Vision of Splendor - Backdrop of Squalor

Haiti - a vision of splendor on a backdrop of squalor.  

This island is beautiful.  There are few places in the world with palm trees, turquoise Caribbean beaches and sunsets that take your breath away.  I've been to a few and have loved my vacations there.  But Haiti?  It's not one of those vacation spots.  If you just flew straight to a hotel on the coast and saw only this vision of splendor, you might think so.

What you don't see in this picture is the people behind the camera.  Standing behind us, while this picture was taken was a village of lost, broken people - orphans, elderly, earthquake refugees, unemployed single mothers... and the list goes on. While taking this picture, we were all standing in a group in the fishing village, surrounded by locals who are desperate for help.

Mothers who were asking us to take their children back to the United States, fathers and husbands begging for Kerry to help them get jobs to feed their families, single women who want nothing more than to be educated and learn a trade so that they can support themselves, elderly women who love the Lord and are trusting him for their next meal, orphans wanting nothing more than to be held and loved.

The backdrop of squalor in this nation is something that will also take your breath away and cause tears to well up your eyes because it seems unfair.  And it is.  It seems hopeless.  But I can tell you that because of Jesus Christ, it is not.

Richard Stearns puts it this way in "The Hole in Our Gospel" (which I guarantee you will change your life if you read it)...

"Christ is either God incarnate, risen from the dead, or He is not.  There is no halfway position here... if Christ is God, it changes everything - there is nothing more important, more authoritative, or more central to the human race, to the way we live our lives, and to our very understanding of the world.  Christ is an all-or-nothing proposition, and one way or another, every one of us has already made a choice about Him.  We have either committed our lives to him whole-heartedly, or we have not."  

I can tell you this: Kerry and Joy Reeves and their kids have 100% surrendered everything for the sake of following Christ and being his hands and feet in a dark backdrop of squalor.  They have sacrificed things you and I couldn't dream of parting with to live a better story.  This is a man who had it all - a successful optometry practice, the house, the cars, the American dream.  I will never forget him saying to us how hard it was to give that up but how rewarding it is to be fully dependent on Christ.  Here's the thing... Kerry and Joy could have chosen to say, "I think we'll wait until our kids are out of school" or "Maybe someday" or "Maybe after we get a little more experience and money saved" or "Nah, this just isn't for me."

But instead they said, "Let's not waste another day living for ourselves.  God is writing a big story in Haiti and we could choose to be part of it or we could let him choose someone else."  And this changed everything, for hundreds of people.

Even as we speak, they are doing a crusade for the next few days in Montrouis.  Saturday they will baptize over 80 people.  Every single night he is getting to speak the hope of Jesus Christ over the people of this dark land that is less than 10% Christian.  I am blown away by Kerry and Joy - by their dependence on Christ, their faith in his provision, their commitment to Haiti, their model of discipleship and love and their broken hearts for the things that break the heart of God.

Kerry wakes up every morning, gets on the bus and prays, "Lord, I need you today.  I can't do this without you.  Let's go change this village for your name."  This is a dependence on Christ that you and I know we don't have in our oh-so-comfortable worlds here in the states.  It's something to be sought after and something that can only come with complete surrender.  They amaze me.  They inspire me.  They make me want to be more like Jesus.

Because of this, God has put it on our hearts as IMPACT and Operation HOPE to start an Intern Program there called "Haiti Discipleship."  Our hope is that this will encourage our dear friends who've given their lives to this mission, that God will write the story of Haiti on the hearts of the many who will go and that the kingdom will be expanded through more long-term work in this place.  Stay tuned for a post about the program :)