Surrender

We leave tomorrow for Haiti and what feels weird and different this time is packing.  I'm not sure why. I think a big part of it is that we just moved into our new house a week ago and we are leaving - the unsettled kind of leaving and maybe that feels weird.

There are so many thoughts going through my mind... this being my 5th or 6th time to Haiti, I don't feel anxious about what to expect or how our day to day lives are going to unfold because I've learned that Bree Time does not equal Island Time :)  Life is different there and part of me really looks forward to the slower pace, the "you don't need a watch" mentality, the "pa gen pwoblem" (no problem) lifestyle.  I like the forced slowdown.  Our pace here is FAST and exhausting.  Haiti's pace is not.  I'm thankful for that yet get frustrated by that all at the same time.

I think what feels different about this trip is that it's been a while and it might again be a while until we are able to go back.  The gap feels greater.  I know nothing will have changed and everything will have changed all at the same time.  One thing I am certain of - this snuggly, ornery little soon-to-be niece of mine will be getting LOADS of quality auntie time.

I know that my expectations for how the trip will go are in reality NOTHING like how the trip will go, so tonight I commit to surrender my expectations and allow God to start with a clean slate on this journey - to do whatever work HE would like to do in the community of Montrouis and in the hearts of our team members, myself included.  There is a surrender that is happening even now that will transform us in the moments when we need him most and I am thankful for that call to "let it go" even before we arrive.  I know that He WILL surprise us by making beautiful things out of the brokenness.

Gungor - "Beautiful Things" 

All this pain

I wonder if I'll ever find my way

I wonder if my life could really change at all 

All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found

Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us 

All around

Hope is springing up from this old ground

Out of chaos, life is being found in You

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

*photo cred: Todd Pulliam (Haiti 2011)

Please pray for us... we will update here as often as possible.

We say Mesi Senye (Thank you Lord) for the chance to do this & be part of God's work across the globe.

So grateful,

Bree - (Jarred, Elise, Jenny, Melba, Tiffany & Parkher)

Pay Day

All of our Haiti interns & summer teams are home!  We will blog more about summer trips soon, but for now...

As IMPACT, we sent 6 gals to Haiti about a year ago and for the last year I haven't really found the words to describe what the experience has been for us as an organization.  I still can't tell you where I land on that because there's 6 girls and some IMPACT staff still processing on this end.

But what I can tell you is that relationships are ALWAYS, ALWAYS worth it.  The reasons I felt like God was calling us to run the program in the first place were 1) Kerry and Joy (our partners there in Haiti) needed more workers for the harvest and 2) I believe relationships are what change lives - deep, invested and intentional relationships that you can't get on short-term trips.  Unless you go back frequently, the only way to do that is to live among the people.  I mean that's the gospel, right?  That's what ultimately changed each of our lives - a God who was willing to step into our world and enter into a relationship with us.  He reaches out and gives everything and we choose the degree to which we enter into a trusting and intimate relationship with him.  

We had one intern who gave her entire life to the people of Montrouis, particularly the women in the fishing village.  Kelsea immediately had a heart for these women and invested in them 100% from September until July - almost a full year of breaking down walls and building trust.  She's even learned Creole.  The return on her investment is incredible.  She came home just in time for our wedding and told me the day before the wedding, "Bree, I feel like God is calling me to go back to Haiti - no return ticket, just to go and be a full time missionary and love on those women.  They've captured my heart and Haiti is my other home.  What do I need to do?"

I wept.  This is pay day for a year of wondering why we rolled out the program and questioning if it really was the best thing.  I asked Kelsea for a bit of her story & a few photos for our newsletter and these are the ones she sent today.  I wept again.  This is Kelsea and Necillia - this is my pay day and Kelsea's - you can see the depth of their relationship in this picture, you can see the investment and the sacrifice paying off.  You can see the gospel being lived out.  How beautiful is that!

This is Kelsea with Climaco.  His mother, Natalie passed away in July and had become one of Kelsea's dearest friends.  Kelsea cared for her in the last weeks of her life - took her to all her doctors appointments, walked with her through her dark sickness and helped her family with the funeral.  Her two children moved into the Mission when she died and Kelsea cared for them until she left to come home.  Climaco and his sister are one of the main reasons Kelsea feels called to go back full-time.  

I am ridiculously proud of this woman who started out as a sheltered, sweet 21-year-old Westmont student who had never left the country but wanted to intern for us two years ago.  Here she is today: giving her life to move to Haiti and be the hands and feet of Jesus in the community of Montrouis.  God is so good and so faithful.  

We are currently working out the plan for Kelsea's "next steps" and will let you know as soon as we have one.  We know she will go back and her funding will be raised through IMPACT, tax-deductible.  When and how and all of those things?  Only the Lord knows.  Please be praying for Kelsea in this season of "preparation" for her ministry in Haiti.  

In the meantime, you can check here for updates: kelsea's blog

Loving Our Neighbor

by Sarah Morris (IMPACT Intern)

Perhaps one of the most beautiful things about the Gospel is that it is so simple. Jesus never actually called us to change the world, He asked us to love our neighbor. We look at the world, at the enormity of death, starvation, slavery, and feel overwhelmed and crippled. We feel as though there’s nothing we could do that could even begin to touch these problems, so we’re tempted to instead ignore them or protect ourselves with all the reasons we can’t help. 

Jesus’ ministry was about relationships, about people. And while we all claim to know this, we fail to truly appreciate what this means for our own lives. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your skills are, He’s inviting you to be a part of His story. If you can hold the hand of a child, you are needed. If you can look someone in the eye and smile, you are needed. IMPACT’s most recent trip to Haiti was a powerful picture of the breathtaking simplicity of the Gospel.  EMTs, PA’s, nurses and physicians who went expecting to work in difficult and incredibly busy clinics did do some clinics but also spent time rocking children to sleep or teaching a spelling class. 

This argument may be old news, but the value of short term missions goes beyond whatever encouragement or assistance may be offered to resident brothers and sisters.  Short term trips open the door for one of life’s greatest miracles – to look through another’s eyes for an instant.  Until you go, statistics are just statistics and not people with faces and families and stories. It’s hard to change your life for statistics. It’s hard to live drastically different than your neighbors in order to help change 26,001 starving to 26,000. But if you can choose not to sacrifice the American dream so that Johnny and Wilna and Abigail, precious faces whom you’ve kissed, have enough to eat….well now that just might actually happen. Perhaps short-term trips are not “short term” at all, but simply the catalyst for lifelong mission, wherever one chooses to live. They create the habit of loving your neighbor, of opening our eyes to the truth that anyone and everyone is our neighbor. 

Empowerment at its finest

Here at IMPACT, we believe in partnerships with people across the globe that are empowering them to help themselves - giving them the tools to have sustainable income without American intervention and loving them immensely while they sort through the process of going from poverty to success.

This article is GREAT.  Some of my very best friends are living in Peru running this program for 10 women there.  Some of my other good friends plug six interns I love dearly are living in Haiti doing the same thing.

We all have a story to tell and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves means helping them write their story while they continue to give life to ours.

Proud

Incase you didn't know or you haven't gotten the memo, I'm PROUD OF OUR GALS.  There are 6 women who've given up everything to be in Haiti for nine months and holy smokes, I couldn't admire them more.  Having spend a week with them at training and week with them in Haiti - they are nothing short of incredible.  They form this beautiful team and work so well together that they didn't even need "leaders" to bring them there (except maybe a little help killing spiders and moving book shelves at the school).

Seriously, my heart is overflowing because our God is so stinkin' good. 

One of the most touching things to me about these girls is their servant hearts.  I see this so much in Shala - she sacrificed a ridiculous amount of American dreaminess to be in Haiti (a job... with a promotion to boot, a 2-year relationship with a guy that totally supports her, a more than ideal living situation, etc.) and she's finding the sacrifice is so worth it.

Read her most recent blog... you won't be disappointed.

Did I mention I'm proud of these girls?

Meeting the people of Montrouis

The girls have some trouble uploading videos from Haiti because, well, it's Haiti and they're even lucky to have internet ;) They get limited bandwidth and videos take up WAY too much of that, so I decided I'd share them on our IMPACT blog so you could see a bit of what's going on in Montrouis.

Here they are getting to know some of the kids that live at the mission... only girls could be entertained for long periods of time playing games like this - Naika caught on quick! 

We have some videos of Dr. Kerry Reeves explaining to us why the people in his discipleship program in the fishing village of Callalan are so eager to learn English and how our team can help them while learning Creole.  We also have a video of the girls introducing themselves in Creole and the Haitians introducing themselves in English.  I'm still trying to figure out how to upload them, but I'll put links in as soon as I figure it out.  I'm excited to go back and see what incredible progress has been made in a few months... my hunch is that the English/Creole language barrier will hardly be a barrier anymore :)

God is SO good.  Kerry and Joy Reeves & Stephen and Autumn Byxbe are THRILLED to have the girls there and know that it will make a huge difference in the quality and quantity of ministry that can and will happen there in Montrouis/Saint Marc.  We are so blessed to have been called to partner with New Vision Haiti and pray that God will bring much fruit.  While Lindsey and I are sad to be home, we are grateful to have had the opportunity to go and we know that God will use our stories to invite people into the story of what He's continuing to do across the globe.

The Important Things

We - as a crew, 6 interns (and a 7th who met us here), Bree & Lindsey H - are learning alot our first week here in Haiti. 

 

Visit: newvisionhaiti.org to see the ministry they are working with for the next 9 months.

The gals are learning how to live with cold showers, sleep on the roof because the power goes out therefore, so do the fans, we're learning how to live in community, make new friends, run programs, set up classrooms but at the core of it we're learning that there are two things in life that really matter - loving God and loving others.  The most important thing on this earth are our relationships.  God is teaching us incredible things about that even in this first week as we get kids fed & sponsored to go to school, pray with and get to know the people of Montrouis that the girls will be living with and the girls learn to live in their new community here at the mission.

We know they are incredibly blessed with running water, electricity (most of the time), a washing machine, food on the table each day, ample space in their apartments and most of all, a Christian community to live in, not to mention an incredible 180 degree view of the Caribbean from their apartment where they get to watch amazing sunsets & lightning storms.  

In comparison to the life that's happening outside these gates, we have SO much.  

This week, we've been...

- At the school setting up classrooms...

- In the fishing village meeting the people in the community & helping with Bible studies & prayer meetings

- Getting to know & love on the kids that live below the girls at the mission (Bree's loved this one for a while)

- And relaxing one evening at a local hotel, taking a sunset swim in the Caribbean and eating hamburgers :) 

While it's hot, humid and sticky, the gals are learning to acclimate, learning to love each other & those God's putting in their lives and learning to live in Haiti.  Their work each day involves educating kids who would otherwise receive minimal education and never learn English, feeding and educating 150 kids through the sponsorship program, loving on and praying for the people in the village of Montrouis - many of whom are new believers, helping them with the fishing program as they are able to feed 1500 people through the feeding program, helping refugee victims find trades and rebuild their lives and serving alongside the Reeves & Byxbe families as they change this village for the Lord.  They are learning that them being here will change lives for eternity.  They are learning about the important things - God and people.  Lindsey H and I couldn't be more grateful to have taken the beginning of this journey with them.  THANK YOU for your support! 

If you're interested in helping the girls financially, go here: https://sna.etapestry.com/fundraiser/IMPACT/impact2011/team.do?participationRef=2963.0.36276270 and click "make a donation"

If you're interested in sponsoring one of the Haitian kids for school/food this coming year, visit: http://celebrationchildrenshome.ning.com/group/CKC and see how to help the girls in their ministry!!!

Inspired by these 6

This IMPACT blog started when I was in Haiti in March.

As a result of that trip - seeing the ministry that the Reeves family is doing there and sensing God's call on my life to "do something" with what I'd seen and learned, an intern program was born. The vision was to send interns over for 9 months to partner with Joy & Kerry Reeves at New Vision Ministries.  The work they are doing is life-changing.  I remember them saying something like this about their call to Haiti: "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.  They amaze me.  They inspire me.  They make me want to be more like Jesus.

I seriously thought it was a vision that God gave me to accomplish "at some point," but had NO IDEA that it would actually materialize this fall.  Holy smokes, I'm still in awe.

We presented the need and have 6 incredible women who are called to Haiti for nine months!!!!  It's an inspiring crew... (if you click on their names, it'll link you to their websites so you can follow them in Haiti)!  

- Elise

- Amber 

- Kelsea

- Nikki

- Shala 

- Lindsey 

They have filled out a 16 page application, been met with individually, been told how crazy hard it will be at times and they feel undeniably called.  With each of these women comes an incredible backstory and journey to how they got to this place.  Get to know them.  Pray for them.  Help support them.  Love on them as they love on the people of Haiti for the sake of the Gospel.

 This is a big deal and I. AM. SO. PROUD. OF. THEM.