Humility. This was my word coming into this week. Its a word that many Americans aren’t familiar with. We as Americans take Pride seriously. We live in a “me-first” culture. Our status is very important to us. How much money are we making? How’s my job? Look at my house. Look at my car. How do I look? Does she/he like me? Look how big and amazing our church is.  Heck we even sing songs such as God Bless the USA and Proud to be an American. The bible says pride is the root of all sin. Taking a look at my own life that is a pretty convicting thought. Often if not all of the time our pride gets in the way of what God is trying to do through each of us. My prayer leading up to this trip was for a new sense of humility.

It is now our 5th day in Haiti and words cant describe the emotions that have hit me. Humility has completely overtaken me. I have never been so grateful for the life God has blessed me with. I wish everyone had the chance to ride the bumpy 6 and a half hour van ride up the mountains from Port AU Prince to Bohoc. The living situation is unlike anything I have ever seen in my life.  It is easy to look at the physical hardship and poverty and feel helpless. The thing I have struggled with the most is that I live a completely spoiled life and i keep comparing the things I see to what I have back in the US. Things that look terrible to me down here are normal in the eyes of the Haitians and only seem bad to me because of the standards I am used to. The people of Haiti truly are some of the most joyful people I have ever been around in my whole life. Most people talk about poverty in physical terms but there are several kinds of poverty….spiritual poverty, poverty of community, of stewardship, of being etc….When we think of poverty in just physical terms, we tend to look at those who have less materially, as lacking something that we have. We often don’t see our own poverty; although it may not be material, it is poverty nonetheless. There is a lot for us to learn about ourselves and about our own poverty when we come face to face with the faith, love, and hope of the people who have less materially than we do. This week has shown me faith in people that I have never seen before. When we see faith and dependency on our Savior in people surrounded by difficult circumstances, it shines a huge spotlight of the glory of God. Dependency on our Savior, thats an amazing thing to think about. Am I fully dependent on God? If I had to wake up every morning and have to figure out how I’m going to get food and water for the day to survive would I still put God first? When I feel like I can control my own circumstances then I’m not fully dependent upon God. The people in Haiti are fully dependent on God for everything they need to survive yet all they care about is other people, now that’s humbling.

Imagine what would happen if every American woke up tomorrow morning and made it there goal to help other people all day long. Switching from “me-first” to “others-first”. Are you kidding me? Wanna talk about changing the World…This trip has put into perspective just how blessed we are and how much we have that we take for granted. My prayer is that my team and I will come home with a new sense of humility and will strive to become more and more humble everyday that God has blessed us with on this Earth.

Ryan