when you enter a season for change.. things are bound to change

This last week most of the teams have left for places all around the world. And after spending 3 months together in one house goodbyes aren’t easy. From the last day of class to the last team leaving I’ve been overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment for everyone who is in DTS this summer. It’s been amazing seeing the transformation of so many students and myself in this time of learning and growing with God. We have had a chance to learn about evangelism, medical and clean water ministries as well as our personal relationship with God. It was a full and busy 3 months and now we have 5 teams all over the world. Some of the Haitians got to ride on a plane for the first time, and see New York  for the day. Others are in Brazil and Jamaica for the first time. We had a hopeful goodbye as each team starts 2 months in a new location.

My team is a team of 8 and two children(9months + 8 years) and we are staying in Haiti for the first month and moving to the Dominican Republic for another month. We started our journey on Friday and are now in a town called Hinch. We were welcomed with open arms and blessings as we arrived at the house we are staying at. The organization had never before received a team outside of their mission so we are the first. Our team could not feel more at home here with warm smiles and hot coffee all the time. Not only are they allowing us to be apart of their mission and ministries, but they are allowing us complete access to the property and everything in it. We are constantly finding ourselves without words for how grateful we are to God for bringing us here.

Today was no exception to all of that. This morning I was woken up to chilly air and running water in the bathroom. (something I’m still not used to) I got dressed in my best Sunday clothes and headed downstairs for a morning devotion and yes.. a cup of coffee awaiting me. It was a slow morning as this all started around six, and we didn’t need to leave for church until nine. As I helped clean up after breakfast I realized just how much it really felt like a normal home-town Sunday morning and I was overly grateful for that. In Port Au Prince Sundays usually involved waking up late, missing breakfast and doing laundry all day. Not bad, just different. Today was refreshing for that exact reason. Church was also a pleasant surprise; it was beautiful architecture, very big and very clean. We had a chance to share with the children, a skit and short message, they were all so adorable. Later on we had an amazing tour of the village surrounding where we are and honestly I did not think Haiti could get any more beautiful. It’s crazy because if people knew what was here, it would be outrun with tourists, and if Haitians knew the value of where they live, they would stop wanting to get to America.

As we have been getting settled these past few days we have also been planning ministry for the next 2 weeks. We will be doing a lot of painting churches and schools, as well as local outreach to the people around us. We are staying in a small, safe community with tons of opportunity to go out and meet people.

Personally I could not feel more blessed here. Our days will be busy and long, but we have an amazing place to come back to to be refreshed, and an amazing God who can do just that. Our team feels such peace being here, and we are all loving being with the children everyday. It’s so nice to have a small enough team that we feel like family and operate like family. I just never could have imagined a year ago this is where I would be today.