That is the verse that came to my dad's mind when I told my parents about what happened the other day in a town outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
I am currently taking part in a 10-day mission trip in Port-au-Prince, Haiti with 17 other staff and students with Campus Crusade for Christ Argentina. We are mainly working with kids and teenagers in surrounding towns by putting on sports camps and then sharing the Gospel with them. We've also been able to do some follow-up with teenagers who are already Christians, but want to learn how to grow in their faith and share it with others.
Last Friday, our team loaded up in a huge truck headed towards a town 30 minutes away called Ona Ville. 700,000 people currently live there permanently, but the town was originally set up as temporary housing for 300,000 displaced Haitians living in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake took everything they had. These children and young people we've met there have seen and experienced awful things recently, but it's amazing to see other organizations like Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, and Compassion that have come into Ona Ville and helped these people not only physically but spiritually as well.
We were on our way into the town, when our truck stopped in the middle of the road. We all got out to help push and, in the process, I stepped BOTH feet into ankle-deep mud. I was at a loss for what to do. I look over to the side of the road and saw two women standing there, watching what had just happened. I went over to them and in my broken Haitian Creole, asked them if they had any water that I could wash my feet with. They immediately disappeared and came back minutes later with a bucket of water. I expected them to set down the bucket as I washed my own feet, but I could've never imagined what I was about to experience.
Without hesistation, the women removed both my shoes and starting pouring the water on my feet and scrubbing them down with their hands. And when I say scrubbed, I mean it. The got in between my toes, my nails, everything. I kept telling them that they didn't need to do that, but they wouldn't stop. They even took my mud-caked shoes and completely rinsed them down and cleaned them by hand. I was amazed at this incredible act of service and they acted like it was completely normal. My question was, "WOULD I EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT FOR SOMEONE I'VE NEVER MET AND WHO DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK MY LANGUAGE?"
Needless to say, I was greatly humbled by their selfless, loving action and I sat down and began to tell them why we were in Haiti. I shared the Gospel with them and they both said they were Christians and go to a nearby church. One said she does evangelism with her church, but had never seen anything like the Four Spiritual Laws booklet we use (so I gave her one in Creole) and she said that her church has a Bible, but she didn't have one of her own. She was so excited when I handed her a New Testamente in Creole and I told her she could share the Four Spiritual Laws with her church so they can use it to share the Gospel in her town.
God has taught me so much from the beautiful, loving, serving, intelligent, kind people of Haiti and I feel so privileged to be able to rub shoulders with them for this short amount of time.
Scrubbing down my feet and shoes--that of a complete stranger. Amazing.
Messy and clumsy me. Some things never change.
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