It’s a Small World (in Haiti)

In the summer of 2000 (July to be precise), I was a skinny little 12-year-old kid with dirty blond hair, and I couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds. My voice was changing, my confidence was dwindling, and I was getting on a plane with my dad and my brother for the adventure of a lifetime. Dad was taking me on my first mission trip to Haiti along with 20 other people, and we were all traveling under the New Directions banner.

The year before, Dad and my brother had traveled to Haiti with the same ministry. I had heard the stories, seen the pictures, watched the videos, and now it was my turn to have the same experiences.

I was terrified.

Not just because it was my first time on a plane – that was terrifying/exciting enough – but it also meant I would have to get to know 20 people I had never met and be thrust into close quarters with them for seven days. I wasn’t exactly a people person. However, it turned out to be a life-changing moment.

The first thing you feel when you step off the plane is the heat. It’s like Mike Tyson punching you in the chest. Next, the smell – dirt, sweat, and other bodily “items.” Finally, the view. An island of dust and dirt, shacks piled on top of one another, and all this surrounded by mountains and the clear Caribbean Sea. For seven days we immersed ourselves in the culture and did our best to minister to needy people. We poured a concrete pad for a local school, we helped repair a wall, and we performed dentistry work for the masses. It was a week of hard, backbreaking work, and I loved every second. We were constantly surrounded by children who wanted nothing but love.

I spent hours kicking a soccer ball around and running through the schoolyard playing tag. I still remember one boy in particular, named Enoch. We were the same age, same size, and I remember that he was so full of joy. I remember him showing me the one-room house he and seven of his family members called home. It was my first look into real poverty. I was humbled and ashamed as I thought about all of the “stuff” I had and the countless times I had complained about not having the “next big thing.” It was in that moment, standing in the center of Enoch’s house, that I knew I wanted to continue doing missions work and ministering overseas.

Then…

Fast-forward 15 years. It’s the summer of 2015 and I find myself back in Haiti. Still traveling with New Directions (now Feed the Hunger), but this time as part of the Feed the Hunger staff. My dream had come true. I was working for a ministry (the same ministry that had sparked a fire in me years before) doing overseas missions. And as I stepped off the plane onto the same tarmac I had set foot on years before, I knew immediately that not much had changed. Same heat, same smells, same view. Well, almost the same view. The 2010 earthquake had decimated much of Haiti; some of the familiar landmarks from 15 years earlier were nothing but dust and rubble. But the people, the same beautiful, joyful, desperate, needy people; they were right where I left them. They still needed food, water, and shelter. Most of all, they still needed the love of Christ.

The entire week I was filled with gratitude. In the last 15 years, God had saved me from my sin, given me my dream job with the opportunity to feed the spiritual and physical hunger around the world, and He had brought me back to where it all started. It seemed that with every Haitian I encountered that week, God reminded me that His plan is so much greater than my own, and His work and kingdom reaches so far beyond my own backyard.

And now (Front row, kneeling).

So, if you are still with me, I want to encourage all of you who have never been beyond your own backyard to make plans to remedy that situation. Go on a mission trip, and if possible, take your family! It might just change your life. As part of the American church, I feel we have grown comfortable in our complacency. We rarely venture outside our bubble unless it benefits us. I’m speaking to myself here as well. I find I am much more comfortable staying right here, but if we are truly saved by grace then we are no longer afforded that luxury. We were commanded by Jesus Himself:

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get busy and GO!

Caleb Fox | Assistant Project Manager