One day I spent two weeks in Haiti

“One day I spent two weeks in Haiti.” Our team learned this little saying the second day of our trip; by the time we left I understood it fully. It’s now been one week since we returned home and I’ve had time to recover and process the trip, so I wanted to share a little about it….in reverse order.

This time last week I was sitting in my recliner receiving a couple of liters of fluid via IV that my mother-in-law started in the parking lot of the Atlanta airport in our minivan. The last two days of the trip I was pretty sick. My assumption is that I ate something bad and beyond that I won’t share too many details. I will say that being sick, away from home on mission, without the conveniences we’re normally used to (Gatorade, air conditioning, electricity, regularly running water, drug stores, etc.) all while your supposed to be “the leader” was a humbling experience. All dignity was lost during a two-hour van ride home from the beach on Saturday when the entire team got to watch me hanging out the window, losing it, almost the entire way. I was done: dehydrated, I didn’t eat a meal for about 3 days, and lost about 10 pounds I think. Thankfully, the Lord had mercy on me Monday as we traveled home. I felt good all day and made it home without any problems (even ate some Chick-fil-A).

I looked pretty rough at this point

Imagine being sick out of the window here!

Now, let’s back up to the other 92% of the trip. Our team was on the ground for 7 days and 7 nights in a small city called Tabarre which lies about 20 – 30 minutes outside of Port Au Prince. I won’t try to describe the whole Haiti experience. If you’re not familiar, be sure and check out a great video one of our team members did of our trip (Haiti video), think tropical heat and humidity, mosquitoes, somewhat rural conditions compared to what most of us are used to, haphazard driving, free roaming livestock, and more. Haiti is a beautiful country. It’s tropical and can be very picturesque, especially the mountains and beaches.

Our team had the privilege of staying at the home of the pastor of the church that we went to serve. Pastor Celestin and his wife have 8 children (5 still at home) and are humble, faithful servants. We were humbled by the fact that the family gave up two of the three rooms in their house for our team. This meant Pastor C and his boys slept outside on the concrete patio on a piece of carpet, while Madame Celestin and their two girls slept in the remaining bedroom. Without any air-conditioning or fans and half the time no power any ways, most of our team ended up sleeping outside also, since the bedrooms felt more like saunas.  We spread out all over the place: some in hammocks, some on the roof, some in tents, some in sleeping bags and a few remained inside. And no, it doesn’t get cooler at night.

The whole purpose of our trip was to come alongside the church in Tabarre and serve them and their community. We wanted to join in the ministry they are currently involved in and provide some encouragement and any kind of “boost” that might have been possible. The large focus of our energy was spent with children, which was great. Several years ago, the church started a primary school that now runs around 50 children. In the mornings, we were able to go and teach in the classrooms for a few hours. This stretched us and made us reach back to our basics like math, time, measurements, and geography.  Thanks to my wife’s idea, I went prepared to use my degree and teach a little life science. So our class of 5^th & 6^th graders spent the week learning the water cycle, nitrogen cycle, plant reproductive cycle, and photosynthesis. This was all fresh to them and even their professor asked some questions (he was a little skeptical I think). The great thing about the school was that we incorporated Bible teaching into everyday as well. We had times of worship and devotionals, and even saw several children come to faith in Christ!

The school (and church)

My 5th & 6th grade class

The afternoons were also spent with children. In the middle of the neighborhood there’s a huge field where we hosted a sports camp. 80-90 kids, ages 4 to 14 would show up to play everything from tug-a-war to duck-duck-goose. These were long, hot 2-hour segments of the day but provided a great ministry to the children of the community.

In between school and the sports camp, our team had the opportunity to divide up and do some mercy ministry. This is basically door-to-door visitation with specific families for the purpose of sharing the gospel, praying with them, and blessing them with a small gift of rice, beans, oil, and pasta. We were able to see a lot of the community this way and a wide variety of living conditions. The thing that stood out to me doing the mercy ministry was the honesty of the people we met. They either openly denied the gospel (but weren’t rude about it) or they had accepted it and openly confessed they were living in sin. It was oddly refreshing. We saw several of the people we visited during the day show up at the services that the church was having each night. That was really neat for our team to see the immediate impact of that visit. At the end of the week we even saw two girls accept Christ as a result of that ministry!

The field where we played sports

This was the bulk of our time and mission in Haiti. There is so much I could share. I preached my first translated sermon at the church, we learned to eat mangos and sugar cane, the sounds of the night, the American family pizza restaurant we discovered next door to the Celestins’, the Port Au Prince airport experience, and more. But, mostly I was so proud of the 11 college students we took. These guys and girls remained unified throughout the week, worked super hard, were very flexible, sacrificial, bold, and relational. It was a very successful trip and a great experience.

I want to give a special shout out to Darrell Johnson, who we partnered with for this trip. His organization is Global Ethos. Pastor Johnson is an incredible man of God who gets short-term missions. Our trip would not have been possible and definitely would not have been successful with him. He loves God, loves people, and led us well. We also took two awesome translators: Pastor Alain and Immanuel. Both of these men are Haitian but are US citizens. Pastor Alain pastors a Haitian church Miami. He also was a great asset and leader for our team. Manny (Immanuel) lives in Atlanta and just loves the Lord. His passion for people and worship is so evident. These guys made our trip so much better and our team gleaned so much from all three of them.

The church