I believe the process of rebuilding a nation begins the same way you rebuild a wall-painstakingly-one brick, one child, or one Lego at a time

Nehemiah 2:17- “Then I said to them, ‘You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”

Part One: Three Unwanted Bags

It felt like a sick joke that I was going to one of the most impoverished countries in the world on our churches first mission trip to Haiti. Teamed with some of the most genuine and honorable strangers that I’ve ever met I felt entirely out of place. I didn’t belong- I knew that, and soon I realized that they would find that out as well. This trip with it’s high probability for dysfunction and chaos was not something that I would normally jump at. Control, order, routine, these are the things I find comfort in. These are the strongholds that I hide behind to move forward. What we would find down there- that was the complete opposite of what I had planned my life around. What we would find would be adventure and the unexplained. Failed plans and small minded vision compared to what we were able to witness All that we encountered I thought would crush me but instead it became the building blocks for how I would rebuild the life that I was building.

 When faced with something so complex and disjointed as mass poverty and corruption exploiting the already limited access to resources it’s hard to feel like you can make any sort of impact. It feels like a mountain that you are trying to move with a child’s toy shovel, impossible and defeating. As a perfectionist it’s almost impossible to see past the mission of your project to see the humanity aspect to reach people. This trip would make me realize that Christianity in America is so unlike the global church. A church that majors in mild inconveniences and congregational squabbles with pews filled (like I was) with complacent dreams of what was being asked of us. I used to think the term “radical Christian” was an insult. A phrase used for those that didn’t grasp what we are called to do. Now I wonder if they might be the ones that understand the calling much better than I did.

Haiti for those of you that don’t know or don’t fully realize is still struggling to survive from the devastating earthquake it experienced back in 2010. The earthquake not only ripped apart many families either through death or from displacement while people tried to find somewhere safe, but it also stole one of the few “thriving” cities that existed in Haiti. Port-au-Prince was destroyed, families were eradicated, and those that did make it out fled to either the mountains or to the smaller villages with little to nothing but what they could carry for their survival. We would learn on our trip that Haiti had no middle class before the earthquake. There existed the extremely wealthy that controlled all the industry and resources, many of whom left Haiti to live in other countries or the population that lived off an average of $2 (USD) a day. There was no middle ground. There were no hopes for an “American Dream” in a world that merely struggles to survive another day. After the earthquake there left little to no economy or structure for Haiti to be able to fall back on. 

I think about where I was in 2010 when the earthquake struck this island, I knew little to nothing about. I was a senior in highschool focused on graduating and getting the heck out of there. My thoughts were filled with plans for prom, and counting down the days until I was off to college. I remember hearing on the news and seeing articles online about the devastation some island experienced from some earthquake. But in my teenage mind people a few hundreds of miles away didn’t mean anything to me personally. This might have been something that might have played on the news while the television ran in the background as we got ready for dinner. More white noise in the ever-growing news cycle of chaos and tragedy. And like everything else that feeds off others misfortune the news cycle left behind this little island to whatever the next big catastrophe would get them ratings.

As with the rest of the world I went on with my life and forgot about the earthquake and the people it affected. At seventeen I could never have guessed that in a matter of six years I would go from fixating on what I was going to be wearing to prom to walking through the aftermath that that very same earthquake left in its wake. I knew as soon as we walked out those doors of the airport that Haiti had needed help long before that earthquake shook the ground. 

I don’t think anyone could walk through those streets and talk with these people and stay the same person. There is too much to see, too much to do, too much too feel as you meet these people, play with these children, and hear their stories. I wasn’t a saint that had been preparing for this trip and this calling my entire life or even for a few years. I never thought that I’d end up on a missions trip. I never thought that missions trips were more than photo opportunities for people to take pictures of their good deeds and post them on social media. I wasn’t qualified or skilled to do what “missionaries” were supposed to do. I wasn’t skilled at any of the building or construction work that our team was going to be doing. I couldn’t command a crowd and teach with the level of conviction that could transcend language barriers.

But this average and at times self-centered girl got caught up in a tornado of grace and I got to see things that I never imagined. I got to be a part of a team that would try and put a band aid over the gushing wound that poured out of Haiti. A team that was filled with talented craftsmen, bold and prophetic teachers, and overwhelmingly compassionate souls. As a team we would see and hear things that can’t be explained. We would be a part of something that can’t make rational sense and yet for that week we watched as God poured out his blessings and protection on our team and those around us. 

Our team’s adventure began not with any sort of lavish farewell but rather frustration, good intentions, and a smelly old church bus on it’s last leg of life. When I heard my Pastor, Christian, turn to me and say, “We’re down three bags. We’re going to need three more…” I about lost what was left of my fragile and failing sanity. Three more flipping bags I screamed internally while visualizing what I wanted to do with the luggage that already crowded up the hallway. Less than thirty minutes before we boarded our bus for the airport, we weren’t prepared. We didn’t have enough packed. Yes, that’s correct, not ENOUGH luggage. Prepaid luggage was a blessing and a curse as it meant an easier check in process but it also meant that now we were short of what we already paid for. 

This would be the cherry on top of what had been an ongoing battle between myself and the mountain of supplies we had collected over the past month. But here I was and I already didn’t have any more fight in me and we hadn’t even left for the trip. We hadn’t even left the church property yet. Standing there in the dusty church basement that still had the slight stench of gross teenage boys wafting out of the youth room staring at dozens of packed suitcases waiting to be loaded I was exhausted. But low and behold we were indeed three bags short and everyone was looking at me. 

There was a room that we borrowed-okay kinda stole – from Children’s ministry filled with school supplies, vacation Bible school materials, toys, clothes, hygiene supplies, medical donations, and anything else that made its way into the room (some things looking like they were late for a garage sale). I had spent too much time in this room with some of my fellow teammates the past few weeks- receiving, sorting, packing, repacking, and debating over what was coming down with us and what could be stored and more importantly what should just be burned. Needless to say, I had thought that that part of my life was over, at least for the moment, but now here we were needing more crap that we hadn’t thought would be important enough to bring in the first place. 

Traveling internationally with 14 teammates when there were no stores for supplies meant that everything that we knew we were going to need must be packed and brought with us. This job landed on me so when the time came for the supplies to be selected a small group of us worked over two weeks to get to where we currently stood. We had a system. We had a plan. We had lost a good chunk of our lives sorting things into piles, color coding, debating, and God knows what else to determine what was going to come with us. After what felt like agonizing weeks we moved on to the “exciting” part, the packing, oh and then there’s the re-packing because we initially forgot about the 50 lb. airline bag restrictions.  We double and triple checked the weight for all the bags seeing as our handy luggage scale was fresh off the clearance rack made us think it might be a bit unreliable. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to pick up the 48.6 lb bag of hygiene donations at my feet and chuck it across the room at Christian.

Honestly though that bag wasn’t going anywhere because one-then I’d either have to repack this bag or find a new one and two there was only a small chance that I was actually going to be able to heave the thing across the room like I wanted-so on the ground it stayed. With an annoying calm only Christian can muster. He looked down at me and said: “What do you need?” What did I need? What did I need? Well what I needed (besides probably a Prozac or Xanax and to have been forced to switch to decaf DAYS ago) was to just get on the bus and leave this dungeon of a basement. What I needed was a chill pill but I will say this; trying to pack 300 hygiene bags, a week’s worth of Vacation Bible School material, 16 jars of peanut butter and jelly (TSA must have LOVED that), 3,000 lollipops, 21 soccer balls, and everything else that had to come with us was not as simple a task as you might think. What started as a personal game of tetris turned into a labyrinth of existential crisis.

With an unhealthy level of contempt for a Pastor I looked at Christian and said, “Could you just grab three of the empty bags and send Erin in there. I just don’t want to look at it anymore. She can just stuff some crap in them, and we’ll figure out what to do with them when we get down there. It’s not like we need any of that crap anyway.” It would be these words that would come back to haunt me later. These three stupid bags filled with things I in my “infinite wisdom” had deemed unworthy of coming that would be one of the hardest lessons that I would need to swallow.

That is how our little adventure off to Haiti started-with frustration and 1,300.0 lbs. of donated supplies for a week with little direction for what we were going to be doing but a whole lot of enthusiasm and excitement for what was to come. Through that frustration about three little bags came one of the many stories of grace and provision that we were able to witness while we were there. Those three bags thrown together at the last minute were the reason we now had 50 lbs. of Legos. Why? Because Erin as a preschool teacher and Boy Mom knew there was power in Legos that I couldn’t possibly understand. These Legos would be the torch that we carried back with us that hope was catching on the island. If I had my way the Legos would not have been coming. I sat and stared at all of our options and supplies for hours and the vote had been cast. The Legos were not what God needed us to bring.

Looking back not only were those Legos a priority but they were my own personal conviction in what ministry should look like. Not in what I deemed God needed but in listening to what was needed of me. But let’s backtrack six months to the middle of January where the story of how I ended up in that hallway threatening to chuck a 50 lb bag of donations at a Pastor began. How did I end up getting signed up for this little adventure with the group of 14 strangers. Well like many things in my life- I think we can safely blame Christian Hipsky.

It all started back in the winter right before a blizzard when I came down with some version of food poisoning. We were preparing our church to house the homeless for a week while also praying that the impending blizzard that was being called for was well…going to avoid our area of Maryland. In the midst of the chaos of trying to figure out what we were supposed to do if we had 40+ people snowed into the church I got this text message, “Hey…you spoke/studied French right?” Cryptic I know but for him this was quite normal but unfortunately for me I didn’t-I took German. Which besides being able to order schnitzel like a champ hasn’t gotten me pretty much anywhere in life? But it seemed like a good idea in high school. 

With his response of, “Monkey suck. Well you’re coming with me to Haiti in June anyway,” this is how I found myself starting to research the island, the people, and the organization we were working with-Schools for Haiti. Oh, just to be clear-we did get a blizzard, we did have people snowed into the church for a few days, and no one died. But for now, we go back to Haiti-for five months as the team slowly began assembling we planned and prayed for what God wanted us to be a part of down there. Because honestly, we weren’t really sure what we were going to find. Our Senior Pastor, Pastor Pat, had recently felt a pull to get involved with a growing organization that he had been introduced to. 

So here we were shortly afterwards partnered up with Schools for Haiti embracing our Pastor’s call and embarking on our first actual hands-on service rather than just the philanthropy of writing a check. I can’t speak for everyone on the team but for me it was really hard to prepare emotionally, mentally, and spiritually for what we were about to find. We were basically going into this completely blind minus a vague schedule of what we “could” be doing and what we’d “like to be doing” but in reality, we were just going to have to play it by ear- spontaneous and flexible. There’s not a problem with being flexible and open to what we find down there but it’s hard to prepare when you don’t know what you are going to need or rather what you’re not going to need. It’s hard to prepare when you don’t know what’s going to be asked of you and what you do know you later found out is that you had no cultural parallels to compare it to. Even the basics like running a Vacation Bible School would throw even the most accomplished Children’s Leaders of Erin, Gammy, and Brian for a loop at first.

But Pastor Pat knew when he felt called to Haiti that there was something special to be found in a country that many had forgotten. He knew that our church had something to contribute and he believed in the bigger picture. But he knew that he couldn’t always be boots on the ground so he instilled the passion for these people in someone he knew would fall in love with the country just like he did, Christian. So that’s how Christian got “stuck” leading our band of merry unqualified misfits down to Haiti on a trip that had no real plan, no real direction, and a whole mix of personalities. This group was going to be in for a whirlwind as we traveled down and found that our plans and expectations would be so small compared to what God had in store for us. 

As the bus drove off out of the church parking lot frustration took a backseat to growing excitement and anticipation as I looked around at this group that would become so vital to me as they walked beside me in one of the most vulnerable times of my life. Everyone would come back completely changed, not that we would have believed it even if someone told us.  We were all filled with a desire to go, to do, and to serve. Not knowing what to expect when we got there we settled in confidence that we were as prepared as we possibly could be which now begrudgingly included 50.0 lbs of Legos.