Titanyen, Haiti
Can you imagine the Apostle Paul writing to the churches throughout the years, exhorting them, correcting them and building the Kingdom in order to empower them to advance the Kingdom of God amongst their own people? Imagine all of this, and then imagine Paul visiting them. Just think the power that was in the visit, how Paul and the churches were impacted, changed and commissioned amongst their own. Imagine what it did for both ends. This is what Church2Church is about.
Night before last, I left for Titanyen (Tee-Tie-Yan) to visit with my friends from the Global Outreach compound. I was with Global Outreach while on the World Race (August 2010) and found my family in Haiti – the Heady's. David & Judy Heady have been here for 30 years on July 4th and have been such a blessing to me in encouragement and breathing so much life into me to become the man God He has made me to be.
As my eyes met their faces, all that has gone on began to flash before my eyes, from the prayers to the Facebook messages and the Skype calls and all of the times that we spent together over the past two years working together in unity to advance the Kingdom of God.
We were almost to Titanyen when I saw the guys (below) working on the wall and as I jumped out of the van, they all, realizing it was me, yelled, "COLBY!!!!!!" (I worked with them as a mechanic all month while on the World Race and quickly began to fall in love with these mighty men of God – men whose hearts were bigger than their heads.)
Throughout the rest of the day, I visited with them, rehashed memories and we poked fun at each other. Guistav ("DeWayne") told me I was getting fat – and I told him the same. Anouse and I stared at each other for a minute from a distance and it hit us at the same time – so we ran to each other and exchanged greetings. Saul remembered my strength while Paschal showed me his radio (he was listening to a soccer game). Claudel admired my beard and me his and Misa simply smiled.
As I worked around the place, revisiting relationships and dug up memories, I began to remember the details of the things that had gone on – the ongoing conversations about their families and lives, "DeWayne" picking at me saying, "No – you no me friend!", sitting inside the dump truck during the monsoons learning Creole, and the countless hours working as we shared the joys of life together.
I was mistaken for a Haitian grocery worker the other day. I was wondering how but hey – you never know.
Throughout the World Race, I polished my Spanish, picked up on quite a bit of Creole and Romanian as well as a few other languages. Since I have many learned languages going through my head, I have been accidentally mixing them in my speech.
Evidently, I'm not good enough to wash my own clothes by hand yet. I tried, but I'm not up to Haitian standards at this moment, as they laughed at me and told me, "Ou no bon!" ("You're no good.")
So excited that things are going so well for you Colby! What a joy to revisit and fellowship with those you met on the race :)Praying for your time there to be used for His glory and further His kingdom!
Oh and you’re going to be an uncle soon 🙂 2 weeks to go! Whoop!
Hey baby!! Looks and sounds like you’re doing great. The traffic in Haiti is much the same in Jamaica I do believe. As I watched this video I quickly realized this!! We rode all over one side of Jamaica last Thursday, hosted by a great guide named Lee. Uncle Gary was in the front seat with Lee and he wanted to trade seats with us several times throughout the day but we declined!!! We had our own personal tour allowing us to stop whereever we wanted to. He took us to a great local joint where we ate jerk chicken and rice and peas!! Delicious!!!
I am trying to add captions to our pictures and put on snapfish. It’s quite a job since I took about 200 pictures. Talk later.
Love,
Mom and Dad