Recently I was reading through some old blog posts and I stumbled across this one. It’s been a little over a year since I had the opportunity to go to Haiti. I’m still just as struck by it’s beauty as I was getting off that plane for the first time. This is an excerpt from my blog about my time in Haiti:
“I had a radical, life changing, radiant experience. I felt at home, safe, fully alive. I felt, saw, tasted the Lord in way I never could of imagined and ALL I want to do is get back to that place, but it’s not my time yet.
I will wait on The Lord.
I will tell my story…
It’s been over a month since I returned from Haiti. I encounter the most incredible people, views, mountains, sunsets, foods, and music. I felt alive. I felt like myself. I felt at home is an indescribable way. Much like people struggle put heaven into words, the English language fails me every time I try to describe Haiti. Which is funny because I love words. I find so much beauty in them, but it always pails in comparison to the beauty that I experienced.
In Haiti, I saw myself. I saw my story everywhere, a story I was afraid to tell. I saw landscape that was breath taking, awe inspiring, indescribable, covered in trash, covered in rubble, in broken glass. I saw flowers growing on barbed wire. I saw myself.
I am broken. I am trash. I am rubble. I am pain. I am barbed wire, jaded and trying to keep people out.
Thankfully, that’s not where my story ends. I am redeemed. I am made new. I am being made into something beautiful, something unexpected.
I long for Haiti. I love to experience such laughter, joy, and fullness again. I long for the people I met. I have a new passion for singing and dancing on the sides of rolling mountains. I long for the simplicity, for the joy found in doing life together rather than this fast pace must compete world. I long for people that trust other people even when they look different. We could learn so much from the beautiful people of Haiti.
One day I’ll be back. Until then, I will return in every dream I have, day and night. I will return in the way I live my life, with purpose, value, and simple joy. I will be radiant like Haiti. I will embody her spirit and thus the spirit of the Lord.”
It was this trip that made my passion for missions undeniable, this trip that ignited a blazing fire inside me still burning. For every tribe, tongue, and nation to experience justice and the depth of the Father’s love; to sing, dance, and shout, bursting with pure joy in His name.
His timing is so beautiful. My heart has been longing to be sent for so many years now and I had a taste of that calling a year ago in Haiti, a taste that shattered my heart into a million pieces and somehow made it feel more full than ever before all at once. I knew from the moment I set foot in Haiti that it was only the beginning of my story, but I also knew upon arriving home it wasn’t my time yet.
Never in my wildest dreams could I of imagined that a year later I’d be preparing for The World Race, and I can’t begin to image what all is in store on this journey. What I do know though is this: The World Race is a gift and the Lord is a GOOD gift giver. It’s comforting knowing that the Lord gives us these passions and writes our story in a way that we can use them.
“The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:24
