Christmas in Haiti...the Greatest Gift! Part 1

Bonswa! I am back from spending my Christmas vacation in Haiti and of course, am missing it already. I wanted to do daily blog updates about my trip while I was in Haiti. However, the wifi in Haiti is a bit shady to say the least. Anyways, I was given an incredible opportunity to be part of a team with Love in Action Ministries and Give Us Hope Mission that spent a week ministering to Haitians by giving Christmas gifts, food, toys, and most importantly the gift of Jesus Christ.
We were blessed to stay at the Life Connection Mission House in Montrouis, which is about an hour and a half drive north of Port-au-Prince up the coast. Having spent most of my time in Port-au-Prince, I was so excited to go outside the big city and experience different aspects of Haitian life, culture, and worship.

Our beautiful sunset, God blessed us with every day.

I always find it hard to recap an entire trip because sooo many things happen. So I am going to summarize the high points that stick out in my mind. :)

Sunday was a hard day for me because I missed the my kids at CLS and found in really hard not being there. However, that afternoon, a sweet girl named Edlan came home with us from church. I cannot even describe the impact this one little girl had on our entire group. She did not speak English and we don't speak Creole, but some how we were able to communicate and bond with each other. We were able to load her up with LOTS AND LOTS of goodies. As a matter of fact, I think of all the stuff we had to sort through for the upcoming week, she got like one of everything. :) I ate dinner with Edlan and God used this one little Haitian girl to show me that life goes on at CLS without me and that there are thousands of Edlans in Haiti and that there is always work to be done. My ministry in Haiti does not stop in Port-au-Prince. This is totally random, but she did something that tickled me during dinner. She filled her tray slam full that night at dinner and anything she didn't like or want, she just threw it onto my plate. I'm not sure if she was just being generous or she just didn't like it. But it made me smile either way. 

On Monday, we traveled north to a village called L'Artibonite. This village has a large amount of voodoo followers, but Christ is strong there than the voodoo! We visited with a group of believers that hold church services I guess you could say in the back part of a person's house. Thankfully, God blessed or group with the finances to be able to begin construction of a church for this group of believers in this community. The time of worship we experienced was intense. I had never been around anything like this. It was such a blessing even though I had no idea what was going on half the time.

Worshiping in L'Artibonite. Words can't describe it. You just had to be there. 

After the time of worship and prophecy, we gave out water bottles filled with goodies to the children. For many of them, this was the only Christmas present they will receive this year. I snapped a picture of these two cuties outside as they were leaving with their gifts. Well I can see this is turning into a reallllllly long post. So, I'm going to tell y'all about the rest of the trip in another post. This gets us through Monday, December 23. ; ) Still have 4 more days to share with you! Thank you for supporting me in my passion for Haiti and continue to pray for the people in Haiti and for myself as I journey toward moving my life there in June. Bon nuit! : ) (Good night!)