This Time Next Week

This time next week I will be in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and I will be able to visit with Christina, who is a girl I first met when I visited the Source of Light group home. She is also one of the older children whom I hope to help learn independent living skills through the hiring of trainer / mentors this trip. Last year she worked very hard with me, using my English to Creole dictionary so that we could understand each other a bit better.

While the trip is only a week away I feel I have at least a month of planning I would like to accomplish and I know that I will never be able to prepare or bring as much as I would like. I think I feel a little of this every year, but it is somewhat amplified as I am going alone and where I usually can rely on others to fill in the cracks I feel more exposed. I suspect there is a lesson in this for me as I will have to be more reliant and trusting in God on this trip than in the past. So prayers are greatly appreciated.

One of my biggest concerns for this trip, other than finding mentors, is this feeling that I won't be doing enough. Usually I am with a team of people that spend a week on a construction project followed by a week of medical clinics as physicians join us for the second week. I have always known that the first week has less impact than the second, but this trip there is neither construction nor medical clinics.

I have this feeling of inadequacy in that I don't have much to bring that will help the children. I do understand the impact the life skill trainers could bring and I pray that these can be hired, but other than that I fear the impact of my presence is quite small. I feel that it is important to go and visit the children so that they continue to know they are loved and thought of by people outside of the group home, but it is hard to quantify that value to myself. This is not a cry for encouragement, just things that are going through my head at the moment.

It will be good to see Christina, Edna, John Jonas, Richardson, etc. again this year. I hope to pick up a few some things to take with me and share with the children if I can find the time to get to the store.

Please continue to pray for this trip and stay tuned as I do plan to update the blog daily.

If you feel called to help support this work, please visit my Square page at https://squareup.com/store/source-de-lumiere where you can make a gift.