What You Choose to Remember: Haiti Mission Trip, Final Chapter

Something I have learned from previous mission trips to different places around the world is that you can't hold on to them or re-create them.  The trick is in how to remember them and let them change your life.

I will not forget the extreme poverty I saw in Haiti.  I will not forget the stark contrast of tents and stick huts with the backdrop of the beautiful Caribbean. I will not forget the throngs of people constantly moving but seemingly going nowhere.  I will not forget seeing people in every little tributary washing clothes.  I will not forget, as much as I would like to, the very large woman bathing in one of those said tributaries without a care about traffic moving right past her.  I will not forget the stomach-twisting 3 1/2-hour drive from Port au Prince to Jacmel and back through the mountains and the traffic.  I will not forget the heat that made it hard to sleep at night.

As a task-oriented person, I will not forget the progress we made on the new House of Abraham.  Soon, it will be a new home for the 13 children and those who care for them.  One day, it will serve as the team house for visiting mission teams.  I hope to stay in the house that I helped build in the months to come.

Mission trips aren't just about seeing needs and accomplishing tasks, though.  As a matter of fact, they are not even mostly about that.  They are about relationships.  Relationships with other team members.  Relationships with ministry partners like Fenel and Mimi Bruna in Jacmel, Haiti.  Relationships with the native workers at the job site.  Relationships with children and teachers at schools and discipleship meetings.  Most importantly, relationships with 13 beautiful little Haitian children who will capture your hearts and allow you to see beyond the poverty and hopelessness in Haiti to find hope in Jesus Christ and the generation that He is preparing to change Haiti. 

These are the things I choose to remember.  I remember Haiti as a beautiful place.  I remember it as a hopeful place.  Writing about our trip over the last week or so has helped cement these thoughts of Haiti.  I don't seek to hold on to the trip itself, but I do choose to learn from it and allow it to change my life here, to allow relationships like the one with my new discipleship partner to be my priority.  To pursue Great Commission living with greater intensity.

I have created a slideshow with the song that captured me most in my individual times with the Lord during our trip, "You're Beautiful," by Phil Wickham, as the soundtrack.  To watch the video without having been to Haiti, you might get the impression that Haiti is a tropical paradise, full of fun and adventure.  It is.  It's all in what you choose to remember. 

Thanks for reading.  Read about the individual days of our journey by clicking the links below:

Days 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4
Days 5 & 6
Day 7
Day 8

4theVoiceless,
Al

Last Day, Saddest Day: Haiti Mission Trip, Day 8

For the last few days, the 4theVoiceless blog has chronicled the mission trip of a team from Illinois, Florida, and Mississippi to serve at the House of Abraham in Jacmel, Haiti.  Links to previous days of the trip can be found at the bottom of this post.  

Monday morning, our last day in Haiti, was another early day.  Most of our things were already packed, and breakfast was a quick bowl of cereal, but we had to be ready early if we wanted to spend a little more time with the kids before they left for school.  They were ready early, as well, and after they said their prayers together, the final goodbyes began.

               


And then,
just like that,
they loaded up in Fenel's truck...












...and drove away.










As soon as Fenel returned from taking the kids to school, we loaded up our luggage and began the long, winding drive through the mountains to Port au Prince.  Again there, the goodbye to Fenel was quick, and there we were in the airport, waiting to fly home. 

A delay in Port au Prince put Jacob and I in a rush to catch our flight out of Miami (We made it juuust before the doors closed!); because of that, our goodbyes to our new friends from Illinois and Florida were rushed, as well.  After a lengthy delay in Dallas for mechanical issues, Jacob and I finally greeted our wives in Memphis about 1 a.m.

Maybe hasty goodbyes were a good thing.  Somehow, though, I don't feel like I gave anybody a proper goodbye after such a purposeful and life-changing week.  Sure, our team here in the states can stay connected through technology (like the first of Gabe's promised Sunday morning texts!), and we can connect with Fenel through social media, but what about with the kids? 

My friend Stephanie (Jacob's wife) wrote about this very thing on her Welcome to Walley World blog just before we left for Haiti.  Sometime during the week during a conversation with Fenel, he told us that Haitians in general do not forget people who come to visit them.  I'm glad.  Because there's a certain photo that, when I look at it, I have to remind myself that they won't forget.



I'm not exactly sure what Tchikovsky is holding up in this picture, but as you can tell, he was very happy to show it to me.  He's also holding the football that we threw together so often throughout the week.

I wonder, will Tchi be as excited to see me again when I return to the House of Abraham as he was to show me this little scrap of paper? 

I will trust Fenel's assurance that, yes, he (and the other kids) will remember me.  But I think I will send Christmas cards along with photos and me and my family...just in case.  And learn a little Haitian Creole so that I can communicate more next time.  Next time...



You can read about the other days of our week of service in Haiti here:

Days 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4
Days 5 & 6
Day 7

Tomorrow, I will have a few closing thoughts about our trip along with some photos and videos that didn't make it into any other posts and a video memory of our trip. 

Perhaps you would like to go, too.  Check out Isle Go's site for more information.  If you are part of a church that already goes to Haiti on a regular basis, make sure you find out the dates of the next trip so that you can begin to plan (and save) to go.  God's hands and feet on this earth are His people's hands and feet to "visit widows and orphans in their distress" (James 1:27).

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

Pictures of Heaven: Haiti Mission Trip, Day 7

Previous days’ blogs:
Days 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4
Days 5 & 6

Sunday, November 4

Sunday was our last full day in Jacmel, and we got a REALLY early start, attending the 6:00 A.M. service at Hosanna Baptist Church.  I’ve never seen the sun come up during a service before.  And the place was PACKED!  Because of the heat by the 8:00 service, most in the church prefer the early service.  Would they be awake?

We didn’t have to wait long to find out.  With a keyboard, a saxophone, and one singer leading us, the place got loud quickly.  Why?  Not because of the sound system but because everyone was singing with all their hearts and voices.  What a beautiful sound!  I particularly love singing songs that I recognize and can sing along with in English.  I have also experienced this in churches in Cuba and Poland, and it is such a picture (though small) of the worship around the throne in Heaven one day when every tribe and tongue and nation will bring praise to our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In all fairness, Jacob is playing, not sleeping.

An early church service meant a long morning and afternoon.  We took  photos with the kids all dressed up from church (above - Don't they look sharp?).  We played and finished signing one another's shirts. We played.  We rested.  And sadly, we packed.  But we also prepared for our final time with all the kids and one another that night.


Sunday night was the highlight of the trip for me.  If you were reading the blog before the trip, you read about the towels that my small group sent with us.  Each towel was monogrammed with one of the House of Abraham kids’ names on it.  The Lord had spoken to me in preparation for the trip just what we were to do with those towels.  I had hardly been able to contain my emotions throughout the week as I anticipated Sunday night.

Before our final team debrief, we gathered on the roof and put out 13 chairs in which the kids were to sit.  When they came up and were seated, I shared with them a short devotional from John 13, the account of Jesus washing the disciples' feet as an example of how we are to serve one another. Then, one by one, our team began to wash the feet of these precious children.  We dried their feet with their personalized towels and then folded them and placed them in their laps so that they could see their names on their towels.  I have no photos or videos of this; some moments are just too holy to try to capture through anything but memory.

As each of us washed the feet of one of the children, we would look into his or her eyes and communicate the love of our Savior.  There were many unique and special friendships formed between our team members and specific children during the week, and many of these were paired for the foot washing. 

After we had washed the feet of each of the children, we washed the feet of Jean-Jean, Mimi, and Fenel. As Scott washed Fenel's feet, he told him that those who serve most, rarely get served themselves but that that was what we came to do.  Then, each of us, in turn, poured a bowl of water over Fenel's feet.  No words can capture that moment, so I won't even try, but if you have ever had an opportunity to bless someone who has been a tremendous blessing to you, you understand in some measure what it meant for us to be able to wash the feet of those who had blessed us.

As if our emotions hadn't been wrung out enough, Fenel asked Erlande and Richardson to pray for us.  They prayed in a language that we didn't understand but with tears and a fervency that we did.  What a night!

In preparing for this trip, there was one regret that I had.  On this Sunday our church was recognizing Orphan Sunday for the first time, and I would not be able to be there.  Though we had people at each of our campuses who were entirely competent (in many ways, more so) to talk about all the areas of the 4theVoiceless ministry with those who were interested, I wanted to be there.  However, on that Sunday night, washing the feet of children who had been rescued and the feet of those who were leading them in the ways of the Lord was the perfect place for me to be on Orphan Sunday 2012.  I will never forget it.

Tomorrow's blog will be about the final day of our trip.  Today marks the first day that I can't look back and say, "Last week at this time, I was (insert memory from Haiti)."  A large part of my heart is still in Haiti, and I am looking forward (and saving toward) re-connecting with it in 2013.

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

Haiti Mission Trip, Days 5 & 6: The Beginnings of Goodbye

The first of the goodbyes

Previous days in our recent mission trip to Haiti to build the new House of Abraham home for children and to serve in Jacmel:

Days 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4

Day 5: Friday, November 2

This was a day when we experienced God’s strength that is so gloriously beyond our own.  Thursday night was the hottest night while we were in Haiti, and the power went out twice during the night.  Sleep was at times difficult because of the heat anyway, but when the power went off, the numerous fans went simultaneously silent, and the heat was an instant wake-up call.  Still, we rose early and loaded the truck for our 45-minute drive to the work site.  We had the promise of a shorter work day, as we did not pack food for lunch.

We arrived at the work site to find walls that were not only more numerous but taller.  We mixed and carried more concrete; then, around noon, our work day appeared to be coming to a close.  That’s when the truck full of interior block arrived.  We mustered the strength to unload the truck and then carry the blocks to the room where they would be used.  We decided that we would make another trip up the mountain on Saturday to see the progress that the other workers – our new Haitian friends – had made rather than saying our goodbyes to them on this day.

Interior "walls" arriving

Two cultures collide . . .  in worship

The afternoon provided an extended time of play with the kids and preparation for a discipleship group that would take place later that afternoon.  Dwayne, Fenel, Jacob, and I spent part of the afternoon worshiping and practicing songs together.  I don’t know that we ever got very polished on the songs, but I do know that it was a sweet time of worship.

High up in the mountains outside Jacmel, here’s how this particular discipleship program worked:  we  (the House of Abraham kids along with our team) climbed up and up and up the mountain in the back of the big truck, finally coming to a stop at the beginning of a path.  Then, we hiked about three-quarters of a mile or so until we came to a little stick structure that at one time had a canvas covering; it was now in tatters.  Several rows of seats that were basically stumps with large sticks laid across them made up the seating area.  Kids began to show up seemingly out of nowhere, and they continued to file in as we began to sing.  Eventually, there were over 60 kids plus our team plus several other adults. 

We sang together, and several kids sang individually.  We led “You Are My All in All” in English, and then they sang it in Creole.  Marsha and Val led a Bible story, and Jean-Jean taught the kids from that story.  Afterward, we played with them for a short time, but with rain threatening, we loaded up and headed back to the HoA.  This group meets together like this every Friday, and kids are growing in their relationship with Christ while having fellowship with one another. 

Day 6: Saturday, November 3

Souvenir shop

We began Saturday by doing a little souvenir shopping.  There are very few places to buy souvenirs in Jacmel.  We bought most of ours from a few tables set up in a beautiful little beach cove.  I have been on enough mission trips to know that souvenir shopping usually means that the trip is rapidly coming to an end. 












 The goodbyes began that afternoon as we went up to the work site to see the progress on the new HoA and say goodbye to our new friends.  There were hugs all around and many words of appreciation for one another.  We waved until we went down the other side of the driveway and out of sight.  We all hope to see photos of a completed building for the kids and workers to move into in the very near future. 

The new House of Abraham as we left it

Saturday afternoon brought coloring with the kids.  Many of these were signed by the kids and sent home with us or signed by us to be kept by the kids.  We also began the process of having all the kids sign our Isle Go T-shirts.  Little David and Saintemene just doodled, but some of the other kids were quick to write their names for them so that we would know who those “signatures” belonged to.

Jean-Jean: house parent, discipler, colorer

Richardson getting a kick out of showing off my Isle Go shirt with all the kids' signatures

We knew that we had another full day in Jacmel, but we also experienced the beginnings of goodbye.  I know that most of us weren’t ready for that.  There's not much you can do about that ache of coming separation, even if the separation is only for a little while.

There was, however, church in Haiti still to experience.  We turned in early to prepare for the 6 a.m. service.  That’s not a type.  6 o’clock in the morning!  More on that tomorrow.

Pray for provision for the new House of Abraham.  When we left a week ago today, much remained to be done, and finances were running low.  In addition, the lease on their current house expires this week.  God is the Father to the fatherless, and He owns all the resources on earth (and earth itself).  Why wouldn’t He provide if we ask?  Please join me in asking.

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

Haiti Mission Trip, Day 4: Personalities and Love Languages

Day 4: Thursday, November 1

Before leaving for the work site on Thursday, we watched as the House of Abraham kids learned Scripture together.  (They were out of school for holidays Thursday and Friday.)  We didn't understand a word they said, but it was precious to watch as they memorized God's Word together.

We arrived at the work site on Thursday to find walls going up all around!  Our bodies were sore, but we jumped right in to mixing, moving, and pouring concrete.  The heat index climbed well above 100 degrees that day, so we loosened up quickly! 

Outer walls -- progress since Wednesday.

Inner walls going up, too!

More slab completed.

More footings being poured.

After a hard day's work, we returned to the beach to cool off.  When we came in from the water (with cuts on some feet from the coral in abundance), Fenel treated us to a taste of fresh lobster -- tasty, indeed.  Then, it was back to HoA for some lovin' on kiddos!

A few things stood out to me about Thursday:

At the work site, we began to see our team's personalities, love languages, abilities, and resources really shine through.  Suzie shined with the kids who were always around the edges, watching what we were doing.  Several team members engaged the Haitian workers, and -- though there was a language barrier -- the international language of kindness broke through.  We gave away much-needed and appreciated work gloves and rubber boots.  Mark and Bethany even engaged the kids outside the gate.  The care for one another also increased as the day heated up.

This guy worked like a champ!

Hi, there, would you like some candy?

Relationships -- even more important than construction

Back at HoA, I saw God give us strength and energy to engage with the kids even as our strength waned.  Kelsie and Bethany had the resource of long hair that kept the girls entertained for hours, and they were good sports to let them.  All of us with cameras and phones with cameras were inundated with "photo, photo" requests, to show our pictures and to take theirs.  (I was surprised to feel my phone buzzing in my pocket later with text messages.  One of the kids had somehow turned my phone off of airplane mode.  I'm sure my good friends at AT&T will quickly resolve any charges to my account -- written with tongue firmly planted in cheek.)

Nice hair!

Photo, photo!

One more thing I noticed on Thursday was that as a couple of our team members began to feel puny, the concern and prayers of the workers, the children, and the HoA staff for them was heartwarming.  We encountered some beautiful, loving people, and part of our hearts are still very much there with them.

Thanks for reading.  Are you ready to go to Haiti yet?

Days 1 & 2

Day 3

4theVoiceless,
Al

Haiti Mission Trip, Day 3: Build Us Back With Precious Stones

It is through tears that I write today as I listen to Know Hope Collective's "Build Us Back" and think back to where I was just a week ago -- halfway up a mountain in Jacmel, Haiti, looking down at one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.  In the photo above, you can see the wall of the new House of Abraham from the bottom of the very steep driveway.  Reaching the top and looking out from what will soon (by faith) be the completed house, you see this:

Mountains to the left and the green waters of the Caribbean to the right.  Photos don't even begin to do it justice.  It was here that we would labor for the next few days.

Let me back up a little and take you on an adventure that we experienced just to get to the work site.  As if the 45-minute drive through Jacmel traffic and up the mountain on the thin ledge of the back of a truck weren't adventure enough, there was the crossing of the river.  You couldn't see the edges of the road, and the water came up to about a foot below the bottom of the window.  Take a look at this video, featuring the raging river and co-starring the back of Pat "Mr. Benatar" Goodwin's head:

We found a crew of Haitian workers already hard at work and were assigned our task, mixing concrete and pouring the foundation of the second level of the house.  This is the house at the beginning of Wednesday morning:

Concrete didn't come from a mixing truck or even a mixer.  It came from mixing gravel, sand (which had to be sifted), bagged cement, and water.   This was hard work!

 (Dwayne and Fenel mixing concrete, with Gabe providing expert supervision, while the Haitian crew is able to concentrate on laying block for the outer walls)

 (Mark and Pat providing the expertise in pouring and floating concrete while the rest of us did the grunt work of bringing them concrete in buckets and -- thanks to a little ingenuity in ramp-building -- wheelbarrows)

(Pouring concrete to frame the front door and windows.  All carried in buckets down a steep hill and handed up to the workers pouring it.  We were definitely glad to call it a day after this!)

Playtime with Sidewalk Chalk

After a quick trip to the ocean to cool off and partially clean up, we returned to the House of Abraham, and the kids were ready to play!  We brought out the sidewalk chalk, and they quickly turned the driveway into an art gallery.

(Gabe enjoying a foot massage, compliments of Richardson)

Precious Stones

This was the day when our team really began to click as we worked together, made sure we were all getting plenty to drink and breaks as we needed them, and played together.  In the process we began to learn one another's stories.  Though I won't share them here, let me just say that God is still very much doing the work that He had planned even before the fall: redeeming broken man back to Himself.

I admired the native stone foundation of the new HoA all week.

Each of these stones individually is just a broken piece of rock.  Fit together, however, they add stunning beauty to an already-picturesque landscape.  I couldn't help but think about how Jesus is building his Kingdom in the same way, broken pieces joined together by His blood into a beautiful tapestry of the redeemed.

Consider the lyrics of "Build Us Back":

We’ve been crumbled, we’ve been crushed

City walls have turned to dust

Broken hands and blistered feet

We walk for miles to find relief

When the thief takes, when our hopes cave

You build us back

You build us back

When the earth shakes, when the world breaks

You build us back

You build us back

We are scared, we are poor

All our safety nets are torn

We’ve been humbled to our knees

From these ruins, we believe

Redeemer, redeem us

Restorer, restore us

Oh build us back

Though the mountains be shaken, the hills be removed

Your unfailing love remains

After all that’s been taken, Your promise, still sacred

You build us back with precious stones

It's Haiti's story.  It's our story as the body of Christ, the church.  

I was privileged to see some precious stones put together to form something beautiful in Haiti last week.  Here is a photo of those precious stones:

 Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

Haiti Mission Trip: Days 1 & 2

Mission trips can't be accurately expressed through words.  Nor photos.  Nor videos.  Some things you just have to experience for yourself.  I know that. 

As I attempt to journal our 8-day trip to Haiti, I know that the ones who will be most impacted by words, photos, and videos are the ones who have actually been to Jacmel, Haiti.  The ones who have smelled the smells.  The ones who have felt the heat.  The ones who have experienced the traffic.  The ones who have loved on the children and staff of House of Abraham. 

Day 1: Monday, October 29

Jacob Walley and I had flown to Miami on Sunday night and met up with the rest of our team there early Monday morning.  Looking back on meeting all those strangers seems like forever ago now.  It didn't take us long to become family, and I miss them like family.  The team was comprised of 10 people from Salisbury Church in Charleston, Illinois; three people from two different places in Florida; and us two CHC representatives.  There were a husband and wife, mother and daughter, mother and son, and father and daughter as part of the team dynamics.

Scott Sims, Salisbury's pastor, served as our Isle Go facilitator.  Scott got us all there, helped us to run the gauntlet of "airport luggage facilitators," let everyone's gifts flourish throughout the week, and helped us to see how God was at work in us and through us.  He encouraged us to filter the week through these three questions:

     1. What did I see?  (Observation)
     2. What does it mean?  (Interpretation)
     3.  What does God want me to do with it?  (Application)

In the airport parking lot, we met Fenel Bruna, who, along with his wife Mimi, founded and runs the House of Abraham.

I knew going in that I would not be prepared for the humanity piled upon humanity that is Port au Prince.  We drove for about an hour through streets filled with people trying to scrape out a living by selling something, past the rubble that still remains from the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, and past row after row of tents and tiny shacks that so many there call home. 

I took very few photos there and reluctantly share only a couple of them.   You see, God cares for every individual among that mass of humanity, and I don't take their plight lightly.  As Scott reminded us in urging sensitivity about taking photos of extreme poverty, "That's someone's 24/7."  However, if attention to the issues that plague Haiti (and they are many, but I will let you do your own research) helps any of these people, then I want you to see them.  Understand, though, that a couple of photos don't include the massiveness or the smell or the hopelessness of extreme poverty.

After driving through Port au Prince and the surrounding towns, we began to climb the mountains toward Jacmel.  The scenery along this two-lane winding highway was breathtaking!

We saw school children everywhere, dressed in sharp, neatly pressed, colorful uniforms.  They stood in stark contrast to everyone else and were the picture of hope for Haiti's future.

We finally arrived in Jacmel at the House of Abraham late Monday afternoon.  There, we met the 13 children who live there, some of whom I felt like I had known since March, when a team from CHC served there.  We went through a brief orientation, ate dinner, and took in the first of many beautiful sunsets from the roof of HoA.  Have I mentioned that Haiti is a beautiful place?

Haiti is also a hot place.  Though there were fans throughout our rooms, it was hard to sleep.  For me, personally, this served as a great time to listen to the mix of songs that I had chosen for this trip and allow God to speak to me for sometimes hours before I could go to sleep.  He certainly strengthened me beyond the number of hours of sleep I was able to get while we were there!

Day 2: Tuesday, October 30

We were unable to get to the work site of the new HoA on Tuesday.  Flooding from Hurricane Sandy from the previous week had caused the rivers to swell, and there was a river that we were not able to cross on Tuesday.  That crossing would be interesting, to say the least, as you will see tomorrow.

Instead, we bought several hundred pounds of rice and beans, along with some canned fish and pasta to make food bags for the children at a school where Fenel leads discipleship training.  These families were affected by Sandy, so we prepared 140 bags of food to give away to the students and teachers there.  (And while we waited for the truck to return with the supplies, some of the team helped with laundry...House of Abraham style.

The children and teachers expressed gratitude for the food, school supplies, and candy that we gave them but joy that we stayed and played with them.  We had a blast, and I'm pretty sure they did, too.

After our time at the school, we had time to take a drive and walk through downtown Jacmel, and then we returned to the HoA, where the children had returned home from school.  It was playtime, where sometimes it is more fun to get the paper airplane out of the tree (and the bottle you got stuck trying to get it down) than it was playing with it in the first place!

Another delicious Haitian supper, more team sharing and hanging out together, Gabe's rendition of "Jacmel Blues" and the word of the day, and Tuesday was in the books.  We would begin our part of the construction of the new HoA home on Wednesday.

I will be back tomorrow with my chronicles on Wednesday and Thursday of our trip.  Like today's blog, those entries will seem so incomplete compared to the actual experience. 

For Those Who Invested Prayer and Finances in Our Trip

Thanks to everyone who prayed and paid for us to go.  I think I speak for the whole team when I say that your investment in us will reap long-lasting rewards in addition to the short-term benefits of our mission.  I pray that God will return to you many times over what you have invested in His work in Haiti.

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al