a great cloud of witnesses

When I was driving out to say good-bye to Sam and Cammie the other night, the sky was proclaiming the glory of God! It was full of clouds my mom always loved, calling them “heaven clouds”. I can still hear her pointing them out, “Look, kids! Can’t you just picture Jesus coming back in clouds like those!”

It was with a heavy heart that Lily and I left Sam, Cammie, Azi and Gideon at the airport this morning. For a year now they have worked alongside of our brothers and sisters here in Haiti, and I am touched even now to realize how the Lord has touched and grown our hearts through them.

I can honestly say I have never met someone whose clear spiritual gift, calling and passion was evangelism. For a year we have watched Cammie tell old people, young people, Haitian people, American people, UN, police, homeless people, church people, voodoo people, beach people, bus people, crazy people, mean people, rude people, happy people and lost people…about Jesus. It didn’t matter if it was our “day off at the beach” or if the crowd of burly men were all holding guns. “Do you know Jesus? Can I tell you about Him?” is as natural a question for Cammie as “How are you today?”

And I can honestly say I have never met someone so unphased by the opinions of man as Sam. When Paul says, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ!” in Galatians 1, I have always wondered what that would BE like. To truly NOT care about what ANYONE but God thought…to not live with concern for ANY opinion aside from the opinion of Our Father. For a year we have seen what that looks like in Sam, a church-planter.

How do you live, how do you work, how do you walk alongside people such as these and not be changed? Praise the Lord, it would have been impossible! So many of our blogs this past year about going out and telling people about our Lord have been because of the example of Christ in these two. God has used Sam and Cammie this past year to help bring Matt and I to a far deeper walk with Him, boldly seeking Him with hungry hearts unlike we ever have before and putting that into practice in ways we had never dared nor even dreamed of.

We are deeply sad to see them go. Yet tonight, I praise the Lord! I praise the Lord for bringing them, and for aligning our lives for a time. I praise the Lord for the examples of evangelism and church-planting and 'pouring out' that they have been. I praise the Lord for their children, and for their friendship. We are thankful to add them to our "great cloud of witnesses surrounding us," that Hebrews 12:1 talks about.

Sam and Cammie are not perfect people. But we have seen them love the Lord and the sound of His voice and the touch of His hand and the warmth of His delight more than they have loved themselves, us, or the even the Haitian people.

Praise the Lord, we are thankful.

"Now they observed the confidence of Peter and John...and were amazed, and began to recognize them as people who had been with Jesus." Acts 4:13

"Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire." Hebrews 12:28

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