Mission Message

It was 1983. Our church had invited George and Lois Poston to come and share their work with Northwest Haitian Christian Mission. Back then, technology was a slideshow, and a mission presentation was not one, but at least two trays of slides. For some, one tray of pictures, along with the corresponding stories, is plenty, but I was hungry for missions. I was ready for that second slide tray to be locked and loaded. After the service and into the night, all I could think about was how I could go to Haiti on a mission trip. I knew that at my age, my parents would be hesitant to let me go. As I thought and prayed, I decided to ask my dad to take me. I was overjoyed when he said, “Yes.” And so, we made our plans to travel with a group in August 1983. We exited the commercial plane going down the stairs onto the tarmac. It was so hot that you could literally feel a wall of heat surround you, and there was a smell of burning that was permeating the air. After we had gone through Immigration and Customs, we were greeted by the Postons and others that would be part of our group during this mission trip. Having stayed the first night in Port-au-Prince, we embarked on our journey to Port-de-Paix. We spent the next week and a half pouring a concrete roof, running electricity for an orphanage, stuccoing the exterior of a church, digging a latrine, singing and preaching in revival, and singing and preaching on the radio. For the most part, the Haitian people welcomed us and demonstrated extreme curiosity concerning who we were and why we had come. There was, however, a group who practiced voodoo who saw us as a threat to their religion and way of life. We never let them scare us or stop us from completing our task of sharing the love and gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord. We also experienced deep, broken hearts when we saw little girls, whose legs had been broken and sat crooked, sitting in the side of the road, begging for money. We learned that we could not give these little girls money, because in doing so, their fathers would do even more harm to them so that we and others would have even greater pity on them. We also witnessed little boys running home after fishing for shiners in the ocean. Even though shiners had very little meat, the boys’ faces shined with bright smiles. After 10 days of working hard, long days, and preaching and teaching every evening, Dad and I returned home feeling blessed to serve God in Haiti and blessed to return home to our family. Shortly after our return, we had our slides and our newly-purchased slide projector and we shared our mission trip with our church family at West Long Prairie Christian Church. Having shared our images with their corresponding stories, it was time for tray #2.