One of the most frustrating things about working with foreigners is the fact that little pieces of vital information can easily be lost in translation. Normally these tid bits of info are lost over the phone, or an e-mail, something that a quick reply or another phone call could render. The hard part is when the miscommunication occurs and you are already in the location you were originally supposed to travel to, only to find out that there is no place to go.
I thought this might happen at some point during the race, but not as soon as the second month, and not it Haiti. Luckily for our team, we have a fearless leader whose purpose on this race is to lead us in the perfect will of God, no matter what our plans may entail.
What it came down to was that the pastor who was supposed to host us couldn’t afford to feed us and house us at the ministry site on our meager budget. So, after 4 days of staying in Pout-Au-Prince at a beautiful ministry house, a three night Haitian revival, and running into another short term mission team from Douglasville, GA, (what are the odds, right?) we received a phone call from AIM stating that they had nothing for us. That’s right; no contacts, no churches, nothing. At this point we started to panic a little bit. However, it was also at this point that Joshua, our team leader, remembered that he knew a missionary couple named David and Judy Heady who lived in Haiti and ran a ministry here called ‘Global Outreach-Haiti.’ He immediately called Judy, explained our predicament, and asked if she had any room at the ministry to house 7 able-bodied workers. If I remember correctly, her Kentucky-born Southern accent stated, “Well Joshua, you’d better get your butt down here!” That afternoon, we loaded all of our precious cargo up again into another Tap Tap and traveled to a remote village in the Haitian mountains called Titayane.
We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. All we knew was that Judy had space for us, and that we could stay there until at least the 14th. As the Tap Tap pulled into the graveled entrance of the ministry site, everything a world racer dreams about became a reality. As our eyes graced the landscape and swept across the greenery, we saw our next Haitian home. Tall, lusciously green mountains encircled the back of the 66-acre enclosed organization of Global Outreach. You would think the mountains would be enough eye candy for one month, but God took it a step further. Looking out towards the front of the site, you see the glassy, blue vastness that is the Caribbean Sea.
Not only do we have the beauty of God’s creation to admire everyday, we have beds. Yes, my friends and fellow racers reading this, we have beds. The kind of beds you dream about when you are used to sleeping on a sleeping pad over a hard concrete floor. It was just a gloriously divine site for sleepy, traveled eyes.
The ministry we will be spending the next month with, Global Outreach, is an incredibly unique and kingdom-minded organization that I am absolutely thrilled to work with. Each year, Global Outreach trains and equips up to 3,000 Haitian Christian school teachers, pastors, health-care workers, project directors and young people. The have a weekly feeding program, cooking and sewing programs, a burn clinic, and a well-drilling program. Global Outreach has been in Haiti for over 28 years, and my team and I are incredibly blessed to be able to partner with them for August.
As you can see, God took our patience and willingness to wait on Him and change our plans, and blessed it. No, I don’t feel like the phrase ‘blessed it’ truly expresses my gratitude. He rocked it. He totally took our plans and blew them out of the water, blessing us exceedingly and abundantly outside of our wildest dreams and expectations. Our God is so good. OUR GOD IS SO GOOD!
