Beauty in the Broken

Today was my favorite day of this trip, so far. This morning, we deviated from our usual visits to IDP camps, and visited a Christian high school. Our team gathered with the high school students in the chapel; we worshipped and a couple of us shared our testimonies. After translating for multiple people, I was so grateful to be able to share my testimony in Kreyol. The fun part is when all the kids get really surprised that I can speak Kreyol. After our testimonies, some of the Haitian students shared theirs. And Jimmy, one of the coolest, most faithful Haitian students I met, shared his testimony about being hospitalized only two days before but he didn't want to miss the chance to share the Gospel with people, so he came today. He invited students who hadn't accepted Christ into their hearts to do so, and six students got up.We had a beautiful time of worshipping and praying for them. Afterwards, a bunch of students wanted to talk to me (some were just guys trying to holler, lol, but others were really sweet girls). Right after we were done, I said hi to this one girl who had a stank face on. She said hi and I learned that she was in her third year of high school, but we didn't talk for long. But after ten or so minutes, she came up to me and asked if we could talk one-on-one. When we sat down away from everyone else, she asked if we could be friends. It was so sweet, and I said of course; I started asking her questions about her faith background and she shared that she was Catholic. I asked her if she had a personal relationship with Christ and shared a bit about what that looked like, and she admitted that she didn't but she'd like to have one. We prayed together and I knew this was for real. Afterwards I asked her what she thought about the service we had and she said, "A lot of things changed for me today." She shared that before today, she didn't believe in God because her dad had abandoned her and she couldn't believe a good God would allow that. I was able to share with her about all my dad conflicts, and how I felt like I had lost two dads, but how God had promised to never abandon her and that He had proven Himself to me as my perfect father. We talked about forgiveness, surrender, and how God didn't intend for these relationships to be broken the way they are. I was just blown away because I was able to speak into those places of deepest hurt in her life, and share from experience that God could restore her and would be with her in those places--it was such a privilege.

As we were finishing talking, one of the other girls who accepted Christ during the service came to talk to me. Her name was Kattia Gabriel, and we bonded over having a similar name. I asked her what had drawn her to accept Christ; apparently, she was in a bad car accident that morning and she realized she could have died, so she felt the urgency of accepting Christ. She also shared that her mom had died and her dad had also abandoned her, so I was able to share with her the reality of God being our perfect and constant Father. I'm going to be honest and say that this was the first time during this trip I was really excited about people praying to accept Christ, because the other ones, I wasn't able to know how real they were. That's problematic, I know, because it's not about me knowing whether they're legit or not, because they still made a step towards God.So that's probably something God's going to need to work on in me. But it was just really cool to see God at work in these young women's lives, and it's amazing how God works through the most difficult parts of your life to speak to other people, even if those parts are still broken.