Haiti Mission Trip with "a door to hope": July 12 - 19, 2014

July 12-19, 2014 were days full of emotions for me. It was like the reality of our next move had crashed into me going a million miles per hour... and it hurt. Real. Bad. Ya know why? Because I had to look in the mirror to figure out what was going on. And it wasn't a pretty site. Growing in any area of our lives hurts. Whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually. But, this week in particular was stretching me beyond what I could even imagine or handle on my own. (More details on those growing pains another day.)

"So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You've had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God." 1 Peter 2 - The Message

For now, I just want to give you a quick peek into our week that was filled with tears of all kinds. Mostly really good kinds. (If you're my Facebook friend - you can see pics in an album I just posted). Brynna got to go with us along with a friend from our new church, Tammy Young and a friend from our old church, Mike DiEnno. We joined up with a BGM board member at the Nashville airport along with her daughter (Haley) and friend (Sydney Jane) for the first flight out. In PAP we met the rest of the team who had come from Texas. Most had come from Friendswood Community Church (now named The Harbor). Some had come from Midlothian and had helped organize the Teacher's Conference that we put on during the week. (I apologize that I canNOT for the life of me figure out the rhyme or reason for placing the photos in an order... it's not consistent and I can't figure it out!)

Our team divided up daily and accomplished MUCH! We held an amazing Teacher's Conference for teachers who came from 7 different schools. We had teams beginning the process of giving the Kenscoff school a makeover! We had teams clean wheelchairs and paint at Wings of Hope. We had teams working diligently in the Creche' at the Bethel Guest house. We had a team go to Godet and clean and play with the kids. We had a team build a home and a bunkbed for a widow in Callabasse. 

Judy Barnette teaching teachers!

Haitian teacher looking thru
a microscope for the first time ever!

Mike D teaching Science to
Haitian teachers

Home built a couple weeks before we got there. 15 kids call it home.
Thought I'd have a heart attack climbing up, up, up this mountain!

Godet (pronounced Go Day) - the "Orphanage in the Clouds"
Literally sits amongst the clouds sheltering 18 children

My handsome hubs greeting and praying for the
family at the home that our team built this week.

Pastor Dana catching
bubbles for Joudeline

Me and Joudeline - my favorite Baby!

Josephine and Brynna at Wings of Hope

2014 Christine Anderson

Tammy Young enjoying the Creche'!

Woody - going HOME tomorrow after 4 yrs!
HALLELUJAH!

Mike D with Joudeline

Watching a few minutes of the final World Cup game

Lisemie

Ainata?

Jonathan Hazen - coming home soon.
Asked you to pray for him in an earlier blog.

Here's some pics from 2013... see if you can watch them grow!

My beloved favorite Baby
Joudeline

Aniata, I believe?

Jonathan - coming home soon...
I asked you to pray for him in an earlier blog

Christine Anderson

daughter of 

Jared & Megan Anderson

He's coming home TOMORROW!!
as in 7-30-2014 after 4 yrs!
"Woody", I believe...

See if you can pick out some familiar faces from 2012... and see how they've grown!

2012

2012 - Jared & Megan Anderson
and family (minus two in US, I think)

2012, Lisemie, I believe

2012 - Lisemie is on left

2012 - Aniata, I think?

It's a Monday!

Good Monday to you! Chris has returned from his month in Haiti and is helping with things around the house that have been put off. He's not really been too exhausted as we had anticipated. He says that he's come home more tired from a week long trip, but we're wondering if it'll hit tomorrow or the day after. We'll see. At least he took the day off work and is easing back into our crazy culture. I imagine he'll return to work tomorrow and sift through all the paperwork and such from the four trips he led. Brynna and I and our friends Mike DiEnno (Ormsby) and Tammy Young (Temple) were able to join us for Chris' third week in Haiti. Judy Barnette (a BGM Board Member) and her daughter and friend joined us, too along with Friendswood Community Church (out of Texas - WONDERFUL group of believers!) I'll be working soon on getting through the videos and photos from our week there and putting them up on Facebook. I didn't take a whole lot of photos because I truly just wanted to be present in the moment. It's so hard to be present in the moment... soaking it all in when you've got the camera up to your eye. It's impossible to see everything.

Until I get the photos up - you can check out the Friendswood Community Church recap. Watch the video and find Mike D and even Brynna and Chris' tatoos make an appearance! Watch it here.

Thankful for this verse today that reminds me how great our God is and to seek Him in all things: "The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you." Psalm 9:9-10

What is He saying to you lately?

Who Are We and Why Are We Risking the Ocean?

Characters:

Christopher Bryan is the head master. Our hero. Our king. My love. My best friend.
Jennifer Allyn is me. The wife. The momma. The one writing all this down. I was once known as Jeni, but now I'm just "Jen".
Rachael Allanna is our first baby ('92). Grown and gone... married to Quinton. (He is the answer to many prayers... pretty perfect for her!) Rachael is our first little glimpse of His mercy.
Josiah Bryant is our boy ('94) who is now a man. A young man of God. Our first taste of His peace.
Brynna Kathryn Alexandra is the baby ('95). She is our first snapshot of His grace. It was going to be her middle name until the day she was born. Rachael and Josiah even made a huge banner that covered the entire living room wall reading, "Welcome Home Sarah Grace!"(Yeah - that's a story for another day).

Bringing home the boy! (Rachael 18 mo)

And then there were 3! (Rachael was 3 yr, Josiah 18 months)

Rachael's first day of Kindergarten

Coronation of our
King Josiah at age 8!

Brynna Kate on her 3rd birthday... she received this baby and without hesitating named it "Chalk"...
At Christmas she got Chalk a little sister and named it "Eraser"! I'm not kidding.

Plot Summary:
A man loves God more than anything in the world and choses to take with him on this JOURNEY called "life" a woman who is his best friend, and call her Jen. And when a man loves a woman... they have babies (every nine months we either gave birth or found out we were gonna give birth...) and continue to follow "In His Steps" just as they had learned in college at Marshall University at Christ Community Church under the leadership of Dr. Gregg Terry. I'll leave out all the middle stuff for now... blah... blah... blah... we landed in Louisville having served with our pastor Rick Bowden and his family for over 16 years UNTIL July 1, 2013.... That's when the boat took a sharp turn. We were living very comfortably, yet finding it more and more uncomfortable to live. We decided to follow His leading. We had our entire faith family cheering us on. The Lord moved us to Nashville as Chris was now the Director of Missions for a door to hope.

We affectionately called this great JUMP on our JOURNEY - "risking the ocean" the past couple years after hearing the song by David Crowder titled - "Sometimes" (<--watch/listen here).  The Lord began to work in our hearts and stir them up.

Basically, we are an ordinary family following Jesus on this JOURNEY of faith. We are moving to Haiti from August 22 - December 15 to see if it's good for us as a family and good for the ministry. So, won't you join us? You can watch right from where you are. We'll try to keep you posted of what's going on in our lives and you can join us by praying for us. We need LOADS of wisdom. We needs LOADS of bug spray. We need loads of courage. We need loads of friends cheering us on. Will you cheer for us?

Time is ticking away...

tick... tick... ticking away! Half of me wants it to S - L - O - W - - D - O - W - N and the other half wants it to hurry up and get here! August 22... 5:50 AM... BNA departure. The part of me that needs it to slow down is the one that has the list of ALL the little things that still need to get done around here. Today, while Chris is in Haiti and Brynna is at JCreek, I am thankful for friends who have come alongside us and asked what we can do specifically to help get ready for this JUMP into the ocean. Prayer is at the top of our list. But, looking way down the list are little things that just add up to give me anxiety. I've never really struggled in my life with anxiety until now. Pray for me, please.

I'm so thankful that Jeff and Kim Willbur came down for a couple days and checked off many little things that sure felt HUGE when they were on the list. The list is slowly getting shorter. And we are grateful. Chris is in Grand Goave this week leading a team. They are building a house with a team of all but one man (GO WOMEN!) and providing VBS and prayer walking and all that jazz.

Last week I was able to meet with an adoptive momma in a coffee shop called "The Well" in Brentwood. Well... our cups both runneth over. We more than sprinkled that place with our tears. Tears of every kind: joy, grief, anticipation, sorrow, pride, anxiety, hope, knowing, not knowing... I have the absolute privilege of delivering a tiny token of their love to their baby boy in an orphanage next week. I'm gonna take videos and pictures and bring them back to her to help the time pass as she awaits the day that her family will be able to bring him home. His name is Jonathan. Will you pray for him and his transition into the U S of A? And pray for his family here who are waiting for the day?

James reminds us in chapter 3 verses 13-16: "Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.

17-18 Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor."

Shattering... The Fish Bowl

"God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life! Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!” God created the huge whales, all the swarm of life in the waters, And every kind and species of flying birds. God saw that it was good. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean! Birds, reproduce on Earth!” It was evening, it was morning— Day Five." Genesis 1:20-23 The Message

As I read these verses my nose works overtime. I can smell fish and birds and all kinds of smells… Can you? For over 16 years I lived in a fish bowl. (Married to an Associate/Students pastor.) And for those of you who knew me well, you knew it was okay except when the yuck came out of me. Gazing through this fish bowl you could see everything that I felt (if you even looked) because I usually just feel it all. Out loud. Big. Since a fish bowl (well, the one I lived in) is round and it tends to distort reality or at least make it bigger or smaller or rounder or weirder than it actually is.  

I can be vulnerable. Even vulnerable to a fault. And most of the time vulnerable can be good, but some times it can be really ugly and stinky. The very hardest part of living in a fish bowl actually was when it came time to grieve the loss of my mother’s sudden death. I wanted to be a fish that could hide in a cave and not let just let anyone see me wrestle with the Sovereignty of our King. It was during those years that I literally had to sort through all the lies that were grown into my thinking, my living, my understanding of Who God was. What do you call those things? Algae eaters? Yeah, I had to do that… ugh! Can’t you see it, smell it? The lies that were ever-so-innocently sprinkled into my brain my whole life by well-meaning, church-going people. The lie that if one went to church and served Him faithfully, He’d make their life easier. Maybe even allow my parents to live long and prosperous lives. They wanted to retire and to fly supplies overseas for missionaries. Why wouldn't He like that plan? He had a different plan that didn't include my mom on earth any longer and He took her at the age of 56. He gives and He takes away. In an instant life changed for us. She left us, but you know what? He never did. And you can quote me on that!

It was a very messy job, though. It stunk and it was hard work. It took a long time. Longer than I ever imagined. The pain was deep and wide. I went to counseling for a year. There were times that I literally felt like someone had taken a knife and cut my chest open and shredded my heart into a trillion pieces. Literally. As time went by, God used very special people in my life to listen and speak truth into my heart. I could have never survived those years without my hubs and children and too many friends to list.

I finally came to terms with the fact that our Father knows best. He really does. And we don’t even know how or why. God doesn’t owe us anything. Not even an explanation. My momma went home to be with our Lord long before I would have ever written it into the story. LONG before. I’m guessing that other people needed to see me hurt and heal. That’s why I was stuck in that fish bowl. With eyes on my every move. May He be glorified is the new prayer of my heart. Even when I can’t understand how or why.

We are currently in a state of what we affectionally call “risking the ocean” which I’ll go into more detail at another time. But, for those of you who have asked… here’s my blog… here I go again… living in a fish bowl. But, I pray that this fish bowl will be used to help you see more clearly into our lives and hopefully point you to seeing His true character. God is Sovereign. He is love. He is faithful. He is just. He loves you and even me.