The World seems so big when you sit on a couch at home and watch the news. Places seem so far away; the people seem so different. Many of us never get the chance to go and visit the faraway places and the various cultures and people that we see in our social studies books and on the Discovery channel.  Over the past 5 years I've been blessed to travel the world.  There are things I've seen and done that I never dreamed would be possible when I grew up in Bluefield, West Virginia.  Seeing the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids, the Parthenon, ancient Mayan ruins, and the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas are just some of the things I'll never forget.  Aside from natural and historical wonders, I've seen the reality of life for millions of people all around the globe with which I can't fully relate.  I had a little Indian beggar girl grab my plastic water bottle, tears streaming down her face, desperate screams escaping her mouth, as I drove away in a motorized rickshaw.  I've held malnourished babies with bloated bellies.  I feel to my knees on a dock in Croatia when a 9-year-old girl I had come to love went back to her abusive home where love was never expressed.  And still, after all my travels and experiences, I don't have words to express what I saw the other day. 

 

 

After leaving the Dominican Republic and Haiti, our squad traveled halfway around the world to Southeast Asia and the Kingdom of Cambodia.  As part of our cultural training and in attempt to understand the people in this country, we toured the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and The Killing Fields.  It's one thing to read the horrific stories in a memoir.  It's one thing to watch an hour long special detailing the history of Cambodia from 1975-1979.  It's a whole other experience to walk into a room with one metal bed-frame, faded stains on the tiles, and a gruesome picture of the last body left in the room where you are now standing. 

 I love walking through History, but I found myself taking slow, careful steps through the Killing Fields.  I had just walked past a tower of skulls, the memorial to all the victims of the bloody history.  I saw pieces of clothing and bone on the path as I walked from one mass grave to the next.  Most museums and memorial sites have a polished feel.  I remember walking around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and thinking, "Wow, what a costly sacrifice."  My heart hurt.  I saw the names of the people on the memorial and I felt a pain deep inside.  But the name's are glossed over and polished into the nice marble stones.  Here in Cambodia, at both the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields, nothing is polished. 

 It's raw. It's real. It's so fresh. 

 

 

The rusty barbed wire still blocks the view from the third floor of the school.  What kind of horric things happened in the used-to-be classroom that caused everyday doctors, policemen, and lawyers, to jump from the 3rd story and provoked the guards to put up barbed wire to keep them from committing suicide? The signs say, "Mass Grave of 166 Victims Without Heads," and the harshness of the splintered wood, and hand-painted letters leave me speechless and empty.  The fact that I could bend over, pick up a little girl's red, pleated skirt, and know that her body was beaten against the tree I'm leaning on, and then thrown into the pit in front of me gives me cold chills in the extreme humidity and heat. 

 Though it's becoming common for me to go around the world and see places of wonder and historical significance, this place is different.  I leave the museum and the fields with a new reality of what we as humans are capable of doing to one another.  It's not every day I come face to face with the depravity of humanity. 

This month, after our adventure getting into Haiti, we arrived at Pastor Louis St. Germaine's home in Les Cayes Haiti.  We only stayed at his house for two nights but they were blessed nights.  We all had beds.  There were warm showers with water pressure.  We had 3 square meals a day that we could barely finish.  There was air conditioning and even ice for the water in our Nalgene bottles. 

Pastor Louis took us out for a tour of a couple of orphanages, his church, and the surrounding area we would be ministering in for the month.  We liked Pastor Louis from the very beg

inning.  With every story he told his love for the people of Haiti came through.  We learned about the poverty of the area, the reaso

ns behind the poverty, the desperate situation for women in the country, the problems men faced to provide for their fam

ilies, the spiritual strongholds that kept both men and women bound up in all sorts of destructive cycles and sin, and we learned what his ministry was trying to do about all of it. 

Our first stop was an orphanage outside of the city.  It sat off the 

main road, down a very bumpy and washed out dirt road, and high on a hill.  This place was Cambry.  On your way up the hill was a church, then you came up on the school, then the administration buildings, the pharmacy and clinic, and the orphanage houses.  If you traveled up to the top of the hill there was a building that housed a technical center.  The Cambry Technical Center only took up two small rooms in a gigantic building.  The other parts of the building were being renovated.  At one point the building was originally intended to be a home for retired pastors and ministry workers.  For some reason, that planned never came through.  Some of the rooms were used for orphan housing at one point, but the most recent plan was to turn the entire building into a guesthouse for mission teams, pastors, and anyone who came through the area. 

We left Cambry after visiting all the classes and went into the town of Les Cayes to see Pastor Louis' church, and the orphanage within the city.  It was incredibly close to the road and the center of the bustling city.  We met the orphans through their classrooms once again, and then got back into the Land Rover to go somewhere else. 

Pastor Louis took us to a site they were just beginning to turn into an orphanage.  They had only staked out the land for the foundation the day we showed up to see the project.  Pastor Louis had been telling us all about Voodoo and the powers the enemy has over the country on the way.  When we arrived, he told us that this particular orphanage was going to be 10 miles from the city that was seen as the voodoo headquarters in Haiti. 

Wow.  The kids were moving right up to the gates of the enemy.  So Team Manna and I decided it would be best to pray over the land, anoint the area, and declare its use for the Lord.  We wanted these kids to be protected!  We prayed with Pastor Louis and then covered the entire area with prayers and blessings. 

Later that night, the team spent time praying over our options for ministry for the month.  We decided that the Lord was leading us to live and work at the Cambry orphanage.  So the next morning, we packed our stuff, left the beds and air conditioning, and moved to Cambry. 

We had talked with Pastor Louis and he said that we could set up our tents on top of the hill where the Technical Center was located.   When we arrived, he went as far as to open up a couple of rooms in the building that was being turned into a guesthouse so we could at least lock up our stuff and be inside.  So I suppose that you can say we were the first guests in the house, though it was just a couple of empty rooms. 

All of the girls set up our tents in the two rooms.  The boys set up their tents in the room with the kitchen.  The kitchen only had a propane tank and 3 burner cook stove.  We got keys from the people working at the Technical Center so we could use the bathroom behind their doors.  There was no running water, and only electricity when the Technical Center was running their generator.  To get water, we had to haul buckets from the well at the very bottom of the hill, to the large barrel in the bathroom at the top of the hill.  It was quite the change from our luxury stay at Pastor Louis' house. 

From the top of our hill we had the best view possible.  We could see the entire site at the foot of the hill.   To one direction we could see the coast and an island not to far away.  To the other direction the mountains and valleys were visible and breathtaking.  The wind would sweep across the hilltop with a nice breeze to stifle the heat of the midday sun.  It was a wonderful place to see. Nature's Air-Conditioned Orphanage. 

For the past couple of weeks we've been living with the orphans of Cambry, making friends with the folks at the Technical Center (they all spoke English), and helping/learning from the construction workers who were remolding the rest of the building.  We spent time in the classrooms teaching English.  Pastor Louis had wanted us to sand the walls of the soon-to-be guesthouse in order to prep them for painting.  That meant that we were given a box of sandpaper and put to work.  It's a big building, and I've never fully appreciated and electric sander before this month in Haiti, but I think the inventor must have had to sand a building like the guesthouse.  He knew there had to be an easier way.  We'd visit the church on Sunday and some people attended the 4 AM prayer meetings.  Most of the time we were just loving on the kids.  We would worship with them in their houses with bucket drums, and aluminum plate cymbals. 

The main goal of this month was to love the kids like Jesus would have loved them.  We had prayed about our location and God had asked us to spend an hour in intercessory prayer for the country of Haiti every day.  So, every evening after eating our dinner, we'd get together outside under the vast starry sky, and lift up some prayers for the people of Haiti.  Around 9:30 PM we would all trickle off to bed. 

It was a great month of ministry and of pouring ourselves out.  We loved living with the orphans.  It reminds me of my month in India on my World Race, except it wasn't nearly as hot in Haiti on that windy hilltop than it was in Delhi's dusty suburbs with the 115 degree heat.  I had a lot more energy to play with the kids this time around.

This is basically and overview blog.  Expect to see some more posts on my month in Haiti soon.  I hope to write about our experience with the Christian Festival on Friday the 13th, and more specifics on the kids I fell in love with during my stay at Cambry. 

Here's the story of the 3 Day trip to Haiti....yep... 3 days...

 You wouldn't think that it would take 3 days to drive across the tiny island of Hispaniola.  Getting from the Dominican Republic to Haiti isn't exactly like driving across the United States or anything.  But when you are a World Racer, life is different.  It takes 3 full and adventurous days.  Here's the story...

 After a great debrief with the teams in San Juan, Jenny and I were trying to prepare the teams to make the transition to Haiti.  Because we have a group of 54 people, we had to work some things out in advance.  The bus company only sends one bus a day from the capitol of Santo Domingo to Port Au Prince Haiti.  We would just about fill up the entire bus with the number of people in our group so we had to purchase tickets in advance.  After getting Anna Coffey to ask the lady at the bus company all my questions over the phone, we were pretty sure we had tickets for everyone and that they were in our price range.  The bus to Haiti leaves at 11:00 AM and because we were in San Juan, 3 or 4 hours away from Santo Domingo, we couldn't make both trips in the same day.  We were going to have to spend the night in Santo Domingo and Jimmy had arranged for us to stay at another mission's base in town.  We had the teams compete in their very first Race while they spent the day in Santo Domingo to kill some time and see the sites.  Our contacts in Haiti were aware of our arrival and we all had arrangements to get to our ministry sites.  Sounds like it's all under control right?  Again, when you are a World Racer, life is different. 

 Jenny and I told the teams they had to get up at 4:45 AM to get out of the house in San Juan, finish cleaning it, and lock it up.  We were going to leave at 6:00 AM for Santo Domingo.  While they were cleaning, we took off to the bus station in San Juan to get our tickets on the first bus out of town.  We had already arranged with Dave Brown and the team leaders to announce the first Race Day and let the teams loose at 6:00 AM.  We waited a long time for the bus station to open up and just as we got our tickets, some of the teams arrived to buy their own tickets.  Most of the teams were on the same bus as we traveled to Santo Domingo.  When Jenny Brown and I arrived, we went to pick up our tickets to Haiti.  We sat in the office for almost 2 hours while the one lady that was working that morning wrote each individual ticket out by hand... round-trip.

 After securing our tickets to Haiti, we took off to the missions base to drop our luggage off and have a good Squad Leader day out.  We found a very "western" grocery store, ate at Burger King, and traveled to a mall with a movie theater.  All the stores in the mall were closed, but they were going to show a movie in English at 4:20, so we decided to sit down in the food court and wait.  And we waited... a long time.  Maybe we were just shell-shocked and tired from a busy month of ministry and a good, but fast-paced debrief because we sat at that table all day long.  In retrospect, I think we are still trying to figure out what we were thinking.  We texted back and forth with the teams, and caught our movie that afternoon.  We returned to the missions base, had some worship time, and went to bed.  I was catching a cold and had a head the size of bowling ball. 

Early the next morning, we got up, packed again, and departed in heavy Monday morning traffic for the bus station.  Once everyone's taxi arrived, we collected passports, and went to the bus company office again.  We were told to be at the station two hours before our departure.  We spent an hour finalizing our tickets and paying our border fees and taxes. We loaded onto our super nice bus with reclining seats, stewardess, cold drinks, and lunch.  There was one other guy on our bus.  Poor guy.  If he had only known what he was getting himself into. 

Everything was going great as we went back across the Dominican Republic.  We came within an hour of San Juan, but since you can't catch the bus to Haiti any place but the capitol, we had to go a little out of way.  This little glitch would account for an entire day of travel.  Awesome.  

As the afternoon wore on, the scenery and culture started to shift slightly, and before we knew it, we were at the border.  We pulled up to the border, looking out the window at the obvious differences from one side to the other.  The mix of people and cultures in "no-man's land" was intense.  We stopped and our stewardess got off to process our passports and get us officially checked out of the Dominican Republic.  We waited.... And waited... And waited. 

After a while the bus driver got involved, the stewardess was talking fast, and Rocio (another Spanish-speaker) asked what was going on.  The driver told us that they didn't want to let us across the border because there was a "protest".  We asked some questions and found out that it was a protest against the bus company, and while we were safe, they didn't want us to cross the border.  The driver and stewardess were trying to work out the details.  Jenny Brown and I looked at each other, "Really? Is this going to happen?" I told the racers to start praying, I didn't want to take the bus back to Santo Domingo just so we could "try" to cross the border again the next day. I called Jimmy and Casey in the office because it was cheap to call the US on my cell phone.  I told them we were fine, but we needed prayer to get through to Haiti.  We sat and waited by the border for 2 and a half hours.

After singing, praying, and believing God would bring us through to the promised land of Haiti, the bus driver got back on to tell us that they were going to let us through! We were very excited!  We pulled in, got off the bus to officially get stamped out of the Dominican Republic, got on the bus, drove about a mile down the road, exited the bus again, got officially stamped into Haiti, and got back on the bus.  We were finally back on the road and headed to Port Au Prince.  Apparently the bus company had sent two buses to Haiti that day, one for all of us, and the other for the regular customers. They had been required by law to only send one per day, so when two buses showed up, it caused a commotion.  There wasn't a protest, more of a "dispute."  3rd world communication is my favorite. 

It was dark when we arrived in the capitol. People lined the streets on both sides, and brightly colored buses honked and swerved by us on either side.  Street Vendors sat all along the road and intersections with candles lit to show off their merchandise.  We weren't in the Dominican anymore.

Our bus pulled into the station behind a locked gate and high walls.  When we exited the bus, some of the team leaders got connected with their contacts.  Gentle Warriors and Spectacle took off to Jacmel for their month of ministry.  Koinonia and BLING met up with a friend of Liz's that has a ministry in Canaan. Tikvah, Luminous, Indelible, and Manna were going to meet a guy named DouDou and spend the night in Port Au Prince before leaving for their ministry sites the next morning.  Jenny Brown took off with the teams to Canaan and I was left with the teams in Port Au Prince. 

Doudou showed up and put everyone and their luggage on a bus to go across town.  We pulled into another walled and gated complex.  It was a hotel/guest house that we would be camping out at for the night.  We had three rooms, and the parking area.  After a late night dinner, we crashed from our busy two days of traveling.  The team leaders and I went to bed thinking that there were only two tasks we had to complete in the morning, and they we could get on our buses to the two separate ministry sites.  But when you are a World Racer, life is different.  

(To Be Continued.....)

This month I'm spending time with 5 teams in San Juan as they do various ministries around town.  Team BLING is working in our immediate neighborhood doing VBS, meeting and taking care of elderly neighbors, and working in a nursing home a couple of times a week.  Luminous is working with a local pastor whose church is just outside of town.  They are helping with projects, going door-to-door, and serving in the church.  Both Koinonia and Spectacle are ministering in the poverty-stricken areas on the outskirts of town.  They are going door-to-door, building relationships, and serving in the many church services.  Tikvah takes a long walk outside of town to a small farming village everyday to build relationships, help out on the farm, finish some of the building projects from the summer teams that went through, and love on the people. 

While I'm here in San Juan I get to go out with these teams to some of their ministries.  Last week I went to the nursing home with Team BLING and yesterday went out to minister to some of the families that Spectacle has met over the past two weeks.  I'm excited to go to some church services over the weekend because last weekend I was sick and couldn't really leave the house. 

From what I've seen of the Dominican people so far, I love their hospitatility and hearts.  They are very warm and inviting and the children long for your love and attention.  It's amazing that God has entrusted us with the task of bringing the Gospel to the people of San Juan.  We are taking the responsibility seriously and are trying to be good stewards of our gifts and talents to bring His Kingdom to this part of the world. 

Still, one of my main responsibilities is to the squad.  Every evening and afternoon as teams return from their ministries I have the opportunity to meet with people and see how they are adjusting to life on The World Race.  Slowing down our busy minds and constant "strive and work for the American Dream" pace is hard in a culture that would put off their to-do list for tomorrow for the chance to have a good conversation with a friend today.  I get to debrief their experiences and ask, "Okay, so you saw this happen today and you felt like this.  What does that mean for your life... now and every day?"

It's only the end of the 2nd week and some of these racers are catching glimpses of what this year will be for their life and ministry.  I come alive as I watch them grow through these experiences.  That's my ministry here in San Juan.

As a squad leader, I'm also raising support to be out on the field ministering alongside of and to the teams.  To date, I'm not very close to my support goal of $4000.  Please consider supporting my ministry on The World Race.  To donate, just click the "Support Me!" link on the left hand side of this page.  Please prayerfully consider joining my support team long-term as I know that serving with the World Race and on staff is my calling for the next while.  I'd love to have monthly supporters for the journey ahead.  Thanks to everyone who has given so far and believes in my calling to this ministry.  Without you guys, this isn't possible.  

My eyes see the new and remember the old. I've never been to the Dominican Republic before, but I've been here. I've been to the place where you encounter God amidst a people longing for hope. So many faces flash in my eyes as I look at the children here. I remember the kids at the camp in Bosnia... the kids in the slums in Africa... the street kids in India. I remember what God did in Ivana's life at that summer camp, and children from the orphanage partnering with us to put on an outreach in Kenya, and I remember being led into the throne room of the King when the kids in India sang. I see these kids with those eyes and know what God can and will do these next few months. He's using this generation to show the love of the King to the nations. The generation that says yes to this call will go forth and do mighty things by His power and His leading. This is the generation. I'm a part of the generation that says YES!

My squad says yes. I watched this week at Launch Training as 54 people worshiped and allowed God to work in their hearts in preparation for going to the nations with the Gospel. I see hands lifted high. I see people dancing, abandoned for the Father. I see a room of people breaking chains that have held them down for far too long.

I love being a part of this. Each day I get to hear stories of what God is doing in their hearts as they go out to their ministries, pray for their teammates, and live in a different culture. I get to hear what's been tough and give encouragement and prayer. When it gets to the point where they have to choose brokenness I get to tell them what it's like on the other side. Who wouldn't love this job!?

I know one thing is certain... my heart has already been broken. My heart has been broken for the 52 Racers on this January 2009 squad. I want them to see the world they are traveling with Jesus' eyes and with an open heart. I believe it's going to happen. I know it's going to happen. 

We arrived safely in Santo Domingo that afternoon and took a taxi to the bus station in town. 40 Minute Taxi ride approx. $40. 4 Hour bus ride (charter bus with reclining seats, tv, and air conditioning) approx. $7. Tell me they aren't ripping the tourists off! Late that evening we arrived in San Juan La Manguana, near the mountains in the inner part of the DR. That's right, we are a few hours away from the beach. Jimmy and I got off the bus to meet Miguel, another AIM Staff member whose long term ministry is here in San Juan. After a few tacos and details, we went to bed. I was exhausted. 

On Saturday I took to the streets with Sylvia, one of the translators to get some details sorted for the teams arrival the next day. Jimmy, Miguel, and Ronnie stayed behind to get the house and apartment we would be staying in ready for the team. 

The fun really started on Sunday... I got up expecting to leave around 10:15 to catch one of the 3 buses we had rented to pick up the team at the airport. During our breakfast meeting, Ronnie my partner in Operation: Retrieve Squad, got a phone call. After he spoke his hurried Spanish and got off the phone, he looked at me and said, "Are you ready to go? That was the bus driver. He said that there are many people in line and if we don't get there soon, there may not be room on the buses to get to Santo Domingo."

I was a little confused. Then I remembered that I wasn't in the US. I wasn't renting a bus, riding it all alone for 4 hours to pick up my team, and come comfortably back home. This was the DR. They were hauling passengers all the way there... and anybody and everybody was welcome. 

After going to the wrong bus station first, and then running through the streets to the right bus station, we hopped on the last bus... the empty one. As the bus in front of us pulled out of the station, we took our place at the front of the line. A guy got on to check things out. I recognized this role... He's a porter. On buses all around the world, a porter's job is to get as many people crammed into the vehicle as possible. I quickly re-organized my thoughts, and thought through the journey. I didn't want to sit in the seat I was currently in. I noticed the fold-down jump seat beside me. "Nope... Don't want to be that close to somebody I don't know.... Window seats are nice. Can I feel the air conditioning if I sit there? What is the leg room like?" These are the moments when it's good to have World Race experience. I switched to a window seat right beside the door with plenty of leg room.

Just as I sat down and got situated, the doors opened, the porter stepped in the door and shouted for everyone to pile on. After the initial shoving match, with ‘bows flying left and right, there were still plenty of seats available. So we sat for a long time while more passengers were called on. The little cushioned boards that connect the left and right rows and create extra seating were brought out. Luggage and sacks were pushed up under seats and legs. Children moved to laps.... And still more people got on. Before the doors were closed there were 7 people in my row... 4 adults and 3 kids. It was intense. I knew I wasn't going to move an inch for the next 4 hours. I just put in my iPod and praised the Lord all the way to the airport. 

When Ronnie and I arrived, we had only been inside the airport for 5 minutes when the first group came out the doors. They looked elated to see us. The group had to split up in Miami because we couldn't get all 53 people on the same flight. The next group arrived about an hour later. When it was all said and done I was only missing one backpack and one racer. Ashley Harris' bag hadn't even made it to Miami from her original destination yet, and Rachel Hartman had been caught behind snow and ice and her flight was delayed. It's a good thing I know people in the office! Casey was already working on getting Rachel in the next day with the Coaches, and we were tracking down Ashley's bag.