***!!!!WE'RE GOING BACK!!!!***

Hello Friends!  It is my privilege and joy to tell you that I will be returning to Haiti in a little less than 6 weeks (my spring break)!   My heart is just overflowing with joy as I write this, but also with confidence and hopefulness that the Lord will provide health, finances, opportunity, people, and resources for us to take this trip – it is going to cost $1100 per person, but it is worth the time and effort to see God’s Kingdom proclaimed and advanced.

I am going again with a team of 8 from my church (another team of 8 will go down in early June), in our partnership with HaitiLove The trip itself, however, will look a bit different than last year.  As circumstances, the political environment, and our knowledge of the situation in Haiti have changed, there have been some shifts in the way that HaitiLove, and thus Restoration Church, are interacting with and caring for the people of Haiti.  Also, because of the instability and constantly changing circumstances in Haiti, our itinerary is not yet solidified.  But the flights are booked (Praise God!), so regardless of what we end up doing, or where we are, we will be going to serve the Lord and build His Kingdom!  

The plan is to leave Washington, DC early the morning of March 10^th, and fly to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  From there we will hopefully be going to Puerto Plata, DR.  This is a beach resort town (but we won’t be doing any lounging…) in the DR, where Haitians often migrate to in an attempt to find work, if they can cross the border.  The problem is that the Haitian-Dominican relations are not good, and so the Haitians at this resort are not paid fairly, are discriminated against, and often find that they are not even recognized by the government.   We will be working with this group of people, and a local church there to help build a community center that will serve as a church, clinic, shelter, and anything else. 

We will then go to Phaeton, Haiti, where we will attempt to build a church in this small town.  This community has no healthy churches in or around the area, but there are a few Haitians who have been connected with HaitiLove, and through this partnership we now have the opportunity to help get a healthy church off the ground in an area that desperately needs it.   We will then return to the United States on Saturday the 17^th. 

Although this trip looks much different, I am blessed by the opportunity to go and share the Gospel.  The Haitian community in general is severely lacking in leadership and spiritual maturity, and this trip is an opportunity to help build on this.  We have, as a church, been building a children’s curriculum, a pastor’s curriculum, and a women’s curriculum for HaitiLove, in hopes that they can consistently teach Scripture and truth to those they interact with.  The goal is to build consistently across the various teams that are able to take short-term trips, that the ministry might be more effective. 

We need your help to do this.  Please spend some time in prayer with us for this trip.  Haiti is a dark place, and we need many people praying for us now, and as we are gone.  This will be the first trip HaitiLove takes in 2012, and will be the first trip since relationships have changed with some of the Haitian organizations and people we will be working with.  Please pray that we can build solid and scriptural groundwork for this organization and for the Gospel in this country.  Please pray for the health of all our team members, and that we might be consistently and earnestly praying for and preparing for  this trip, even this far in advance.  Please pray for the hearts of those that we meet and interact with, that the Spirit might open their eyes to the truth of the Gospel.  Pray we might find the financial resources to make this trip happen, and for the resources for it to be fruitful.   Please take some time and pray, and if you would like to donate, please email me, call me, or otherwise track me down (in the virtual or physical realm!).  Regardless, please pray with us.  Our church is young and small, but we desperately desire to see the kingdom of God advanced, and we need your prayer to make this happen. My heart just aches for these people, but I cannot do this alone.  Please, please pray with us. 

I cannot wait to tell you all about our preparation for this trip as it continues, and all of the mighty things God does during this time.  Know that I love you all, and pray for you regularly. 

In Christ’s abundant blessings,

K

Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier About College...

• You don't have to find your best friends immediately - or even your first year.  Cultivating relationships and building new ones is a good thing.  You're allowed to feel a little lost.  Just don't let it paralyze you.
• Procrastination is NEVER a good thing.  [And yet so tempting...]
• However, procrastination is never an excuse for not doing your homework.
• Group projects suck just as much as they did in high school.  Maybe more.  But professors still assign them, so get over it.
• Oreos and Ice Cream (together or separately) make the best late night desserts (or sorbet, if you happen to be vegan...)
• Learning how to laugh with your roommate, at your roommate, and allowing your roommate to laugh at you will make life infinitely more fun and easy.
• Sometimes implementing a bedtime, even in college, is a good thing.
• Grades are not as important as your parents told you they were.
• Journal.  It's good for the soul.
• You should never buy your textbooks from the bookstore.
• You're allowed to jump on your bed now, whenever you want - if you want.  And you should want, because it's great fun!
• You can even jump on your bed in red onesie pj's and sing Michael Jackson into your hairbrush at the top of your lungs at 12am if you want.
• Spend time with little kids.  They're one of the best, most sanctifying and most encouraging gifts God has given us, even if they aren't biologically yours.
• Make yourself a little bit vulnerable.
• Making friends with people who own cars is a good thing.  Just remember to give them gas money.
• If you have a car, be nice to people who don't.  They'll be eternally grateful, and you might make some new friends in the process.
• Sometimes people are just grumpy.  Some people are always grumpy.  It doesn't mean you have to be.
• You do not have to know what you are doing with your life.
• You do not have to know what you are doing with your life.
• One more time: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING WITH YOUR LIFE! God's plans are very often not our plans.  Tear up your 10-year plan.  It's worthless.
• Learn to love the chaos.
• Cultivating your silly is important.
• You will be poor.  It's ok - it will make you creatively resourceful.
• You will eat a lot of microwave food.  It may or may not give you cancer, depending on who you talk to.  But you will eat microwave food or starve, so you will eat microwave food and risk the cancer.
• Couscous is the BEST college dorm meal - boil water, pour in couscous, let sit.  Enjoy.  Easiest. Thing. Ever.
• You're allowed to bend some of the rules.
• You don't NEED a printer.  But they're nice to have...
• You DO need more than one set of sheets and one set of towels, no matter what your father tells you HE went through school with (the uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow-stories from your parents - tell them to be a big girl/boy and get over it.  You need at least 2 sets of each).
• Similarly, you do not NEED to do laundry until you are out of underwear.  But when you are out of underwear, you NEED to do laundry.
• Flip flops, tie-dye t-shirts, jeans that you have worn every day this week, sweats, pj's, oversize hoodies, and mismatched outfits are all acceptable to wear to class.
• You can fit 2 loads of laundry into 1 dryer.
• You need tupperware.  So you can steal a weeks worth of meals from the dining hall. Plan it into your schedule
• Living in a dorm is tight.  (Literally, it's a tight space.  But it can also be cool, yo) You will learn to deal.
• Living on campus is a good experience, even if it's hard some days.
• Stop complaining.
• Engage - with everything.
• Don't burn things.  Setting off the fire alarm in your building makes EVERYONE mad.
• Send letters.  Find a friend and be pen pals.  Getting mail is fun, sending mail is even funner.
• You're allowed to make up words like "funner", as long as you do it with authority.
• You're allowed to have hard days.  Some of them will be so challenging and difficult, you'll want to cry.  Some days you will cry.
• You're not allowed to have bad days.  Every day is a gift from the Lord, so treat it as such
• You are allowed to cry
• You are allowed to miss home
• Call your parents every now and again, just to say hi

 Most importantly:

• Learn, love, and grow.  Do everything to the glory of the Lord - all else will fall into place.  

Vanity and Treasures - Reflections from Haiti: Part 2

2398 days ago, I was approximately 4,000 miles away, in a different country, sitting on a bus riding through rice fields and cinder-block houses. (Actually it was only 12, but it feels like it might as well be a parallel universe in a parallel lifetime.) 

Now I'm sitting in a plush chair, belly full, and typing this on my very own personal computer.  Which I purchased (partly) with my own money, because I, at the age of 18, had a steady job which afforded me enough money to pay rent, eat food, and do things like purchase a brand new Apple laptop.  Which can be connected to the internet any time I want, because we have power plants here that run 24-7, and the money to pay for an internet connection.  I can get up and go to the fridge to get a nice cold glass of (almond) milk, I can go to the bathroom and have a toilet that flushes, water that runs, and anti-bacterial soap to clean myself with.  I can go to my own, personal bedroom, close the door, and sleep in my very own bed.  My house has an air conditioner for when it gets hot, a heater for when it gets cold, a closet full of way too many clothes, a fridge full of food (and multiple additional cupboards full of even more food), and luxury that, in all honesty, rivals that of royalty. 

But I can't help but think that maybe all this is for naught....

I've always liked the book of Ecclesiastes.  I couldn't quite tell you why, but it resonates with my soul, for some reason.  And it's been speaking truth to me a lot recently, about this trip:

"What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him." - Ecclesiastes 3:10-14

But what if not everyone can afford to be happy?  What if, while I sit here in my plush chair with all of my royal winnings around me, what if someone else is starving and naked because they cannot even make a salary of $1 per day? 

"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever...
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing."

-Ecclesiastes 1:2-4; 8

This is what I cannot help but feel.  Every time I walk into a grocery store.  Every time I see what I am spending my money on.  When I sit lazily on my couch and watch TV.  And here, in this culture, it's so easy to just forget.  To live like everyone else - with so much.  We are such easily swayed creatures, humans.   But the reality of this trip, the truth that those children are naked, hungry, and starved of love - this reality pierces me, and I cannot let go if it.  Those people are real.  We sit here, in this great country (and it is indeed a great country), and we wallow in self-pity.  We whine and complain about how our house isn't big enough, about how we are in debt because we over-extended ourselves because we had to have that new BMW, even though we knew we couldn't actually afford it.  We think, "if I just had that, then I would finally be happy".  I fall into that trap often myself.  I think, "maybe if I just had jeans that looked better on me, then I wouldn't be so frustrated, so self-conscious, maybe I could sleep an extra 20 minutes because I wouldn't have to put so much effort into my wardrobe...".  But it's all vanity.

What if we truly turned our eyes to heaven, instead?  What if we didn't just preach from our pulpits on Sundays about caring for our neighbors and giving to the poor, and then gossip on our way out the doors, hop in our gas-guzzling, mightily expensive vehicles, go home to our homes where everyone is fed and dressed and sit on our couches and drink beer and yell at the TV because some ref just made a bad call.  What if we actually let our souls be turned inside-out and upside-down? 

"Do not build up treasure for yourself on earth.... Build up your treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth destroy, and where thieves cannot break in and steal." - Matt. 6:19-20

This is what Jesus commands.  This is not a helpful piece of advice, or a recommendation for those who wish to be extra-righteous.  This is not an option, or a "choose 5 of these 50 commands, whichever ones suit you best", this is not something which can simply be ignored because it is inconvenient or uncomfortable, or might make us "seem weird".  No, this is a command from the divine lips of the Lord.   And it cannot be ignored.

Haiti is the poorest country in the world.  One week there turned my entire universe on it's head.  This is not to say that I didn't believe all this before... It simply made it real.  And tangible.  And urgent.  Things will not make us happy.  And so I will seek, from this point forward, to truly store treasures for myself only in heaven.  I cannot straddle the two universes; I must choose one.  I choose eternity.  I realize this may mean that I choose poverty in this world.  I realize that this may mean that my finances are not always what I wish them to be in this world.  I realize that this may mean that I am often uncomfortable, that I may not ever have a "real" retirement plan, and that I may often appear strange, silly, or foolish to those around me - in this world.  I understand that my fear of man will be challenged.  In this world.

But if that is all temporal, and if I can glorify and magnify the God of eternity through this, the God who looked at me on my worst day and said, I want her in my family - I would be a fool to choose anything else.