Haiti March 13, 2014

Report by Hailey Elder

Awaken my soul, come awake
To hunger, to seek, to thirst
Awaken first love, come awake,
To do as you did at first
Spirit of the Living God come fall afresh on me,
Come wake me from my sleep
Blow through the caverns of my soul flow in me,
To overflow
Tired feet. Full hearts. Genuine Joy. Light in darkness.

Today started with a walk to Palto, where we held our third medical clinic of the week. It began as another day in Haiti, we were refreshed from sleep despite the continuous chorus of countryside sounds. Our devotional focused on not dwelling in our inadequacies.

We are not perfect people.
We cannot humanly heal people from sickness.
We get frustrated with one another even though we are all one body in Christ.
We each have different gifts; comparison is a tough battle.
We do not understand the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit.

But you see, it’s not about us.
God loved us, therefore we can love others.
God’s power cannot be explained, and that is okay.
God chose to use us as tools for His kingdom.
God doesn’t ask for perfection, He made us weak on purpose. Weakness is a beautiful thing, because we were created to ultimately depend on him.

We unpacked the trucks of medications and put them in their now-familiar places, according to the preferences of our doctors. We stationed ourselves outside near Gabriel, and the patients waited inside the church. Person after person came through the clinic with the aches and pains that come with the rough country life.

One of our team members, Megan, felt led to wash the patients’ feet, and so today we came prepared with washcloths and basins and a large bucket of water. I’ve done foot washings before at camps or retreats, but this was different. Their feet were actually dirty because they actually walk everywhere. Through translators, we told them that we were not washing their feet because we thought they were dirty – we washed their feet because Jesus is the son of the King of Kings, but showed he came to serve by washing his disciples’ feet. I now see this in a whole new perspective. Our desire was to serve them; to love them by washing their dirty, callused feet and by praying that they would then go and be vessels of truth. This was a beautiful way to be relational and intentional without words. We got to pray for people by name and ask God to show up and show off. We asked expectantly for God to truly awaken their souls, and to be the ultimate truth in their lives.

This afternoon we held a clinic in a village run by the local voodoo priest, Daniel. We got to bring sustainable hope to a place characterized by darkness. Hope is a rather strange concept; hope is a feeling of anticipation and expectation, and desire for a certain thing to happen. This hope is not found in the color of our pale skin or the array of medical supplies. This hope is not derived from the scrubs and smiles that we wear. This hope is not because of what we tangibly can hold in our hands and give away. The only true source of hope is Christ. I pray that Daniel and his village will come to know and believe. I pray that the Holy Spirit will wake them from their sleep and be oh so obvious before them. I pray that his temple of darkness will become a vessel of Christ’s light – rain, sweet rain.

After a long day the clouds opened up and cool water fell. We walked through the market as drops began to leave their marks. Clouds breaking over broken people both black and white – thankful for mercy that falls like sweet spring rain.