Report by Emily Ziegler
Hello to our family and friends back home! We are having an INCREDIBLE time here in the Z’Orange community! I am one of the team members on this trip, and I have the privilege of writing today’s report. I am so excited to share with you what God has done for us today and what He has taught me personally. We walked up the mountain to a church called KodeKris to do VBS with the children there. This church is about a 20-minute walk on a rocky, uphill path. What surprised me was the children from Z’Orange who chose to walk with us all the way up to KodeKris. Many of these children had already seen the VBS we presented yesterday, yet they still wanted to come, because they simply enjoy spending time with us and playing with us! It is common for the children to come up and hold your hand and smile at you…they all melt your heart. From the younger to the older children, boys or girls, they want to give you their affection. Such a giving and relational culture! On our way there, we passed by a young boy (my guess would be he was about 4 years old) who was walking a donkey by himself. I could not help but think of my own children and how I could never imagine them walking a donkey by themselves. When we arrived up the mountain at the KodeKris Church, we sang songs with the children, presented our Bible lesson, helped the children with a craft (a bracelet that represents Jesus as their Living Water), and gave out snacks. On our way back, we passed by the same little boy with the donkey, yet this time he was riding the donkey with an adult. I am in awe watching the children take on these major responsibilities for their families.
God has been so gracious to lead me to come to Haiti. I am a wife and mom of two wonderful kids. In America, it is easy to make life about YOU and YOUR people. I have found this to be especially true since having children. I find myself wanting a safe and comfortable life. I want to protect my children from harm. I want a nice home, with a nice school in a nice neighborhood, and I’m a nice person, and everything can be…you know, nice. While these things aren’t bad, I began to want them more than I wanted God. I became less willing for God to use me how He wanted, because He might mess up what I thought I had going for me. What if all those things I chase after are the very things keeping me from knowing God more intimately? He has been so gentle in revealing to me that HE IS WORTH YOUR EVERYTHING! It freaks me out to offer God anything He may ask of me – but that’s the point. That’s where we need Him, lean into Him, and get to see how He moves in the details of our lives. It is absolutely freeing.
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” – Mark 8: 35-36