Mission to Haiti (Day 1)

We have safely made it to Ft. Lauderdale and are just about to creep into the sheets for about 5.5 hours of sleep before an early start tomorrow.

Today we really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know more about each other (that is the four of us from CWR). We grabbed a ride to Hollywood Beach and took in the waves for a few hours before enjoying dinner together at a place called the Moonlight Café. They had something called a stuffed cinnamon roll that was amazing (sorry, Weight Watchers). After dinner we met up with the other team members from Indiana, Washington D.C., Illinois, and South Dakota. Ted Powers, the lead for this entire team, took a few minutes to pray for the group and then to encourage us with something we all know, but needed to hear again.

His question: “Why are you going on this trip?” It was a great question, but rather than telling you what he said, I’m going to ask you the same question: “Why are you doing what you do as you play your role in God’s mission?” We can interact more on that Friday evening, July 24th during our “Storytelling from Haiti” evening that I hope many of you will make plans to join.

Tonight I know that each one of us is feeling our need for prayer. We want to be used by God. We want to show his love. We don’t know what to expect. We feel our weakness.

I was encouraged just now by reading Isaiah 58:6-11. There the prophet says that as we make ourselves available to the weak, God will cause us to be never-ending fountains of blessing. We don’t have to muster up the strength or the resources, we need only make ourselves available. On the heals of two very busy weeks and in the midst of feeling very much out of energy I needed to read that.