the beginning of July.
Now, I am in San Juan, Dominican Republic. We arrived late Saturday night after 13+ hours of traveling. I woke up at 5:30am. Got on Bus #1. We rode for an hour to the closest bus station. There, we waited until 8:30am to get onto our second bus. Bus #2 was AMAZING (it had air conditioning and everything) until we had to drive up hills. I guess our American bodies and backpacks were too heavy for that bus. So we got off the bus in the middle of the mountains and hopped on Bus #3. Bus #3 wasn’t too bad either. Not quite as awesome as #2, but it definitely worked. We rode #3 for a few hours until we got to Santo Domingo where we got on Bus #4, only to drive about 30 minutes to get to another bus station in the same city. That’s where bus #5 came in. It was pretty nice. It had air conditioning, baby blue curtains, and seats for everyone. I call that class! All in all it was a great travel day with God’s hands in everything that happened.
San Juan is absolutely beautiful, and they have multiple restaurants with food other than rice and beans!!! WOOHOO. Last night we had a chance to walk around as a team with one of our ministry contacts for the month, Emily. We had such an amazing time walking around the town and ending up at a square in the middle of town where a band was playing under a gazebo. So much fun! Plus, we bought ice cream from a vendor that was so delicious. My team and Team Soar are going to be working in a slum of San Juan this month that I am so excited about. It is a bit of a shady part of town, so please be in prayer for our safety and that the hearts of the people there will be opened to us sharing our faith with them this month.
Plus, I’m eating fried chicken at a fast food restaurant that has the internet. score
in most of the countries we go to we are encouraged not to just throw out money. When americans throw out money it gives people there a wrong impression. I never thought about that mindset until now but it makes sense. When you go somewhere and just hand out money it sends out a lot of wrong messages. One being that we, the givers, view money as the best way to bless people and a thing we hold high in imptoratance, when in reality its not at all. It also stuns the community. It teaches people to be dependent and to not strive to succeed for themselves. A lot of poverty stricken communities around the world have people come into them and just hand them money and when the money is gone its just gone. they don’t have education or things to grow. Instead, with the world race we really like to go in and give something that is forever. Wel like to build relationships, and teach people to grow in a relationship with Christ and then in the appropriate times and places we like to bless them financially. A lot of times our time is the best gift to give. It shows them our heart and how we love them because God loves them and in those times of giving our time we are able to bless them in ways of service- if we can:)
so last month it was hard to be in haiti with this poverty and know what to do. I naturally wanted to give money and material things but I knew those things don’t last so I had to just work on loving and building relatioships. Once relationships are built, then we were able to bless them…which ended up being a blessing for me as well.
Canou, one of the Haitian guys living at pastor jean claude’s house, loves to sew and he is so good at it. He makes his money by making clothes for people in the house. So a couple of the girls on my team and I decided it’d be awesome for us to be able to hang out with Canou, go to the market, get fabric and pay him to make us a skirt. Canou is a busy guy because he also works translating for people, but about 2 days before we left we were able to go to the market with him.
When it was time to go we gathered the troops and it was me, Kendra, Leah, Stacey, and Canou. We stepped outside our gated house and it was time to experience the real haiti, outside of the church and the tent community and school. So we caught a ride with a bus kinda thing. Me, Kendra, and Leah up front with the driver, and Stace and Canou in the back. When we arrived at the downtown area we were all pretty blown away and excited. it was so crazy. After avoiding getting run over every 5 secs and getting money out of a gaurded ATM, we were off on the search for fabric. While we were walking I heard one of the girls behind me say, “Rach, did you see that?” then another girls say, “no, Rachel. don’t look back just keep walking.” so of course I freak out a little bit thinking what in the world is going on on this crazy haitian street. Then the girls told me they just saw a man dead in the middle of the street and that he had possibly just been shot.
WOW. this woke me up to where I really was and how real this was. We definitely aren’t in the USA anymore. the people here are so used to seeing death they were just walking right by the man who was just killed like it was no big deal. Right after we walked away the police came up and then people started to gather, but its crazy to me that no one stopped before then. In regards to how freaking scary this is, I want to emphasize how ridiculously protected me and my team are by the hand of the all powerful Gd of the heavens. In that moment we literally were walking in the valley of the shadow of death and weren’t fearful or in any danger. I have a feeling God is going to let me see a lot this year but in that I will be protected. I walk in the strength of His Holy Spirit and I have no doubt that He has a massive angel army surrounding me at all times:) Our God is love. He loves us and will protect His children. I am not scared:)
After all that craziness, Kendra was like ,” rachel, did you just see that??” and of course, as usual, I didn’t. Then she explained to me that some of the stores in the market were selling voodoo dolls. Wake up call #2. Voodoo is real. We are in a spiritual battle and to think that evil isn’t fighting or that evil doesnt have power is just naiive. Yes, our God is the all powerful God. Our God conqueors ALL things and He loves to stomp out all evil. But people, we can’t be stupid. Its is out there and it is real. Its our job as His children to stand up against evil with the authority we have through Jesus name and call it out. Through Him we are always stronger but we can NOT just ignore that it like its not there.. When that happens, Satan is winning. So as my friends and family in Christ, right now I’m telling you I refuse to let Satan win. So I will call it out. It might now always be a sweet pretty little blog. It might not always sound safe but as americans we really have to step up.
I feel like we, myself included, have made safety an idle. staying safe should not be a concern. Loving God and bringing His kingdom should be our only concern. In that, God will protect us. One of my favorite quotes from Francis Chan is, ” Christians are like manure. If they are all stuck together (like in their safe little perfect communities), they really stink. But, if they are spread apart, they restore broken land.”
Maybe that quote isnt word for word but its close. Its silly, but spend some time thinking about the truth in it. It’ll probably rock your world. It rocks mine:)
Anyways after one little fabric dispute and a couple of cokes later, me and the girls and Canou headed home. It was an amazing day. God taught me a lot. Other than the things I mentioned above He taught me I need more patience especially with my friends and that I need to be more sensitive to other people, especially when they are having a rough day. *Shev, aren’t you happy God is teaching me to be sensitive to other people’s feelings and to be patient?? I figure you will love seeing the fruits of this when I get home:):) and God taught me I am really good at being frustrated and ignoring the situation–which is not a good thing. But I praise God and thank God for my beautiful teammate, Leah. She is such a sweet bubbly woman of God so you wouldn’t expect it but she is very good at addressing problems. Like when I’m not being super honest and acting passive aggressive, Leah calls me out. Which might sound like a bad thing, but its not AT ALL. I love her for it. She is helping me grow so much and I’m learning from her how to address problems in a lighter, more delicate way:)
In conclusion, I was able to bless Canou. I found some cute, hemp looking fabric and he was able to make me a skirt. It was a fun process and a wonderful way to get to know and have fun with our ministry contact. It was also fun to joke with Him and Todo, another guy living in the house, about pockets and other cultural difference in dresscode. I loooove pockets in skirts/dresses, but they continued to tell me pockets are only for boys. girls don’t need pockets- they keep their things in a purse. and that pants and shorts are only for boys. haha it was a fun little discussion and after lots of laughs I got a long skirt with pockets yippeee!! haha.
I had a wonderful, rough month in Haiti. I’m now in the DR and very excited about all we are going to do here:) If you are praying for me and my team- THANK YOU! and I’d also love if you’d continue to pray for Haiti. It’s obvious God is working there but there is a spiritual war going on there. God has already won. My prayer is that Haiti as a country will rise up and we will witness what God has already done and continues to do there:)
