Texas Tech 2016… Day 7

Hello everyone! Carson and Scott here in the Mole!

First we want to give you an update and encouragement of the spiritual condition here in and around the Mole. We would like to recognize the intentional questions and attentive ears we have met here. However, many of the teenage Haitians we have encountered are being taught legalistic doctrines by older Haitians. This has grieved our hearts.

The focus has been set on the law rather than Christ. This situation reminds us of the reason Paul wrote to the Galatians. The truth is that in Galatians 2:19 Paul writes “For through the law I died to the law, so I might live to God” (ESV). Praise God. These Haitians we believe are saved and have confessed Jesus Christ as their Savior. But they are trying to be sanctified by the law rather than the Spirit, which has become a great stumbling block to their growth. (Galatians 3:3) This has deeply grieved us.

They have continually asked us questions pertaining to the law, such as “How can a person be Christian and have tattoos?” These questions are unprofitable because they are things that concern the law, which we are dead to. (Titus 3:9) We fix our eyes on the head, which is Christ, and not the things of the world. (Colossians 2:19-3:3) PRAISE GOD WE HAVE BEEN FREED FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW! Galatians 3:10 “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.’” (ESV). (Scott: Carson is getting so excited right now and is going rapid fire on the scripture) “The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17b).

Scott: At first it was a little disheartening to see many of the teens at the teen conference being put secondary to the older individuals’ (translators) constant questions of the law. However the Lord revealed to me that people were being spoken truth to, and that is nothing to be disheartened about. God allowed for our encounters today to be purposeful, and I believe He spoke truth and helped correct some misconceptions.

Carson: It is already Friday night…… :’’’’’ I have very much enjoyed the unplanned events of this trip. Things like talking to Tae, a fisherman I met on the beach in the morning, who loves the Lord and speaks a little English. Or random conversations and worship in the evening with this team that I love. Or laying the tent at night and talking about Life in Jesus with Scott (my tent buddy) while a shooting star flashes through the bottom of the big dipper. Praise God!

Abba (Daddy),

We pray for those here in the Mole, Northwest Haiti, all of Haiti and America, and the world in general God for you have created us with intent of knowing you. We pray for the people here in Haiti and in America. That we no longer focus on the outward things of the world, but Lord we focus on You and what Jesus did on the cross. As well as the things He is now doing inside of us. Jesus thank you for dying for our sins, so we are no longer slaves to sin, but Lord we are slaves to righteousness. Father thank you for the ability to spread your truth. We love you God. We love you Jesus. We love you Holy Spirit. Amen.

***

Momma C & Daddy,

Well, I’m alive. This experience has been an amazing blessing to me. Being here brings me back to my last mission trip where I had the two of you by my side. Madi & Al being here also brings back those mems… not worrying about running out of money and also not worrying about being homesick.

Momma: Your comment from the other day brought tears to me eyes. I don’t know how you did it but you mentioned something to hit on almost every emotion I had felt that same day.

Dad: Thank you for the constant reminders to remember to bring my passport prior to the trip. HOPEFULLY, I figure out how to remember it without receiving texts from you with pictures of random people happily holding their passports.

Thank you both for guiding me into a life full of God’s love since the day I was born. I am beyond excited to be home next week to tell you all about this amazing trip. And, of course, to hug Coby and hopefully Hans.

P.S.: Tell Gavin & Gage… “suh dudes”… don’t know if you’ll understand what that means, but they will.

Much love,

Gabby Doodle

Brad and Randy’s Daily Adventure (Two Real Jokesters)

It’s Friday. Friday. Gotta get down on Friday! Gotta get ready for this long bus ride.. bus ride.

Wow, we can’t EVEN believe that it’s been a week since we finalized with our publisher, and our once small dream of “Brad and Randy’s Daily Adventure” went live to the public. Today we truly recognized how popular it has been in the states, with a counter of 2.5 million hits since Monday. Today, in Haiti, we introduced ourselves to the new missionaries arriving from Michigan. We were asked, “You guys, are THE Brad and THE Randy!? It will be a weird feeling when we get back to the states and have to turn down photos and autographs. This blog isn’t about us, wait… it absolutely is.

We have been getting pressed lately about our gremmer and speling skillz. We are two grown adult college men, who sometimes cry to sleep. So when you try to correct us, we really take it personally.

We are going to try to summarize our trip in two highly structured sentences.

Claire and Kelly are forcing us to give a shout out to them. We absolutely refuse because if we allow this, then what’s next? Corporate sponsorships!? Ads!? Selling out to the Haitian and United State’s government!?
We cannot allow this atrocity.

10 things we suggest in Haiti

1. Preparation is vital. Don’t be like Randy and forget everything. Just kidding don’t pack a lot because you can’t lose anything.
2. Two weeks prior to your trip, start conditioning yourself. Acclimate yourself to the Haitian environment. Set an alarm for 2:15 AM every morning, with a reminder every 15 minutes until 6:30 AM. The tone has to be of a North West Haitian Rooster mating call to an already pregnant hybrid North West, North East-West Haitian Hen.
3. Bring your mama’s special seasoning for chicken because the roosters will seem more appetizing day by day.
4. Stay away from Pat the Rat and pray that he stays in the girl’s dorm and not the guy’s tent. Don’t tell the girls, but we are terrified of rats.
5. Spray yourself with 100% Deet Mosquito Spray to prevent mosquito impregnation. If this causes burning sensations of the skin, still recognize that you are not going to have babies.
6. Praise the Father for every night that you get rest. If the guys get rest but the girls wake up to a goat named Screaming Jimmy, still praise the Lord! We are not biased towards boys or girls in the blog.
7. You will always be covered in sweat, partly due to the fact that Randy and Brad have been carrying around spray bottles of sweat and spraying people when they least expect it. Shhhhhh… our little secret 😉
8. Never take anything seriously, except the fact that you don’t take anything seriously. If someone questions that you are taking something serious, reinforce the fact that you don’t take ANYTHING serious, and calm everyone down with a sarcastic joke, that may or may not be interpreted as a joke and potential offended a lot of people.
9. When you run out of toilet paper, there are many options. For example, banana leaves are nice, but don’t eat the bananas. Also thorny brush is a contender, but due to the less than soft bark, your behind will not be thankful. We prefer Al’s old socks, and he wonders why they are discolored. We obviously use hand sanitizer afterwards because we are not heathens.
10. Haiti is a great place to start collections. Bottle caps. Sea Shells. Live hermit crabs that will be potentially confiscated due to animal trafficking laws. Mosquito corpses, to warn the other mosquitos. Taxidermy roosters. Anything is a possibility for a collection in Haiti.
11. That writing a blog with your best friend is priceless

Randy, you know how sappy I get with these things. This isn’t good bye, it’s just “see ya later”. We will actually be continuing this blog in the states, be sure to continue to follow us and give us the love.

Brad. Dude bro those words above make my stomach grumble. It might be that I am hungry, but who knows? But really, Kelly is looking over my shoulder and just pinched my ear and told me to write this, so we can’t let her win. She just said, and I quote “Bye, get on with your sappiness”. For real though, this is end of something good, or wait, is it the other way around? This is just the beginning…

Sincerely, Goofballs out

Aloe vera or ala va… we can’t speak Creole…

R&B

***

For those of you wondering about our four lovely friends from Michigan – they arrived in the Mole around noon today.

Please feel free to leave comments. Comments will be read each night at dinner.

Everyone was so busy doing ministry today that not many photos were taken. So we went around the cafeteria at dinner snapping pics of them eating as proof that everyone is alive and well in Mole St Nicolas! 🙂