My last post was on how God used the Church's multicultural missions to display His manifold (intricate and artistic) wisdom not only to mankind, but to the "rulers and authorities in the heavenly places." The Haiti trip provided two more examples of this truth to me. The first example was on Sunday. The Worldwide Village team took us to a Haitian church that was outside of Port Au Prince. The church was an open structure with a roof. I could see the Caribbean sea and I could feel the breeze coming up the hill. It was beautiful. The pastors had a greet-and-meet session. I shook hands with members of the Haitian church, members of other U.S. mission teams, and mission teams from other countries. I was even greeted with a holy kiss by an elderly Haitian woman.
After the meet-and-greet, the worship team lead in worship. 2 small boys who were running loose around the church, sat down with me and held my hand. They wanted me to give them something, but they didn't go away when I said no. They sat quietly with me and leaned against me. I was then surprised when I recognized the words of the songs. The worship team was alternating between singing a verse in Haitian and then a verse in English. Towards the end of the song, everybody was singing and praising God in their own tongue. On the bus back to Port Au Prince, our whole team marveled and agreed that this was what heaven will be like.
The second example occurred to me after the first day. Monday night I was frustrated with working with the translators. I tried to keep my questions short, but the patients were often answering my questions with long drawn out stories from their lives. Their stories didn't answer my question. If only we were speaking in English, I thought I could cut their answers shorter and keep the conversation on target. I felt like I wasn't making progress and presenting the gospel clearly.
On Monday night, I volunteered to give the team devotional on Tuesday night. As I was organizing my thoughts on Tuesday morning about how to present the lessons I was learning from Ephesians 3, it occurred to me: God was using all of us: the doctors, the nurses, the d-team (discipleship team) members and the Haitian translators together to present the gospel in a beautiful, dynamic, intricate, and multicultural manner to the Haitian people. I was participating in a masterpiece being created by the master Artist of all artists. Instead of being frustrated, I should be glorifying God through this. Tuesday went much better. And yes, this made me smile.
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