Today was our first official travel day of the World Race. We spent the week training and worshiping in Santo Domingo before departing to our first ministry site. My team and 3 other teams departed for Haiti this morning, while 7 other teams stayed in the Dominican Republic to travel to their seperate sites. My team will spend the month of July in Haiti and then return to the DR for August. Our travel day was a beautiful mess, but it was blessed with the Lord’s grace and provision in many ways.
After spending the evening working on our squad dance for the dance-off at the Awakening, we re-packed all of our things and prepared to leave for Haiti. Our departure time was set for 9am, but then delayed by the realization that the van/bus didn’t have a cargo area for all of our packs. So, after our transportation left and returned with a trailor, we departed the DR around 11:30am.
I’ll have to admit that my attitude was not in check this morning. I was happy to sit around and spend time with my teammates for a few hours while waiting for the bus, but irritated when we stopped for gas two seconds after we began the drive. Not to mention that there were 31 people crammed in a small bus…our team represented our awesomeness in the back seat. (I’ll post a picture later). That’s definitely a disadvantage of being small on this trip…I get packed away like a sardine…seriously haha!
The breaks on our van started having some issues after about an hour of driving, (don’t freak out, it wasn’t a big deal), so we pulled over for about 30 minutes, which put us even more behind schedule. Actually, there’s not really a schedule on the World Race because there’s no telling what will happen…but you get my drift. After fixing the bus, we were well on our way…until the bus driver stopped yet again to get food. My attitude at this point, obviously still not in check :). So, we were really on our way after the food stop.
We were pushed for time, possibly driving about 500 miles an hour, to get to the Haitian border before 6pm. We prayed that the Lord would go ahead of us in the situation at the border, because we had no clue where we would stay if we didn’t get through. We arrived at the border around 6:15 and our van was swarmed by people on the outside. They saw Americans arriving and wanted to sell us things. I think that we all really began to realize how vulnerable we were and prayed to the Lord for safety.
Some taxi drivers also drove up beside us and tried to persuade our van driver to seperate us into three different vehicles and send our things in a seperate vehicle. One of our leaders had an intense conversation with the van driver, because he had promised he would drive us all the way across the Haitian border, but then told us he needed to be back in Santo Domingo tonight. One of the taxis had the Bible verse Psalm 121 on the side. We read it as a group, I’m not sure exactly what it said so you should look it up because it was truly amazing…something to the effect of “My help doesn’t come from the mountains, it comes from the Lord.”
I found a lot of joy in God’s humor today. He confirmed His faithfulness through a rinky dink little taxi with a chicken hatch on the back…it was painted with bright colors and looked like it belonged in a circus. After we prayed, the taxis pulled away, our driver agreed to drive us the rest of the way, and we were allowed to pass through the border…we may or may not have had to throw a little bribery in there, but the Lord’s favor still shined through in the situation.
We were supposed to travel further into Haiti, but another location offered to house us for the night. We really didn’t eat much all day and they had dinner waiting for us when we arrived…truly amazing. God knew that my attitude was a little sketchy this morning, yet He still chose to show me His presence in our traveling decisions. Sometimes things don’t work how we envision them, but that doesn’t mean the situation isn’t in the Lord’s hands.
Today showed me the importance of seeking the Lord in every decision. Things could have gone so many different ways today, but they didn’t because we sought refuge in the Lord.
We’re heading to Port Au Prince in the morning and will be there until August. We will be visiting a tent village and re-building an orphanage. We will have internet, but have been told it is slow. I will try to write again soon. I know that I will for sure be able to Skype people in August; we’ll fly into Florida on the way to Ireland so I’ll have access to some high-speed internet! I’m so excited for this month! Please continue to pray for my team and I. Love and miss you all so much!
