What Village?

So one of the things about our mission trips is that students…and adults say things that everyone tends to find funny. Yesterday was no exception. And every night of our trip we have a debrief time where we get together and share about what God has done throughout the day. I ask questions like, “what was your highlight?” “What was the hardest part?” “How did you see God work?” “How was your faith tested?” “What did God teach you?” “Who did you appreciate today?” and the final one, “Did anyone say anything quote-worthy today?”

I tend to use the “quote of the day” as blog titles. It is an inside joke that I can share with our family and friends. I have already heard some myself today. Well today’s quote comes from one of our students named Amy. Last night, as we were beginning our time together, I asked how their day in the village was. Amy turned to some of the other students and asked, “What village?” Now we were only in one today…and Amy was with us. It did make the top “quote of the day.”

So this morning we awoke, spent time with God, and then headed to New Vision Ministry. This is the mission/orphanage that Stephen and Autumn serve. We arrived shortly after 9AM. We were able to intro all of the kids in the orphanage to our team and Autumn shared a little of their stories of how they arrived at the orphanage. When Christa and I came in November, we were able to spend a lot of time with these kids. They are precious and many of their stories will break your heart. In some cases these kids were left at the mission because their parents did not want them or could not take care of them. Some kids had parents who died and others were just neglected or abandoned. 2+ years ago God gripped my heart towards my response to orphans. I knew that I had been adopted into His family as a result of Him saving me. But I never really thought that I could love a child the way I love Tyler and Taylor. But at a conference in Atlanta in October of 2009, God spoke directly to my heart and told me that I was to bring a child (or children) into my family by way of adoption. He told me that He has created a child just for our family. This was something that He revealed to Christa several years ago, but I wanted nothing to do with it then. Last November, God revealed to us that we would be adopting from Haiti. And perhaps it will be from the orphanage in which we have served in today.

One thing that is difficult is not knowing which child has been created for our family. Christa and I have felt a connection with a few kids in the orphanage and we have been praying hard for God to move. Our US home study is nearly complete and once we have approval it will move to the Haitian side of things. That is where things will be more difficult and we have no idea how long the process will take.  Christa and I will be creating another blog soon to keep you up-to-date on the process.

So back to our work there today. The mission houses 12 children. The youngest is almost 3 and the oldest is 18. All of these kids had so much attention today. Being that there is 35 of us, we were able to pour so much into these precious kids. They are full of energy and play hard. The girls love to be pampered. Painting nails and doing hair was fun to watch…even some of our guys left with braids. The boys in the orphanage play, and play, and play. They wore us out. We were able to share Jesus and pour so much love into these children that God created.

We arrived back at the hotel a few moments ago. All of our VBS teams (Teaching, Music, Crafts, and Rec) are all working with their translators preparing for Monday. We want to be sure that the translators understand what we are planning to do and be confident to communicate God’s Word. Once they are all finished we will have some down time. They will be able to hang out and get ready for dinner.

Tomorrow we get to go to 2 different church services. The early service is the Haitian Church and the second on is the American missionary church. I am so excited to worship with our Haitian brothers and sisters.

Please continue to pray! We need it. Today was incredibly hot. We have had a few students and adults become light headed. I thank God that we have 3 nurses on our team. God truly has blessed us. Everyone is seems to be feeling better now. Just pray that we are able to push through and that God would protect each one of us. Also pray for our time tomorrow as we do church a little differently than we are used too. And begin to pray for Monday-Thursday…those are the day we go back into the village to do VBS, train teens in God’s standard of purity, and have 2 worship gatherings for the entire village. I have the great opportunity to preach at both of those gatherings. May the Name of Jesus be lifted high and that He would draw people to Himself!

We love you all!

Pressing On,

Dale