Haiti - The Pull

I was sitting in church over a year ago listening to this guy named Tom talk about the work he was doing in Haiti and how he'd ended up there. I've heard missionaries talk over the years and they all seem to be doing great things, but at the end of hearing them talk, I end up feeling bad for the people they work with and guilty that I'm not doing enough and wondering if all we're doing is putting a band-aid on the problems things. With Tom, I connected with what he was saying at a lot of levels:

• As a businessman, it made sense in terms of the return on investment of what he was doing.
• As a consultant, it made sense that he was getting to the root cause of some of the issues and addressing them in ways that would be self-sustaining
• As a person, it made sense that he wasn't doing the normal missionary plea. He got up and told his story and didn't use a lot of christianize like "blessed", "evangelize" or "conversions".

All of those things connected me and flipped a switch inside of me that said, "I want to be a part of this". Fast forward to a year later and I'd done nothing as a result of that switch being flipped. I was at an event at church in January where people had tables setup different people were talking about the ministry they were a part of. I walked up to an older guy who reminded me of Cathie's grandpa that I'd never met before and asked him what he was a part of. His name was Bill, and he was talking about Haiti.  It turns out, he and his wife were the people who'd connected Tom (the Haiti guy) to our church originally . Bil told me there was a group going down in September, and then said: "I'm going down in March. Do you want to go with me?" Before I could even think about it, my immediate answer was, "Yep, I'm in" The switch had already been flipped a year ago and I reflexively answered.

We booked our flights and got our vaccinations for malaria, hepatitis, tents, etc. My wife and I had a "get to know you" lunch with Bill and his wife to learn a little more about the plan and figure out the logistics for the trip. Seems a little strange to some that I'd agree to spend a week with a guy I'd never met in a place I'd never been. In my gut, I sensed that Bill was a good guy and it turns out I was more than right. I guess I can't discount God's pull on me around this whole Haiti thing either.