Monday, December 2, 2013

Day One by Kristi Carstensen

Wow is really the best way to start to talk through the day. I followed the crowd and did the 30 days of thankfulness leading up to Thanksgiving this past week... starting anew with finding the good in each day to talk through. Many of the last days have included the overwhelming gratefulness that comes from the generosity of those around me, my team, and Healing Haiti as an organization. Trips do not happen without a prayer team that is faithful and on such an awesome wavelength with God that things just happen. A team of financial supporters... a family and friend network that listens to the ramblings of a full mind of all that I need/ want to get done before I go.

And then we land in Haiti. The day started like the previous trips... up early, last minute additions to the bag, watching the kids sleep for a few minutes, and off to the airport with my mom. I can only describe the whole day as seamless in many ways. No real issues with the check in, flight, layover, flight, pick up, dinner, and team. I'm listening to laughter and sharing and bonding and things that just happen in Haiti. Sometimes strangers, sometimes friends, sometimes family... but always a team.

Words of the day follow.... mine was Home. I have said it before, and it is just as true now as it was a year and a half ago when I was last in Haiti, that most of my days are a soundtrack. The song that popped into my head today was one that is, in full length, a love song. The chorus repeats the line, "it feels like home to me..." The smells, the sights, the beautiful mountains, ocean view... It is when I'm here there is a peace that settles. Perhaps it is in knowing that all I'm supposed to do is what God asks of me. Perhaps the lack of daily demands... Perhaps it is because there is nothing more than what is immediately in front of me. Perhaps, and what is most likely the most true, is that because God simply calls teams, trips, people for a time and place such as this. There is a peace and a calm that surpasses all understanding in simply saying yes. I am so guilty of overthinking life- making it more difficult than it needs to be. Everything has to be calculated and double checked and certainty gained before I'll jump in. A cost/benefits analysis of nearly every facet of life. Even this trip was overthought and analyzed to death. But the yes nearly always comes.

It just feels like home simplified.  In the simple, every day Haiti, home. A peace and a calm for the day can be found.  My heart is so full. Dear God... thank you for calling us to do Your work in this place. Let's go.

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