alongside

We head to Haiti in a month and I need to get you all on board and praying! As always, it's been some journey, and we're not even there yet. 

November 9th, Sharon (hallelujah), the four kids and I will be flying into Cap-Haitian, Haiti with Missionary Flights International, and spend almost two weeks on well more than two weeks worth of good work. 

Main goals of this trip are:

--> to come alongside the men and women of Emmaus University and our village of Saccanville--students, staff, friends, family and missionaries--with fresh encouragement, hand-in-hand prayer, and faithful friendship. This has been such an increasingly dark and long-heavy season for Haiti, and many are feeling alone, discouraged, afraid and hopeless. I know from experience what a complete game changer having un-weary loved ones alongside for a few days makes. We need you praying us up to be fresh wind, fire and the transforming, empowering love of Jesus for His children in Haiti.

--> to come alongside Emmaus University and help tell the many stories of what God is doing...that you're not going to hear in the news. I'll be interviewing a large number of students, staff and leadership, as well as attending classes, chapel services, and all of us will be living daily life on campus. The videos, photos and stories I gather will be used to continue to keep prayer-warriors, donors and friends of Emmaus up to date on how to pray and how to help.  I also have some training to do, and a million questions...many of which have been struggling to be answered cross-culturally without eyes to see and ears to hear. 

Matt will not be joining us this trip as that he will be in Alaska, training and equipping pastors from villages throughout the state with Dr. Charles Lake, our dear friend and co-worker from Haiti.  Wherever my husband is, it seems God's got him doing the same thing, again and again, and as we're heard the hearts and needs of these men and women who are in very remote locations throughout Alaska and very unequipped and hungry, God's kindled his heart for this trip.

Due to the current struggles in Haiti, we're taking all the least-risk options we can control, and are continuing to be in communication with friends in Haiti who are on the ground, on the roads, at the airport, and in the know...and will be.

The children have been begging to go home, and can't understand why it's taking so long. The family we lived and worked with in Haiti at Emmaus for so many years is finally back at Emmaus from Northern Ireland, and we are all anxious to be with this family who was our family, very dramatically and suddenly ripped apart in March 2020. It's never many days between Nora or Sofie asking for the boys they were sure were their brothers. They're also anxious to see their school friends, Tati Gertha (always), Granny, Jonas, Maxi, our dear Hari neighbors, Naomi's new baby, Claudin and his children...the list goes on and on. 

The Lord has surely invested our family deeply here in Mississippi...but He hasn't changed or removed our hearts for the people He first called us to. Sometimes it all feels like too much to balance, too much to work out, too much to keep working through, but in the end He just keeps enlarging our hearts and asking us to be faithful. As we are faithful to Him, as He is faithful in Haiti, we are going to keep being faithful to His people in Haiti, too.  They are NOT forgotten. He is NOT far off. 

Just as God coulda sent a check, coulda sent an army, coulda sent all the answers, instead He sent a person...and that made all the difference. Despite the lens of the past year and a half, we continue to believe that our God is a sending God...we continue to believe that Christ IN US continues to be His hands and feet in the world today. We continue to believe that He who has called us is faithful.

We need your prayers. This particularly trip planning has been incredibly stretching for me, and how in the world is He STILL using Haiti to stretch me and my prayers and my heart so much?  Haiti brings out ALL the hard questions...We mustn't avoid the places that that cause us to wrestle. He's always ready to wrestle with me...and I always come out closer to Him.

Please be praying for all the many details to be worked out here...there...and in between, for our brothers and sisters in Haiti, for His ways to be our ways (not our ways, His ways).  Pray that we will be fully reliant on Him...as our precious Haiti family is always modeling.

Did I answer all your questions? Fire away!

I will now get carried away with pictures from our last trip to Haiti in April.