As the Memorial Lutheran team prepares to return home, they contemplate the journey they have started this week. The path does not end with the completion of a trip; rather, this is the beginning – a seed planted that awaits the day of fruition. Keep reading for a glimpse into the team’s departing thoughts.

To read the team’s previous blog, click here. 

We keep moving on, deep in thought of what we’ve seen and done. We can think about doing this again. We hope we have made a difference in someones life. Maybe we made a difference in our own life. Maybe we grew a little.

I would hope to find more ways to support the mission of MH4H and the progress in empowering the people of Sylvan. I also hope just the touch of a hand, a pat on the shoulder, or holding a sleeping baby while mom is in class enriches my life and those I touched.

If each one gives just a little… over and over again, that can make a lot!!!  Two tin cups I found last year in Haiti could become the centering image for asking MLC members to give just a little, $1 a Sunday, but each Sunday, for a year.  And use those funds to supplement budget funds for possible missions to Haiti and other projects.  

I want to come back. To be able to come back I need to be able to share my stories of Haiti with the people who can help send me back. I want others to see the beauty and pain that is in Haiti. The people in Haiti are suffering really bad, but you will still see them smiling and hear them laughing. I want to come back with others to see the beauty of Haiti again.

I want to change the views of my peers around me. The age that I am, my peers are very self absorbed. Everything is about them and they need to get everything that they want, when they want it. I want to share the story of my trip and what the lives are like to the people who live in Haiti, especially the kids, and show them that their lives can be about so much more than themselves. I want others to be compelled to take this journey and change themselves.

I want to have the same compassion and response to “other people’s kids” as I have to my own family members.

I think I am going to do my best to keep the people of Haiti in my mind as I go home and get swept back into the fast moving pace of 1st world society. This trip has really changed me more than usual I think. This has been the first time that I have really been able to see God at work, and the most confident in my faith I have ever been. As I tell people about my trip, and the change I have gone through, I hope I encourage them to look into this themselves, and maybe take a chance to not only help others, but help themselves.