The Best Week of My Life

So I spent last week, my spring break, in Les Cayes, Haiti, and it was the most amazing experience I have ever had. I went with my school and a ministry called Health Care Ministries. There were 7 students from Evangel, one of our professors, two dentists, three nurses, a pharmacist, an optometrist, and two doctors. I'm not going to share my whole experience because that would take forever so if you want to hear about it you can ask me, and I would love to tell you! I learned a ton of medical stuff and was able to be involved in ways that I hadn't even imagined, met some of the most amazing people in the world, and was completely reassured of the calling God has on my life. Along with all of the different diseases I was able to see, I was also able to lead a 15 year old boy to Christ and pray with a ton of patients for different things that were going on in their lives. It was amazing to watch the health care professionals integrate their faith while serving the patient's physical needs. People would wait out in the hot son for hours just to see a doctor, or get a tooth pulled, or get a pair of glasses and many of them had walked for hours just to get there. All of the patients were grateful for even the smallest amount of care. It was really life changing to see. Seeing such poverty, devastation, and need really gives you a new perspective on life. When you open yourself up to seeing other people's needs and problems and allow God's compassion to work through you, you really begin to realize that some of your own problems really aren't that bad. Oddly enough, instead of questioning God about why people had to live in such conditions and why so many bad things happened to one place, it almost made God seem bigger. Its really hard to explain, but when you see people who live in such harsh conditions, but they're happier than people who are considered "successful," it really makes you think. One of the patients told one of our Doctors "You don't have to have a nice house to be blessed" and its so true. Sometimes I focus so much on material things and whether or not I'm gonna "be somebody" that I forget the things that are really important in life. I lose focus on the importance of relationships, and love, and serving others; the things in life that really matter and really make a person happy. I love the quote that says, "Love God, love people." That's really what's most important in life and I feel like I was definitely reminded of that last week.
Coming back to the State has been extremely difficult. Our team leaders warned us of some of the emotions we would experience coming back and I think I've experienced all of them and a couple more. What I got to do last week is something I want to do for the rest of my life and even though it was great to experience it, it was like getting to have a nibble of your favorite cake and then finding out you can't eat the rest of it for several years. I've really been trying to remind myself that this is where God wants me to be right now and I need to make the best of the opportunities I have during my college years. I know God has a great plan for me and sometimes I focus so much on the future that I forget He has a purpose for me right now too! So this week, I'm focusing on the here and now. I'm going to take my experiences from last week and everything I learned and apply them to my life in the States and to the people I see every day. I'm going to continue praying for God's compassion to flow through me so that I may love people the way He does whether it be a Haitian or a girl living in my dorm.