July 9th, 2010
(I had to catch up on all of my posts, so this is from a few days ago when we arrived in Haiti after a long day. Just wanted to share our journey with you and some thoughts from the day)
“Be Joyful ALWAYS, Pray continuously, give thanks in ALL
circumstances”!!- This was my prayer the whole time on our 9 hour bus ride from
the Dominican Republic into Haiti today. We had 30 something (4 teams) crammed
onto a little bus with all of our luggage piled into a trailer, wobbling and
creaking its way behind us. And 5 of us girls piled into the backseat (where I
was sitting with my teammates) Let’s just say we got really close today after
sitting and sweating on top of each other for 9 hours straight. Haha All part
of the world race!!!
Anyway to back track a little bit, we had a great Launch
week in the DR. Launch week is what you do at the beginning of the race to kick
off this whole shin dig. Our whole squad of 74 stayed in one place, which was a
gated compound in the middle of the city. We did a lot of team bonding, some
training, fun activities, preparation and some great World Race worship/ pump
up time before they sent us out. It was a great 5 days to spend with our whole
squad and really unite us. We left 7 of the teams behind in the Dominican to
spend the month there doing ministry.
And 4 teams (including my team “Team City Lights”) were sent to Haiti
for this first month of July. Our 4 teams will go back to the DR for the month
of August, and the other 7 teams will come to Haiti after we leave…so basically
we are swapping each month and won’t see those teams until we get to Ireland in
September.
Our journey to Haiti was an adventurous one!! We are
noticing quickly that this is how the whole year is going to be and it’s pretty
exciting and really crazy! We were supposed to leave at 9 am but ended up
leaving at 11:00. A few hours into our bus ride our brakes were having issues
so we had to stop and get them fixed, so this also set us back a little bit in
time. We had to get to the border by 6 before it closed and we were pushing it
by the time we were getting close. We finally got there at 6:20 after the
border was closed. Our bus was immediately surrounded by tons of people and cars
trying to sell us stuff and give us a ride into Haiti. It was pretty
overwhelming and we were a little worried as we were trying to figure out how
to get into Haiti and not get stuck at the border overnight. Like always God
came through and worked it all out in awesome ways. A cool side note: on one of
those little buses that was surrounding us, the verse Psalm 121 was written on
the side of this van just staring us in the face. That verse brought so much
peace as we just spoke the truth of Gods word over our bus and the truth over
the situation.
We made it through a little bit sweaty but so happy for
God’s goodness and provision over us.
That whole bus ride, although it sounds kinda miserable–was
actually really peaceful and exactly what a lot of us needed. I was really sore
after the ride but God just taught me a dependence through prayer that whole
time, and also just showed me His creation through the beautiful mountains of
the DR and green lush land. It was a ride of worship with the windows down and
some much needed rain to cool us off. I am so thankful to be here….I’m
currently sitting on top of a roof (a stable roof J )
gazing at the trillions of stars after a great dinner with some fellow
Adventures in Missions family. We are blessed to be able to stay here tonight instead of driving further tonight. And we are about to sleep under these stars on this roof tonight…such a random life now! haha
We leave tomorrow for our month of living in a tent city
right outside of Port Au Prince. We will be working with the our contact there
who is the pastor of a church in the tent city, working at the local orphanage,
doing some VBS and just doing whatever they need us to do. Please be praying
for unity and strength for our team throughout this next tough but very exciting
month in our new home!
Praying for all of you back home. Be Strong in the Lord and in His mighty strength! Blessings Ya’ll!! (I’m learning from my teammates that have cute accents)
