Rooted- Day 6

Happy Mother’s Day!! Before I get started I want to send a special Happy Mother’s Day to my mom! Wish I could be there to celebrate you in person! We have been celebrating all of our mothers today while taking the day to Sabbath and rest from the past few days.   This morning we attended church that is led here at the mission base. It was one of my favorite experiences so far. We couldn’t understand a word of what was being said but we could definitely feel the presence of God. The worship was incredible as everyone raised their voices to sing praises. It was a super cool way to see people loving God and being grateful for what he is doing in their lives… despite the hot tent where we sat for the service.

After the service we had our own time of study in the bible and talked about growing weary in our faith. It was something I really enjoyed talking about with my friends here as it is something that I have been struggling with and that has been on my heart for awhile. After spending the past few days in this incredible place I feel the fire burning again and I understand that the reason for my being here this week was so that God could help me in my spiritual walk as much (if not more) as we are helping those who live here. As Zack said, sometimes you just have to spend time in an “incubator” so God can work on your heart. Haiti has definitely been my “incubator”.

Taking the day to rest, we spent time playing with the orphans and exploring a few remains of military forts in the area. Spending time with the children who don’t have their mothers made us think about how blessed we are to be able to celebrate our mothers all the time. Sondley, aka “Ti Kout” is one of my special little buddies here at the orphanage. He is sweet as can be and so much fun to love on and play with. He teaches me words in Creole when he can understand what I am trying to say. He taught me the word for “star” (Etwalle) and the word for “raccoon” (Chac), although after talking with some staff members I found out he may have been pulling my leg on that one.

Tomorrow we will be visiting some fishing villages and going hut to hut for some ministry opportunities. I am super excited for the next few days and I know I will be sad to leave when it comes that time. It has been an awesome experience.

Shout out to my mom, Banny, GG, and all of my lovely Aunts on this mother’s day. I am thankful for each and every one of you and have thought about each of you today especially. Can’t wait to talk to everyone when I get home and share all the stories I have saved up. Dad, I love you too and miss you! Your comments make my day. I love hearing from all of you from home! Ben, I hope all is well with you and I so wish I could call you from here to tell you everything that we have been doing and seeing and hear how things are going for you! Love to all of ya’ll!

Dawn Turner

Captains Log: 5.10.15

Captain Dustin Andrew Sargent from the HMR Rooted.

The crew took a hiatus from our regular duties of childcare and construction today. We took the day to gain wisdom from our Lord and savior: Jesus Christ.

Haha. You’re welcome Trekkies.

Today was solid. It was fantastic to have a whole day of being poured into by our Haitian brothers, our leader Zack, our host Miss Beth, and our God. This may be my last blog, so I think I will use it to tell you all what God has taught me, and what I hope to bring back to the states to share with my brothers and sisters.

My morning began with some great personal time, waking up at 6am (2 hours before the others) and diving into something that has been bothering my heart lately. I did a lot of research on alcohol and underage drinking, and found some solid truth of to what God expects for us as his leaders in his ministry. But what had started out as searching for answers to how others should act, brought me to finding answers to another piece of wisdom: how to live my own life as a Christ follower.

I am a busybody. I dropped out of school last semester because I was unhappy with my degree, I was learning useless knowledge, and my relationship with Christ stunk. I was tired of sleepless nights worrying about tests, and taking my lunch breaks sitting in my car crying and yelling at God because of stress. So I changed my life, got my dream job as a CrossFit trainer (thank you Jesus), worked for tips as a Barista at Durango Joe’s, and wanted to rekindle my relationship with Christ by becoming an intern at the local Methodist church in town.

By trying to do what God wanted me to do, I ended up trying to fill a gap in my life by working 40+ hours a week for pay less than a schoolteacher. That gap? My lack of trust in my God.

Too much work is a bad thing. I have not trusted God fully in my transition from leaving school at all, hence why I worked three different jobs to pay rent, fun, food and school. Which is not always a bad thing, but when those things become more important than our God, then they are a very bad thing.

In Haiti, the jobs the good folks of the land have (if they have jobs) are simple. It is all jobs based on survival or necessary things to make it to tomorrow. There are no baristas, no rocket scientists; they all have a job that will benefit the community and/or take care of the basic needs of survival. The rest of the time, they sit. We walk everywhere and most everyone is sitting down, relaxing. They are not lazy. They are content. They are relaxed, and most are even smiling. I walk around Durango and don’t see many smiling faces. Why is that? Everyone is in a rush to do things they don’t like and go places they don’t need to be going and do things that stress them out even more. We are the lazy ones.

It is so simple here. How can we change that? How can I change that? Take out the unnecessary things, choose simplicity, trust God, and then get on with loving people. We cannot and will not be able to love people to the fullest if we (P.S Luke told me to tell you all he just got his hair cornrowed) continue to be busy, and that is so selfish and lazy. It does not matter if you are able to save 100 more dollars a month when you could use that time to love your kids better, your friends better, your spouse better, just by spending some quality, relaxed time with them. Too much work is a horrible thing we Americans created. God created rest, so we should rest.

Dustin out. (again… you’re welcome Trekkies)

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