How I'm Moved

Dr. Sorg walks along the line of the patients who are desperate to be seen in the IHM clinic.
(Quicroix, Haiti. November 2010)

This seems strange to people when I try to explain it, so I usually don't. It is difficult to understand without first hand experience, so what you read here may not live up to your expectations.

I am in love with Jesus and I am in love with serving him.  Haiti was a taste of what a life in foreign ministries is like. As far as the Haitians, they were an unlikely lot to be put on my heart, but God doesn't care about that. You see, I heard stories when I was in the Coast Guard from other Coasties who had been on missions in Haiti and interdicted Haitian emigrants. I can still remember in vivid detail the atrocities and the inhumanity they described. I can also vividly recall the pain and the disgust that they harbored following their exposure to the incidents that they had to cope with. At about 21 years old I vowed to never, ever step foot on the nation's soil.

I repeated these stories a few times over the next 8 or 9 years to people if Haiti ever came up. I was convinced that the nation was a lost cause. The question was, why did I care so much about a place that I thought I hated?

As time went by, I began to feel quite sorrowful for the Haitians. God was softening my heart. Then, the day after my daughter was born, on January 10th, I woke up, after having been up all night with a weight on my shoulders and an urge to turn on the news. What I saw sent chills down my spine as I saw mothers holding their dead limp children screaming with agony and crumbled buildings with bodies on the street lined up in neat rows and covered with blankets and tarps.

I had somehow been tricked into caring more for these people than I ever thought I could for someone I had never met. I had chills every time I thought about it from then on. I had prayed and offered myself to God for whatever purpose he had in mind for me whatever the cost long before and I had a suspicion that my unlikely heart for the Haitians was the Holy Spirit's doing.

Five months went by and a pastor from church mentioned that he had been receiving emails asking him to travel to Haiti on a ministry team and that he thought I should look into it.

Why? I hadn't told him about what God had been doing.

I went home that evening and did a quick Internet search and found ABWE, and Baptist missionary organization I had once researched a being a possible future ministry for my family and me. They had a link for a medical team traveling to Haiti for the next November.

Before I knew it, all of my references had been turned in, my application had been approved, my interview with the board had been successful and my church was behind me 110%. It happened fast. Donations rained down and, before I knew it, all of the medications had already been purchased with donated funds. I had been saving up for just such a mission and had spent every last penny I had on plane tickets and bills (since I was going to be out of work without pay for two weeks, thanks to a generous boss who graciously allowed me a rare leave of absence. All things said and done, every last expense was covered and our checking account may have sat at a $2 balance for a week or two, but we always had exactly what we needed, never more and never less.

Now, I look back at my journal entries from the mission, watch the videos, look at photos and think about how much these people touched my life. I learned a sort of respect for their desperation that can't be described. God is sending me back now with an invitation from the mission leader and jubilant encouragements from members from the team. I will be setting up multiple opportunities to donate and fundraise or otherwise get involved in any way you wish. I encourage you to subscribe to this blog and check back often. Please remember Haiti in your prayers.