The Ordinary Ones

1. "A mission partner is the same thing as a donor or benefactor." False! A mission partner is really a partner for the mission. I need partners because I cannot go on mission by myself. This means a mission partner believes in the mission of "Leading Teens Closer to Christ", specifically in Haiti. I don't want mission partners who don't really care about what's happening in the mission and don't really want to support it. I want mission partners who love the mission, care about it, pray for it, and are invested more with their hearts than their pockets. 2. "Mission partners just give financial support." FALSE! It is my hope that all mission partners are also prayer partners. Some mission partners are also prayer partners who don't give donations. These are often my favorite mission partners because I know they are making real sacrifices for me. I have had mission partners who take cold showers as a sacrifice, give up drinking co

Interruptions are a part of my daily life here in Haiti. It is nearly impossible to sit down for a morning to plan ministry, have a meeting, meet with a teen for discipleship, eat lunch, lay in a hammock, or whatever I am doing on any given day, without being interrupted by someone who walks into the gates of our mission base and needs something. It may be a parent who wants to send their child to school, or someone who needs food, or medical help. Sometimes it is just someone who wants to talk or say hello. While I know that this is a beautiful and necessary part of our mission, recently it has been very difficult for me. I often want to be able to finish whatever it is that I am working on. Sometimes I just want to be able to show the person in front of me that they are important, but someone else is hovering yards away, waiting to talk. Sometimes I just want to finish my lunch, or be free for a moment. I have been realizing over the past month or so that sometimes these moments

This summer, in our mission in Haiti, we helped nine young adults grow in their faith, be committed to daily prayer, and live out their missionary calling for four weeks. It was part of my job this summer to lead this part of our mission, although I think many of those responsibilities came by accident. When I began dreaming and planning, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into, and didn’t realize that I would be the one primarily responsible for carrying out that plan. Let me tell you all the reasons why I am unqualified for this. I cannot speak Haitian Creole 100% fluently. I have never led summer missionaries before, even in English. I am shy. I cannot think of hundreds of things to say in English, much less in another language. I am scared of people. I cannot sing. (It’s a cultural thing in Haiti that many people lead prayer by starting with a song.) I am lacking in confidence, and afraid of failure. And yet God used me. I’m not sure how or why. I am humbled

“I don’t want to work for the Lord. I want to belong to Him.” Several months ago, someone who came to visit our mission base in Haiti said this, and it has stuck with me ever since. After a ton of prayer, I feel like God is reminding me who He really created me to be. I think this struck me because recently, if I am honest, I have been tiring myself out trying to work for the Lord. The word “leadership” has come up a lot in the past few years of my life. For some reason I felt like this was what people were telling me I needed to be. I thought that I had to lead something in order to have value. If I wasn’t given something to lead, it must be because I was doing something wrong, and maybe no one had the guts to tell me exactly what that “something” was. I lived in constant fear of disappointing others. I thought that if I wasn’t leading, then I must be failing. As someone who does not have a leadership title, I then spent the better part of two or three years feeling like I was fai

I recently attended a week-long Theology of the Body course , where I was able to retreat and be renewed, as well as learn a ton about the Church’s teachings on what it means to be male and female, and the truths of our sexuality. I am still unpacking so much truth from this week, but one immediate, relevant thing that stuck out to me was when the speaker said to us, “Play your Harmonica.” He had just finished telling a story about a gifted musician who had stopped playing the piano because she felt that she needed to sacrifice it to God because she loved it so much. He pointed out that that could come from a warped view of who God created us to be. If we are depraved, then everything we love needs to be given to Him and sacrificed. But if we are good, then all of our desires need to be offered to Him and purified still, but recognizing all the while that our desires themselves were given to us by God. The speaker also referenced a movie where the main character was encouraging someo

Remerson, a ten year old who I have been accidentally calling Lameson for a year and a half, walked up to me the other day with shoes that were so torn that he was basically barefoot. He asked me for marbles, so I gave him marbles and a new pair of shoes (all thanks to our donors and mission groups). Over a year ago, we were riding in the car with two of our teens who were both about twenty at the time. We drove to Miragoane, a town twenty minutes away, and got ice cream. They had their first bite of ice cream in their entire lives and loved it. Around that same time, I was talking to one of our other teens, Taina, who told me that she usually sleeps on the floor. After going to her house one day, she showed me where the water can come in through the wall and wet the piece of floor that she sleeps on. Soon after, we were able to give her and several others a bed and a mattress. Several of our teens have told us that they used to not go to church before we got here, or that they w