A few weeks ago I led a youth team here in Haiti that came to do construction on a clinic. We stayed in the mountains behind Port au Prince, and did the construction an hour from the Dominican border. Which means we had to go at least 3 hours each way every day. Yes, that means at least 6 hours a day were spent with 30 people crammed into a bus that fits maybe 20 and has almost no seats in it. Yes, we spent as many hours a day on the bus as we did doing construction. Yes, I lost much of my sleep as a result that week. And we were blessed by it.
It wasn’t just because we got to do work with our hands (though that is a rewarding feeling). It wasn’t just because this town needed their clinic finished (though they did). It wasn’t the knowledge of how many would be helped by this clinic for years to come (though many will). We were blessed because we were given a place within a legacy (which encompasses all those other things too). For years Pastor Vragne (Va-ron-yay) has been trusting in the vision God gave him to start a church, a clinic, and one day a school in this remote town of Blanket (blon-ket) – and when I say trusting I mean with no means what so ever in his pocket to begin these monumental tasks he has been praying and believing that they would come to pass because the Lord told him they would. The church was started and God provided a way for the building to be built. The clinic has been slowly coming together for the last 4 years, and now it has 3 offices and a brand new waiting/reception area so people don’t have to stand in the sun for hours to see a doctor. The day Pastor Vragne stood with us watching the roof go on, he was so happy he threw himself at me in a full body hug. Yeah, picture 5’7″ me with a 6’2″ shouting, smiling Haitian pastor, with as many grey hairs as he has black ones, wrapped around me like a winter coat. He took the promise he’d been trusting the Lord to fulfill – and not just sitting back waiting for it but actively seeking it in faith all that time – and passed that promise on to us. In being a part of that promise, we have been drawn into a legacy that reaches long before and long after our time here. Pastor Vragne could never have done this on his own, but in passing the promise God made him to others he has passed on a blessing, a legacy, that is further reaching than he himself could ever be.
All of us saw the fulfillment of a decade of prayer – we didn’t just see it, we got to be part of the answer. We pass those stories on to others and they too are strengthened. How far our God takes a single promise, a single story, in glorifying Him and bringing His kingdom.
