I’m not as overwhelmed as I thought I might be. I have been continually asking the Lord to fill my heart and my mind with His words, his promises.  I have been able to cry out to Him, and ask Him to come alongside me and show me what He wants me to do here. As you walk along the dirt streets, it’s easy to give an ear to the whispers of the devil- ‘what do you possibly think you can do here, look at how bad it is here, how do you think you can help a place like Haiti’. But as I ask the Lord to reveal himself to me, to meet me where I am at, He does. He directed me to Lamentations (I know, when is the last time you read through Lamentations??) but it has some great stuff in there!!. Lam 2:19b says, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who faint from hunger at the head of every street” I sat speechless as tears rolled down my checks. He hears us when we pour out our hearts to Him.

It is a strange feeling visiting a new place, knowing that you will be moving there shortly. On the surface, we looked the same as the rest of the twelve people traveling with our group. We all packed bags for ten days, got a slew of shots, and every type of bug spray available. We saw the same things, smelled the same smells, and went to the same places-but I think our experience were very different.

I arrived in country with my modest missionary skirt, rain jacket, and my game face. You know, the one you wear when you’re out of your comfort zone, but you wanna look tough. I didn’t know what to expect when we flew into Port au Prince. But, in reality, we didn’t see a whole lot. From the plane you can see hundreds of tarps which constitute entire tent cities. When we landed we were trucked to the commuter terminal just down the street, and still didn’t see anything. Even as we flew in the small 18 passenger plane, we were unable to see the magnitude of the devastation. As we landed in Port de Paix, and drove the long bumpy ride to Northwest Haiti Christian mission in St Louis de Nord, my game face was still on. It seemed to be met with other game faces too. All along the streets and in every nook and cranny, people were peering at us. Their expressions were hard and almost menacing. I was certainly intimidated, but quickly found the solution to the stare down. A smile! A simple ‘bounjour’. They instantly lit up! They It seemed odd that so many people were out until I remembered the statistic I read before I left. Eighty percent of the population lives in abject poverty, and out of that, 90% are unemployed! What does 90% unemployment look like? People everywhere, just hanging out. And they think whatever you are doing is so fascinating-although I am unsure why really.

Restless. That’s the best adjective to describe how Brandon and I have felt for the last year. When we purchased our home in Fallbrook in October 08, we thought we would be settling down for a few years. But God had something else in mind.

Let me give you some background. Going to a Christian school all my life, we had missionaries come speak pretty often. After squirming through their boring lectures, strange stories, and looking at the funny way they dressed, I told God, “never! Never will I do that, so don’t even ask me!!” So, fast-forward to a few years after Brandon and I were married. He casually mentions he thinks we will do mission work one day, not knowing the way I feel about it. In fact, when we quit our jobs to travel for 6 months, he was convinced it would happen sooner than later. I wrote his feelings off, a bit nervous though that God might be calling him to it and not me. However, my passions radically changed the past year and half due to prayer. I prayed two things consistently:

1. That His will would be done in my life-not just what I wanted. And, if my will didn’t line up with his, that He would change my desires.
2. That He would break my heart for what breaks His. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Brandon was praying the exact same second prayer too!!

Turns out, God answers prayer big time. So what do you do with two hearts that are breaking for the poor, oppressed, and down trodden? We weren’t thinking anything drastic-we just wanted to know what was going on in the world out there. It was a fascination similar to reading novels. You like to see how the story plays out in a characters life from the comfort of your couch with a bowl of ice cream. So we decided to take a class at North Coast Church called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. At this point, Brandon and I had switched roles. He was just liking the idea of getting a tractor, some farm animals, and a huge storage shed for the backyard-and I was itching to go. On the way to the first Perspectives class I asked Brandon, “What would it take for us to go be missionaries?” He replied simply “If someone asked me directly.” That night as we were chatting with other students in the class we met a guy named Steve. He introduced himself and asked us some questions about who we are and why we were taking the class. Then he said, with out missing a beat, “I work with an organization in China called Bring me Hope. What do you guys think about coming to China and working with the kids?” We said we would pray about it. Once we got in the car, I exploded with excitement. I told Bran, can’t you see God directly answered you! He knew you needed someone to ask you directly, and He brought Steve along to do the job! The Lord was moving…

So through that class we met with several amazing organizations, and continued to pray for guidance. We asked for wisdom and discernment as to where He wanted us to go. He answered our prayers, but it took us a while to realize what the answer was. It wasn’t a specific place in the world, but rather He wanted obedience. He was working on our hearts, teaching us what it means to wait upon the Lord, and trust in Him. Something that to us sounded easy, until we were asked to live it out. While we thought we were ready to leave, how could we go with a house? So, in an act of obedience, we put our house up for sale. Mind you, we are in one of the worst housing crisis’ of the century, and God sold our house in THREE days!!