I wrote a couple of blogs while I was in Haiti, but none about Haiti. Haiti was just a very difficult month, especially to start in.
Being the first month of the race, I didn’t know what to expect from it. I thought what I was going through in month one was going to be my new norm for the next ten months.
I knew Haiti was a poor country going in, and I knew that us missionaries were going to be in run-down places for the most part. What I didn’t know until after month one ended was that Haiti is THE most impoverished country in the western hemisphere.
I also knew that we were going to be working, you know, doing ministry. What I didn’t know until after month one ended was that we worked so hard and so much. My team had non-stop ministry, Monday through Friday: 7am, breakfast, leave at 8, work all day, get back at 4:30, shower, dinner, team time, bed. Not to mention we also had team times on our days off, and church, and adventures.
Other than ministry and adventure days, we were not allowed off the concrete compound. If I wanted any quiet or alone time, I’d have to get up within the 5 o’clock hour, maybe even before.
Add all this up, and you get an unhealthy balance and unhealthy view of together time/ alone time, an overwhelming change in culture from extreme luxury to extreme poverty, so much spiritual darkness and heaviness in the atmosphere from discontentment and evil and voodoo, and all I wanted was to get out.
This is what my first impression of the race was.
Instead of stepping into a season of freash air and life and freedom, I stepped into a season of a daily perseverance and fight for the peace of God in my life.
All that to say, I am indescribably thankful that God looks at me and sees that my gold is worth refining. That the tree I am becoming is worth pruning. How amazing is my Jesus that he is leading me through a season of daily perseverance to produce in me godly character? Pretty dang amazing.
