HAITI RECAP, DAYS 1 and 2 - Stories
So we wanted to share about our highlights from our recent Haiti trip! God did so much and we tried to journal most of it down so we wouldn't forget the details. Most of our pictures from the trip are on our facebook page, so this will be primarily dedicated to stories. We wanted to go over each day and share specific stories of how God touched our lives, and others' lives:
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First day landing in Porte Prince and driving to
Jeremie, here are some crazy things we saw:
o
Extreme poverty, most homes are made out of
sticks w/ tarps as a roof, or metal aluminum sheets w/ scrap pieces to hold
together, most homes are 8' x 12' and that's it, people everywhere, tons of children, trash everywhere, they do everything on the side
of the road, sell goods, cut meat, build furniture, cut steel, play, landfills
full of trash w/ pigs in them, and people selling food right next to them. Police driving by w/ automatic guns, security
companies guarding gas stations w/ shotguns, every animal (cows, goats, etc)
has ribs showing from malnutrition, women carry everything on their heads, boys
(7 or 8 yr olds) walking along the highway w/ maschettis. I know right, I'm thinking to myself, "Where am I?"
- Then when we got into the countryside it was SO beautiful. A complete jungle, very green, hills, trees, etc. A complete contrast from the city. We landed in Porte Prince in the late morning and took a 8 1/2 hour bus ride to Jeremie. The first part of the trip was paved roads, and the last 4 hours...lets just say it was like driving through the middle of nowhere on a dirt road w/ rocks and huge potholes all over the place, going around steep drop offs (like Colorado) with one lane while 2 cars are passing each other. It was an experience we'll never forget! We arrived in Jeremie at night and went to bed after unpacking.
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Day 1: Cultural emersion! We went out in groups of 3 into the town
without a translator! We had a sheet w/
things to do on it, like change money at a local bank, find café to send an
email, find water well, pray for people, ask them about their relationship with Jesus, etc. It was
really challenging to do this without a translator, but God was faithful to
line up different people along the way to help out. Mike’s group (one of the guys on our team) went out and along the way they
encountered a Muslim man. Even without a
translator, they were able to speak w/ him and lead him to Christ that first
day! Crazy enough, all throughout our
trip we kept seeing him over and over again.
On day 2, we saw him and he went evangelizing with Mike’s group! (talk about on-hands discipleship!) And later on in the trip, when Mike’s group
was lost, they encountered him again and he took them to his house! They prayed over his pregnant wife, which he
told them he had led her to Christ after he became a Christian! Praise God!
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Day 2: The second day of ministry was
evangelism/outreach day. We grouped up
in 3’s w/ a translator this time! We were
initially dropped off into a handicap area and asked by our leaders to pray for
handicap people and invite them to our dinner/foot washing event we were going
to have the next evening. So we walked
around for about 15 minutes and could'nt find any handicap people! So Daniel (our translator) asked us if we
felt led to pray for anyone to let him know as we walked and we could pray for
people and talk w/ them. So as we walked
and prayed and asked God to show us the work He was already doing, He led us to
specific people. The few highlights for
me was our group praying for a woman who had had a stomach issue for 3 months and she got
healed. We then walked down to a group
of men by their motorcycles (motorcycles are the main transportation in Haiti,
they use them to taxi people around town).
We stopped and one of the men approached us, I asked him if he had ever
heard the gospel before and he said ‘No.’
So we began to share Jesus with him and pretty soon, there was a group
of around 35-40 men completely surrounding the 4 of us. We were entirely encircled by these men as
they heard the good news of Jesus. So
after sharing the gospel, one man especially had many questions and we went
back and forth for about 45 minutes while the group still surrounded us, and then
we invited anyone who wanted to turn from their sin and trust in Jesus to pray
with us. So around 20 people received
Christ that moment and were able to get some of their phone numbers to have
local disciples follow up with them.
Afterwards we were walking back to our large group and we stepped aside
to pray for a woman with a headache who was a Christian. We layed hands on her and after we prayed she
began waving herself like she was hot and was saying something in Creole. Daniel, our translator, told us that she said
she had no more headache! It was a pretty
amazing 2nd day to our trip and through the other groups that went out,
God did similar things (healed people and many came to faith in Christ that
day).
o
Other things we experienced on Day 2: Our team
being a part of feeding over 150+ children and having to turn 40 of them away
because of running out of food, multiple mothers trying to hand their babies
over to us, Yes, this is not a joke, there were women who saw us and were
trying to give their small babies away to us for good.
More updates to come on days 3 and 4 next.
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