Forgive me for not posting in a few weeks. My days have been short and packed lately!

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve had the privilege of joining several different teams in several different serving opportunities. “Miscellaneous” tends to sum up a large portion of my daily responsibilities anyway, but the past few weeks have been even more so that way. I’ve spent as many nights in Port Au Prince at our guesthouse with teams as I have in my own room in Titanyen.

Some of the highlights have been going to church and the beach with good friends, water truck and elder visits with Team Texas and Hosanna Lutheran youth group, VBS at a Christian school in Petionville with Woodridge youth group, visiting an orphanage I’d never been to before with a team who spoiled me and brought me Twix bars, another round of VBS and orphanage visits with a mother/daughter team, taptap foosball, dance parties, and a hundred other moments I can’t fit into this run-on sentence. In between those things, I’ve still been visiting elders and attempting to stay on top of all the open projects I’m involved in. The past couple weeks have been a lot, but they have been so, so good!

It has been good to see Haiti with fresh eyes again. Watching others experience life here for the first time humbles me. Watching children and teenagers willingly wash strangers’ feet, hearing teams debrief the things they have seen, reuniting with leaders who come back over and over again, and fielding messages from people who want to serve more and donate more reminds me of when Haiti first grabbed my heart.

Now when I serve with a team, I don’t feel like I’m visiting strangers. I finally know a little of the language, enough to connect. Team members throw a million questions at me, and while I seldom know the answers, sometimes I do and I’m happy to have them ask me. Children on the street in Cite Soleil know my name, and while it isn’t about me, I love nothing more than when I know one of their names too. I certainly know their faces.

Each team also reminds me of all the people with whom I have traveled on short term missions trips. And all the people who have spoken into my life in many diverse and beautiful ways throughout my life. I am who I am today because of Jesus and all the people who invested their time and faith in my life.

“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” Hebrews 13:7