Taking a shot of faith

There is nothing about preparing for a trip to Haiti that says, "Hey! This sounds like a great idea!" Earthquakes.  Hurricanes.  Dire State Department warnings of spontaneous violent protests.  And shots. Lots of shots.  Shots for hepatitis. Shots for cholera.  Shots for tetanus and dengue fever.  And pills for malaria and other diseases long forgotten from the vocabulary of the modern world. It all seems a bit ominous.  But still, faithfully, I keep packing.

For months, I have been preparing to follow and report on a group of missionaries from Grand Rapids, MI headed by the leader of an innovative aid organization called Haitian Artisans for Peace International (HAPI).  According to its Co-Founder, Valerie Mossman-Celestin,"HAPI encourages creativity, promoting gender equality, creating economic opportunity, and growing healthy communities’ towards our vision of Living out Christ in community for a world of peace with justice."  How that mission physically shows up is in the form of microcredit, children's art programs, Communities of Shalom, community based health care and housing reconstruction.

Our team is headed to Mizak to open the Merlet Center, a 7000 square foot facility being constructed with support of the people of The United Methodist Church to house the many ministries of HAPI.  From September 20th to 28th our team will live in this mountainous, rural section of La Vallee in the Southeast section of Haiti, about a 3-hour drive south of Port-au-Prince. 

My role in Haiti will be to learn what the West Michigan Conference and The United Methodist Church are doing in Mizak and to discover if we are making a difference.  Here, the vast majority of the population, just over 35,000 people, live on less than a $1.00 per day.  Most of them are children.  I will be returning with plenty of video and photographs to share this important story.  But I am also going to Haiti for another reason, my faith.

As you can imagine, preparing for this trip has left me lying awake in the middle of the night, on more than a few occasions, wondering what the heck I am doing.  As a father to two spectacular daughters and a loving wife (of 19 years tomorrow) who count on me, I question if this is wise idea.  Based on the looks given to me upon learning of my trip, I see my friends and family are wondering too.  But I know my vision of Haiti has been shaped by the news cycle.  Cameras that only seems to show up in Haiti when it is at its very worst.  Thankfully, I have also been surrounded in the past few years by missionaries, pastors and laity that have made this country their life work.  They happily return, year-after-year, often in unstable conditions to do God's work.  There is something important going on in Haiti. My plan is to find out what that is and bring that story back to the United States.  

So, in addition to my other shots, I'm also taking many shots of faith.  Faith that calls me to step way-way out of my comfort zone to travel to a foreign land.  Faith that God will watch over me and those I travel with.  Faith that my family will be cared for while I am away.  Faith that I am feeling called to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.  

Stay tuned and pray for us.  I hope to be posting daily right here (God willing that the generator and internet signal holds out).