Now that we’re back, it would be easy to say it was just Haiti. It was the amazing translators. The orphan kids. The leadership. Our team. Now we’re back in the “real world,” and you can’t possibly expect it to be the same. What we learned there was exceptional, different, unique. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now it’s back to the schedule: eight to four, three meals a day, open your Bible if you’ve got the time, and don’t forget to set the alarm. Leave the passion, the eagerness, the delicious taste of the unexpected - leave those back in Haiti. They belong to mission’s trips, not practical, daily living. Especially not in America.
Americans like schedules. We like statistics and things that we can prove. “What did you do in Haiti?” the Americans ask me. “Who did you help? What difference did you make? Were you able to make a dent down there at all?”
Well, no. No, not really. Unless you count a pinprick in an elephant’s toe as a dent. We didn’t really do much of anything in Haiti. We sweat off a few dozen pounds, guzzled water like a fish, and ate a couple hundred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That’s basically all.
But ask me what Jesus did in Haiti - ask me if Jesus made a difference - and, well, that’s a different story.
I saw Jesus gripping the end of a jump rope and laughing with a group of teenage girls. I saw Jesus listening each morning for the Father’s voice and going out to do His will. I saw Jesus getting distracted mid-conversation and pausing to scoop a toddler up into his arms. I saw Jesus sitting on the concrete, looking up Bible verses with a friend. I saw Jesus dancing to the music, face lifted, hands raised, eyes closed, a huge grin on his face. I saw Jesus down on his knees in a bare living room. I saw Jesus holding a baby with a poopy diaper and letting the kids do his hair.
I saw Jesus take on hands and feet - our hands and feet - and walk down the rubble-strewn roads of Haiti in our flip-flops. I saw Jesus live and move and breathe and sweat through His people, His church.
I saw Jesus alive and well in His Body, the Body of Christ. Not some white building with pretty carpet. Not a new sound system. Not a busy Wednesday night. Not a well-attended service. I saw Jesus in our feet that walked and hands that touched and mouths that spoke and eyes that stared deep into the face of the world and said, “God loves you. Here, let me show you how much.”
We’re not really supposed to be denting anything out here. It doesn’t matter if we make an impact on anyone at all. But Jesus denting things? Jesus making an impact? Well, that’s another matter. “He must become greater; I must become less.” In Haiti, I watched Shane and Diana and Tyson and Michelle and all the rest of us become transparent. I watched us disappear. And then I saw Jesus step in and shine brilliantly in our place. If He can do that in Haiti, don’t you think He wants to do it in America too?
