Hungary Day 3

"You're a Good, Good Father…" I don't often wake up with a song in my head, but in Hungary this was the second day in a row with a sweet worship song to kick off my day. It's been a long time since I've traveled internationally and never for a mission trip. I realize that I love the world differently than in my travels when I was younger. The lens of God brings His heart to an almost tangible place within your own that can be indescribable. Today we worked closely with the elders of the local church and their pastor John Wilson, our Overflow partner. The deep rooted love for their relationships, community and God is abundant and to their core. John is completely devoted to his church that he leads and...a true father to this community.

Our team is doing amazing!! It's been a true gift that we've all worked together for years. It turns out after almost a non-stop week together Scott, Liz and I still like each other!!! I know...it surprused me too!! Just Kidding! Tomorrow is our last day in Hungary. Scott will be heading home and Liz and I are off to another adventure...Poland!! More to come later!!

Michele

Hungary Day 1 and 2

I have had some interesting birthdays.  I remember Scampi's pizza, a magician at a swimming party, and countless sleepovers.  But, yesterday was unexpected.  

Sitting in Budapest at a restaurant in which we could try different Hungarian dishes, suddenly the room broke out singing "Happy Birthday" and I was presented a small cake with a large firework.  It was both startling and heartwarming. It felt familiar and strange.  

Hungary has been both familiar and strange. 

Budapest is the divide between East and West.  The Danube river eases through this ancient city naturally dividing ways of thinking and being.  At one point Budapest was the center of Europe and when you are here, it makes perfect sense.

Our day was an orientation to the city and the ministries that John and Zsofi lead.  While John has been leading Alpha's national office he has also recently been installed as the pastor of the church they attend.  It should be mentioned that Hungarian is a particularly difficult language and John has mastered it so deeply that most do not know he is an American.

Alpha is strong here.  Connecting  to the International Alpha headquarters in London, John and his team have been able to develop a growing movement of people who are being introduced to Jesus for the very first time.  Others are being developed into leaders and community is being cultivated  to strengthen the church.  I have been reminded of my own love for Alpha while we are here.  

Now the Pastor of his church, John is leading the community through a time of discerning strategy for the coming years.  This is what we will be working on the rest of the week.  

Michele and Liz are amazing people.  Gifted and brave they move through every opportunity with grace and strength.  Much of our job here in the early days has been to learn about how we work together so that we can care for and serve the missionary family we support.  I am proud to be a  part of a church that values the care of our missionary team.

The next few days we will begin our work with the larger community.  It promises to be an adventure as this mission is at a turning point in its life.  

In closing, a personal note.  John Wilson is a friend of mine.  I admire him and am still a little angry that he left Texas and did not stay to hang out with me until we were old.   But, the more I am here and watch him in this place I am absolutely sure he is where God wants him doing what he is made to do.  

When you don't know the language you watch people a bit closer.  How they smile, if they are relaxed, etc.   Watching people interact with John, whether it is a church member, a blind Alpha participant, a barrista, or a co-worker, John brings peace wherever he puts his feet.  I am not sure he knows this is true.  I intend to tell him.  

So it is familiar.  "Happy Birthday" song, close friend laughing at you, and lots of talk about church leadership.  And its strange. Ancient buildings, raw meat spread on toast, and endless consonants.  

More to come…

Scott Heare

Haiti Day 5

This trip has flown by faster than Zach’s hair poofed up in the humidity on the first day (just trust me, his hair is absolutely insane). We started off the week a stranger to our amazing host family, translators, and the kids of the community, but by the end they had meshed into our little family (which not only means we became spiritually close, but it also means that they became a victim to our malicious jokes and manipulative card game moves). Today was our official last day on Haitian soil, which is super hard to process. We are all gonna miss our new friends, the beauty and culture of Haiti, and especially each other (even though at the beginning of the trip, i’m pretty sure half of the team was scared of each other, but its okay because everyone loves each other now). For me, today was very bittersweet. Bitter because today meant the end to this “adventous" (don’t worry, I purposefully spelt that wrong, it’s yet another inside joke) week, but sweet because we got to experience another side of Haiti which reminded me that even in the seemingly most hurt places, there is still insane beauty (and also because I got to spend it with some hilarious people who manage to bring me out of my “turtle shell” (just another inside joke)).  On the way to the beach, us youths rode in a the bed of a truck (thats not exactly what its was, but its kind of hard to explain), while our adult leaders and hosts rode in the cab. For most of the ride we scream sang Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift (take into mind, there was no actual music playing, it was all acapella) while Adam (or as we now know him, “Dadam”) humorously glared at us through the window. Once we had nearly lost our voices, we arrived at the beach. As we walked out onto the sand, one of our hosts immediately exclaimed “wow this is the most white people I have seen in one place in Haiti ever”. Although the beach was packed, we still managed to have loads of fun. At first,  Jackson realized that he forgot to bring his frisbee (Georgina (which is the name of his “friz”) and became pretty sad. Then, he saw a frisbee on the ground and he and Caroline legitimately wandered around and asked a ton of the random tourists/missionaries if they knew whose it was. Eventually they found the owner who was a boy who looked to be about 11 years old. They awkwardly asked him if they could use it and he replied by saying, “guess so… yes, let me get it”. Once we had our hands on the frisbee, spirits were lifted and we played a terrible (yet still fun and only slightly violent (by slightly I mean Emma was only hit in the head one time)) game of frisbee. I know that most likely sounds like a totally random and pointless story, but in all reality it probably sums up most of our week together. We all really longed for God to do amazing things in our lives and for a connection with each other and this community. We put ourselves in awkward and uncomfortable situations to achieve our goals, and by the end of it all, we had obtained a victory. I am so thankful for this amazing team, all that they have taught me, and all of the painful side aches they have given me from laughing too hard. I’d have to say I feel pretty “connected”  (that’s my last inside joke, I swear) to these people.

Niaya ouuuuuut

Haiti Day 4

I have a fun fact for you guys, Haiti is hot. Like overly ridiculously hot. Like your face is melting off hot. ESPECIALLY when you shovel dirt and gravel onto two separate roads for 6 hours. Actually, it’s not as bad as you would think. We always have access to water, in large quantities. Like, today I drank 120 ounces of water and managed to sweat enough of it out that I only went to the restroom twice. We shoveled literally all day, but I actually had fun because our group decided to make jokes in place of complaining too terribly much. Plus the whole atmosphere of being nearer to God (at least it sure seems like it) helps. Each time I felt overwhelmed or the thought of giving up came into my head I would look up to the mountains and remember that OUR GOD created all of it and he loves this place even more than I do and I would yet again be re-energized (not gonna lie, that happened like every fifteen minutes). Our entire group (at least us kids) have a “connection” (thats low-key an inside joke) that makes us all get along incredibly well. I haven’t gone more than 30 minutes of this entire trip without laughing so hard I lose my breath. Robin even thinks we’re pretty cool, and she doesn’t even like young people! It helps we’re a really small group (6 kids total) and we’ve all become so incredibly close (even though its only day 4 haha). An example of our teamwork is when Sony (the interpreter) kept telling us “you get a coke if you move it” referring to a BIG rock on the side of the street. For a while Zach and Jackson tried to move it before we got in trouble for our lack of working on the road. A while later we all had gravitated back to the rock and Zach decided to pull the rock, Quinn (the 13 year old daughter of the missionary family we’re staying with who is super duper cool and we have all bonded with as a team as well) and I had lodged a shovel under the rock, and Emma and Charis and Niaya were pushing the rock. We tried for a good 5 minutes but WE GOT THE ROCK TO MOVE!!! I think Zach was the most proud of our accomplishment. (I want to put in a side note here to point out all 6 of them, including Quinn, are sitting ridiculously close to me and Zach keeps putting on the caps lock button to mess with me which goes to show how close we’ve become both spiritually AND PHYSICALLY) After we literally (metaphorically) died (we didn’t actually though so shout out to Jesus Christ) from all that shoveling we got to visit a store called Haiti Made in tap taps (rickety prison looking things on the back of trucks), which is a store full of Haitian made objects and Jackson ordered a coconut and peanut butter smoothie because YOLO and Haiti. After we got back to Reach Global we played an impromptu game of catch the frisbee and each time you caught it you had to make a weird sound (and the boys tried to catch and dab), which brought upon an entirely new round of laughs. All in all today was the hardest physical day, but weirdly the most fun one yet. Each day I start a new Notes page and write inside jokes, funny things that happened, or random quotes from the day and today had hands down the longest list yet. I’ve also taken so many photos and videos because even though were a relatively small group, we manage to do a lot of stupid stuff that requires documentation. Tonight we had an opportunity to lift each other up in encouragement and share our thoughts of each other from the past week and every person in the circle had amazing and thoughtful things to share with the others, to make some to the point of tears. I need too wrap it up because everyone is annoyed that I’m writing so much (even though they wished I had edited all their posts to make them longer and “more interesting” so I’m not sure why they’re mad). But overall, today was just a really really funny day that produced a lot of fruit in everyones lives. 

Caro (fine, lime, line etc.) is out!

Haiti Day 3

Overall, today was the longest day so far. For starters, we decided to fast for the majority of the day- which was not at difficult as I thought it would be -and then we also did a ton of prayer walks, in the heat. This being said, I would still say that I loved just about every second of it. Getting to see all the establishments and clinics in the community was so incredible and I especially loved when my small group got the opportunity to go and sit in on the Christianville school’s time of worship/competition. The joy and purity that all of the elementary-aged students had was just mid-blowing to watch, and I could tell the rest of my team felt the same way. Later in the day when we got back to the house, everyone got together and played scribble-head and charades, which was very entertaining, and my team won of course. I think that today was exactly what we all needed it to be, and we got a lot of time to just sit and talk- both about the things we have been experiencing and things that are going on in our lives back at home -which was really great. That’s all I got, so thanks for reading! 

Emma

Haiti Days 1 and 2

Blog Day 1- Zach Stallings

 Zach here! To start off we had to be at the airport by 4:30. I had a lot more energy then the rest of the group, at least thats what it seemed like. We all got through TSA smoothly. First flight went well and a few pictures of Jackson, Adam, and I sleeping. once we got to Miami we went straight for the food. the small group that I went with to get food got asian food. I got orange chicken and attempted to eat with chopsticks which was very tasty. The view of the second flight was WAY better than the first one, and I enjoyed looking out the window. About 30 minutes into the flight Jackson is asleep and Charis had the perfect opportunity to put pretzels in Jackson’s wide open mouth. Once we got to Port Au Prince we got all of our checked baggage pretty well and got out of the airport fast. The driving somewhat scared me, but we got to the community. Everything else went quickly and now ready for the next day. 

Zach out yo! 

Blog Day 2- Jackson Davis 

Hello, J Dawg here

So heres a preface: This place is awesome, and the people are awesome.

The morning started off with some hearty oatmeal and a walk through the community and our guide, Sony, was nothing short of extraordinary. He taught us how to say cow, pig, dog and various other things, but learning and trying to memorize the names of the animals tops off my list. After the community walk, we had a legitimate Creole lesson from Sony and i learned a lot but the question is how long I can retain it all. Next up we had a lesson over the history from a very wise and enlightened man, Franck, he had so much hope and passion for the history and future of his nation and just listening to him gave was awe inspiring. After all that learning we filled ourselves up with some chili and then went to build a bunk bed for a local family and the smile on the boy receiving the bed was like a little wink from God saying “this is what it’s about”. Just brightening up someones day. Them we had dinner and the Haitian food was impeccable. Finally we had worship and then talked about how we felt about the day and then took a dive into some deep stuff and finally devotionals. Well thanks for taking the time to read this terribly written blog and thanks for all your love and support. J Dawg out.

Team Haiti - No Wifi The Struggle is Real

Hey just wanted to let you know that I haven't been able to send out the blog. Internet isn't working and I can't get my data on my phone to push it through! But we had a great day organizing the workshop, putting together a bunk bed and playing soccer with the community boys! We also got an awesome creole lesson as well as a lesson on the history of Haiti! Here's a couple pictures!