As I think back on my recent mission to Haiti, one person tends to overwhelm my memory. His name is Moise (Moses in our language). Moise is our Christian Relief Fund representative in Cap-Hatien. Two words captivate his spirit. No matter what you say to Moise, he tends to answer you with—“Thank You!” Indeed Moise is a person with an attitude of gratitude. Even though he lives in a poverty stricken place with the aftereffects of earthquakes and cholera, you would be hard pressed to find a happier man.

It is not only his attitude that is impressive, but his schedule is also unbelievable. Moise runs our CRF school which has hundreds of children. He also is the preacher at our church on that location where he preaches three times a week. Moise also runs our two orphanages and a home for the elderly. He also teaches music one hour a week to all the children and leads a marching band. He drives a big truck around the city to transport children (kind of like a school bus driver). At 5:30 in the morning, he mentors younger men to be ministers like him in a preaching training school. His community hospital doesn’t feed the patients, so Moise brings food in for the infirmed. And he even does welding and construction on the side to help with income. How does he do all of this? I’m not sure. Why does he do all of this? I think I got it when I was planning a Vacation Bible School for children with him. We were buying food for about 300 children, but he wanted to buy food and invite 200 more. I said that we didn’t have the room or money. He said, “But it is 200 more people who need to hear about Jesus. How can we leave them out?”

Then someone told me that Moise had a lot of debt. They said that they couldn’t see how he could ever pay it off. How tragic. It seemed like the flaw in the immense portfolio of  goodness. Just like so many other people today, he had extended his credit way too far. Or was it just like everyone else?

What I found out was that Moise had gone into debt to help orphans and widows. People needed help. Some people simply couldn’t take care of themselves. So when he ran out of money, he borrowed money to take care of others. Have you ever heard of such a thing? People I know go into debt to buy cars, clothes, houses, and luxury items—certainly things for themselves. He went into debt to buy for those who couldn’t help themselves.

Paul says in Romans 13:8, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” He tells us to pay our debts off, except for one—a debt of love. Could that be what Moise is doing? Maybe he is literally practicing this verse. Perhaps he is going into debt for what will truly appreciate in value. I’m not sure what to say. I think I will have to rethink debt.

We had done many diverse and helpful things in our time in Haiti. We found around 150 new children to sponsor through CRF who were orphaned or destitute. We helped teach around 250 children at our school. We painted the classrooms. We made pews for the church. We visited the widows. But there was one thing that pretty much dominated our thinking on this trip—water.

We had built water purification systems in the area that had been exposed to so much cholera. And now clean water was flowing to all the children at our school. But it didn’t seem to be enough. Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to die in this region from the water this year.

So at the last minute, we put the pipes outside our compound wall. The water would be for everybody in the community not just our school. It was just a few minutes before we had to leave that we finally finished running the water outside the walls. My fellow Texas Tech buddy put up his hand in the shape of a gun (the sign of someone who is a Red Raider) and turned the valve. Clean water was flowing to the community. All of us from Mississippi, California and Texas drank the water. Then we passed the cup to the Haitians. First, the children started drinking gulps of water from the cup. Then older people starting filling their containers. People were spreading the news in the streets—“Non-cholera water is here!” They couldn’t believe that even the white people were drinking it. We heard joyful shouts and people were hugging in the streets.

Jesus said, “If anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” Have you ever thought about what Jesus means in this passage? Maybe he means exactly what he says. He literally wants us to give water to children.

Certainly, there was other water just down the street from the school. Children had been drinking it for years. But it carried death in it. There was now a change of direction in the community. People were hearing the good news of pure water. People came. There was clean water flowing.

So as we piled in our big truck to drive off and leave our work in Haiti, my last sight was of a cute little girl in a pink dress walking down the street carrying something in her hand—a cup for her water. I just had to smile.

We went to an “old folks home.” That’s what they call them here. It is probably not politically correct where I come from, but that is not much of an issue here. I’m very familiar with them since we recently had to put my mom in an “assisted living center.” But this was Haiti. I knew it would have the same problems as in America. And I knew that the problems of taking care of the elderly in poverty would intensify the tough issues immensely.

When we walked into the home that Christian Relief Fund helps with, I felt a touch. Nicole, a fellow mission trip volunteer from Ole Miss, had just put her hand on my arm. She said, “I just need to touch you.” I knew exactly what she meant. She just needed a reality touch. She just needed to know that someone else was there. It was simply to know that you were going to be okay in this new experience. Touching can be scary as we were to find out. But the lack of touch can even be scarier at times.

Our job was to encourage. We would be putting lotion on the hands and feet of very old victims of extreme poverty who were not living now or perhaps ever in the best of conditions. The hands were wrinkled. The feet were disfigured. But the lotion was soothing. We didn’t need to understand Creole to know that these widows and widowers loved the touch.

Then Filesmon, the old man with few teeth but the best smile ever, came over to me and took my hand. He kissed it. Then he kissed it again. And again. He must have kissed my hand twenty times. He didn’t stop until one of his old buddies started laughing at him. But Filesmon was grateful. He couldn’t stop giving thanks. He blessed me over and over again. Then he blessed my family too. I’m not used to being kissed on the hand. I’m not used to a man kissing me over and over again. But most of all, I’m not used to this kind of gratitude.

Next we sang some songs. There’s nothing like the singing that comes from a bunch of students from campus ministries. They started out with some old hymns. Even though the Haitians couldn’t understand the words, they recognized the tunes because they sang those same songs in their language. In fact, they sang along with their own words. After a few songs, the students started singing some newer and faster songs—some of their favorites back on campus.

Sylvia, one of the older women, started fidgeting on the new contemporary songs. I had helped Sylvia to the porch where we were meeting. She slowly moved with a walker. I helped her sit down in a chair and put her walker away. And now she obviously wanted up, but she couldn’t get up without her walker. I figured that she must not like the new songs and wanted to go back to her room. So I went and got her walker for her. She still couldn’t get up out of her chair—so I lifted her up and put her hands on the walker. But she didn’t leave. No, she danced. She moved around in her walker and danced to the Lord. My tears flowed. Just a few minutes earlier, a student from Texas Tech and I had put lotion on her legs. Now in gratitude, she was using those legs to show her gratitude for the touch and for the Lord.

Touching. Kissing. Dancing. All of these were passions of the Kingdom. It was another country, but it was another realm.

These little girls were waiting for a chance to taste the clean water.

The cup was shaped just like a communion cup. But it was a little bigger. A prayer of blessing was invoked before we shared it. We stood in a circle as we passed it around. It was a holy moment for us, but it wasn’t the Lord’s Supper. Nearly everyone had a taste from the cup. One person was left out or saved to last as we drank. He was a different. Certainly, he was a different race and color. He was from a different economic background. But that is not what made him different in this circle. The difference was that he was a man from Haiti. He should not have to go first in this taste test.

No, we weren’t drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. But it was pretty dangerous still. We had just spent the last few days installing a water purification system for an area of Haiti that is going through one of the worst cholera epidemics in a long time. We had just finished purifying our first 300 gallons of water. But was it really pure? Could you still get cholera like you could in other water here? How would you know? There’s only one way to know. You have to taste it.

But whom would you pick to taste it? Certainly, you could just say that we did a good deed and leave them with the new water. It had to be as good as the old water. Let the people of Haiti drink it and go on as things were before. They had already been exposed to bad water, so why not let them continue to be?

But how can you give people something telling them it is good when it is not good enough for you? How can you tell them it is ok when it may not be? How can you let them drink of something that you would not taste yourself? If it is not good for us, then it is not good for them.

So we drank. We passed the cup and tasted the water. That’s what our mission group did. There was no arm-twisting. There were plenty of volunteers. We finally let our Haitian friend have a drink, but it was only after we had already decided that the water was good. But do we know absolutely for sure that the water was good? I tested it. I have faith. I will drink it again. Yes, I believe the water is good. I believe that thousands of lives will be saved because they drink this water rather than the water that they have been drinking.

It reminds me of the Lord. I can’t prove absolutely to you that He is good. But I believe it. And I have tasted. And I trust Him. And His way and water will be better than any you have tasted before. But you will have to trust that it is. You will have to taste it to find out.

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Yes, we are still alive. Yes, the water is good. And so is God.

I’m in Haiti now with a team of students installing water purification systems. It won’t solve the problem, but there will be a lot more people able to get some clean water. I especially have been concerned about all the children we sponsor at CRF. They have been drinking very contaminated water.

Here’s how I define a rich kid these days. If a child has clean water that won’t kill him, he is a rich kid by the standards of the world today.

I know we can’t save everyone or get clean water to everyone. I know we can’t stop the cholera epidemic, but we can do something.

My major professor in seminary told me of his first trip to Calcutta to deliver a few thousand pounds of grain. He was overwhelmed with the poverty as he literally had to step over dead bodies on the street. He felt so small and his help so insignificant. In his discouragement, his mentor told him—“People are born one at a time, people live one at a time, and people die one at a time. You have to start somewhere with someone.”

If I were to ask most of you what you really want in life, you might answer, “I’d like things to go well for me.” Certainly that is better than the alternative. We all want things to turn out well for us in our lives. But how does that happen? How can we be certain it will happen? And if you added something else to your desire for your life, wouldn’t you say—“ I would like to know God.” Isn’t that the most important thing in the universe? So how can I make sure that I actually discover or recognize the Supreme Being?

Here’s the verse that created such an “Aha!” for me. It’s Jeremiah 22:16. I didn’t recall it, but now it is absolutely transforming my life. “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. ‘Is that not what it means to know me?’ declares the Lord.”

In other words, if you want things to well for you and if you want to know God—then you should defend the cause of the poor and needy. Jeremiah 22:16 is the theme verse for our mission team as we go to Haiti. We are memorizing it. Maybe you want to show some solidarity with us and memorize it too.

Students from Ole Miss, Texas Tech, and Pepperdine are all working together to bring some hope to Haiti. We will be installing water purification systems in Cap-Hatien and Benjamin. Hundreds of thousands are predicted to get cholera before the end of the year. We hope to help stop this disease. We will also be constructing a new school for children who were displaced from the earthquake. Additionally, we will be teaching children who are the kids sponsored by Christian Relief Fund. We will also be meeting children who will become prospective sponsored children and learning their stories so hopefully they can be the next kids helped by CRF.

I’m not sure if I will have a way to tell daily stories because of the lack of internet where we will be.  But I will try. I hope you will check in at the blog to see if there are some new touching lessons and moving stories that bring hope to Haiti.

Even if you are not in Haiti with us, I do hope that things go well for you and that you see God too.