Urban Acacia in Haiti: May 2015

In a few weeks now, Urban Acacia will be taking off on its second annual Haiti partnership trip.  Eleven young adults from around the country will be leaving their college and grad school finals and projects, their full time jobs, and their crowded summer schedules to join together for one week in the tiny mountain village of Manze Marie, Haiti.Before discussing the purpose of our trip, and the warm and genuine relationships that we will continue to build upon from last year, I want to take a moment to speak to why we call this experience a “Partnership Trip” as opposed to, say, a “Mission Trip,” or even a “Service Trip.”“Mission” certainly is a part of our motivation to go to Haiti – there will, after-all, certainly be an unavoidable work of the Holy Spirit on all parties involved, Haitian and American alike - but for us to call our trip a “mission trip” is to lead with the wrong foot first.  A relationship must first be established before we speak of things as intimate as our relationships with God, and thus, this trip is not solely a “mission trip.”Similarly, with service, we need to be aware of the message we’re sending with what we call our trip.  I would never take it upon myself to enter your home uninvited and push you aside and begin to do your chores and play with your kids, would I?  That would be incredibly rude and inappropriate.  And yet, we do this time and time again with short-term missions.  I should shake your hand first, learn your name, sit down and look you in the eye and listen to your story, your family, and your reality.  Only then is it appropriate and effective, for me, for us, to enter into service for one another.  To do it any other way is to value service more than people, and that’s not the message we want to send.Thus, while this trip is fulfilling a mission by carrying out service with our neighbor, it is first and foremost a partnership trip because nothing else can or should be done unless our partnership is first established.Now, with that said, let me tell you what we plan on doing during our partnership trip to Haiti this month…We will be staying the entirety of our week in the community.  Sleeping in the Church, and in tents in the center of the town.  Our mornings will be spent continuing some work with the community members on a grain mill, and on a fruit tree farm they are beginning to plant in the Church’s backyard.  In the afternoons our time is spent giving piggy backs, playing soccer, games, crafts and general laughter with all the kids from the community.  This play time actually spills into the morning work time, as the children gather and become more and more eager and adorable, inevitably pulling us all in one by one with their charm and energy. We don’t put up much of a fight.Only a portion of the group will participate this year in kid and craft time, however.  Our friend Kelley will lead the other half of the group, as they walk around the community and serve as a sort of relationship liaison delegation.  This handful of participants will visit community members in their homes, chat with elders, and get to know the families of the community on a more intimate level.  I’m excited about this aspect of this year’s visit because not all people, whether in the community or in our delegation, find soccer balls and construction tools as the best instruments with which to build a new friendship.  This way, we can build upon our relationships in Manze Marie in more ways than one.Each evening will close with a reflection on the days events, discuss the blessings and challenges we encountered, and pray together before we turn in.  These conversations always end up being my favorite parts of the week not only because of the rich material we have to discuss from the day’s events, but also because…how wonderful it is to close your day in such away.  If only we treated all our days as a rich and intentional immersion in relationship and service.Thank you for your prayers as we travel and grow, feel free to follow along with our experience at https://www.prayingpelicanmissions.org/journals