I had the honor and absolute joy of spending the better part of the last week with a women’s retreat team who had traveled down specifically to serve the women of Haiti and to collect women’s stories and favorite Bible verses, testimonies of the Lord’s work in individual lives. I was able to serve alongside this team as they visited an elder in the community, hosted a women’s gathering, served our Haitian staff through sharing chores and a Bible study, blessed some local pastors and their wives, and held babies at the Home for Sick and Dying Babies. The teams’ joyful and willing spirits uplifted mine and all those we encountered.

As part of their retreat, we were able to also spend some time in purposeful rest and fellowship, sharing meals, devotions, worship, and some down time at the swimming pool. I connected with new friends and reconnected with a few people who have already become very important to me. My network of prayer and moral support keeps expanding, and I am grateful beyond words that the Lord allowed these women to be part of my life this week.

Due to some unrest in the area, our weekend plans were altered and cut back as a precaution. The team headed to the airport early this morning to wait out any road blocks that would keep them from their flights this afternoon. And now I sit at the guesthouse, making a flexible but hopeful plan for things I want to accomplish this coming week, starting with transportation back to my apartment within the next day or so.

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13