This is the journal entry that I wrote on my birthday:
Honestly, I did not expect today to be like this, but this might have been the best birthday I’ve ever had. I did not expect anything at all because I knew that when I applied for this trip, I would be doing the Lord’s work on my 19th birthday. All the work and ministry here gives God the spotlight, not us individually. And I accepted not having a birthday celebration this year when I signed up for this trip.
After showering this morning, I found many birthday letters on my bed from my teammates. Then, there were streamers and a homemade sign that said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESSICA” hung up outside. My teammates put in all this effort to do this all secretly to make sure I felt special today.
For ministry this morning, we drove to a nearby village called Shada. There we did evangelism to the rock crushers and blessed them with a snack and a bag of water. Rock crushers have an extremely hard job because all day long they are breaking large rocks into smaller rocks. This is used to make concrete for home building. In the end, these rock crushers only make about $1-$2 a day! This is not nearly enough to support life in Haiti, especially if these men have families. So, many times, these men will also need to have a second job.
We stayed in this village and ate lunch there in the church. After lunch, we held a kids VBS in the church. We told the story of Peter walking on water and then allowed the children to test their faith and “walk on water”. They walked over a blue hammock towards “Jesus”, who was played by my friend Taylor. Kullen and I were rippling the hammock to make it seem like a storm. We also passed out snacks and sang songs. Then, towards the end, all the children sang the happy birthday song to me in Creole. It was such a precious moment.
After leaving Shada, we went back to the the fish house and had another kids VBS for kids in our village. This VBS was led by the California team, who taught about the parting of the Red Sea.
For dinner, we headed over to the missionary housing and had a delicious, Haitian dinner! We were also celebrating another birthday, Gary’s Mom, who is my birthday twin! We have the same birthday, 50 years a part! We were both handed our own cake and we were sang to. This dinner was so important to me because, while I was missing my family back home, these strangers, who I met less than 3 weeks ago, became my family. Here, I felt at home and I felt SO LOVED!
During our team time that night, once again, my team celebrated my birthday. Team time was run by Taylor and Kirsten tonight, who sang to me with a “cookie cake” and a Gatorade! Then, Kasie showed me the most precious video that she put together. She put in so much effort all day long to gather videos of my family members and friends wishing me a happy birthday. Automatically, this video brought me to tears and I was filled with so much joy and love. I’m not the type to cry in front of a whole group of people, but I could not control it. Feeling so broken and unimportant in the past, I can truly say that those were words from the enemy. But, the TRUTH is: God has an everlasting love for me and I am so important!
No one person or group of people have put in so much effort to make me feel special and loved. I am forever grateful for this community that God has given me for this summer. This is a birthday I will never forget. Thank you Life Seekers and Supply and Multiply!
“We love because He first loved us” – 1 John 4:17
