This post is from all the way back in Haiti. Sorry for the delay, but that's the Internet for you…you never know what you're gonna get.
On our way from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, God told me my team needed to go on a camping trip. Now if you can remember, up until this point, my team had not even had one day on our own. We had been living with two other teams all month and were just informed that we'd be living with two different teams this month. When I intially heard this idea I thought it was great! We could really use some alone time together to grow into the team God desired (a team built on unity and servanthood) and quite frankly, some of us had been pretty jealous that the boys had gotten to go on a camping trip just weeks before.
Now at this point in time, I was still in the Dominican Republic. I had no earthly idea what to expect when I got to Haiti, but I figured it wouldn't be too hard to arrange a trip. Well, it turns out I was wrong. If you've ever been to Haiti then you know what I was up against. No one camps in Haiti. I mean even the Boy Scouts rarely go camping. For starters, half of the country essentially lives in tents out of necessity. Since the earthquake, many natives have become accustomed to calling their flimsy tent, home. Thus, the idea of CHOOSING to live in a tent seems a little absurd. Secondly, the nearest “campsite” (and I’m using that word loosely) is a four-hour hike away. So needless to say, God’s suggestion seemed a little crazier once I got to know the country.
In fact, thinking back to my first conversation with our host, he must have thought I had lost my marbles when I asked him if people in Haiti went camping. We were riding in a school bus in the middle of the night and people were literally flooding the streets; standing in between cars while they stopped at traffic, just to make an extra dollar. It didn’t matter if the people were tucked away behind car windows or hanging out the back of truck beds, they were possible customers. It was complete chaos out there and people were willing to do pretty much anything to make a dollar. So knowing this, when in the world would they have time to be able to go camping?
However, I knew our team needed this. Despite how ridiculous it may have sounded, we were going to go camping in Haiti!
And as per usual, God may a way for the impossible. Our host knew a person, who knew another person that happened to be a Boy Scout. As I mentioned, he didn’t go camping very much and apparently only knew how to light a fire using gasoline, but he had the official Boy Scout outfit, so we considered him qualified. As fate would also have it (cough, cough, or God’s perfect planning), our host lived on a mountain. This was perfect because he was not very uncomfortable with the idea of us sleeping outside the home he had provided for us but because we would be close by, he said the camping trip was ok.
So one weekend we set off. Team Charis and one Boy Scout, off to tame the outdoors as a unit! Little did we know that most of our trip would include trucking up a very large mountain; but nonetheless, it was exactly what God had intended for us. Praise God for the special ways he pursues us.
Now please enjoy this video of our experience…
