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[box type=”info” border=”full”]This is a guest post by Paul Yokubaitis. Paul and his wife Kendall are close friends of ours here in Dallas. He is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary. I had the privilage of bringing Paul to Haiti for the first time this past month and these are some of his thoughts after that trip. You can find him on Facebook here.[/box]

On my first day back at work I was talking with a co-worker about my trip to Haiti and some of the well known things about the country and then my co-worker remarked, “Well, it’s the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” This may sound weird, but his comment took me completely by surprise.

Let me explain.

Sure, Haiti is poor — but it also felt like it was very rich. There is a richness to relationships, a zest for life that I think we may miss if we aren’t careful. Let me share with you about some people I met.

Erick

Erick is working to finish college. He is majoring in engineering. One of his biggest challenges: completing his assignments without a computer.

His home is smaller than most American bedrooms, and he kept only essential things in his room. Yet, on his wall was an old polaroid picture (yes, a polaroid). It seemed to me that he kept it because the relationship meant so much to him.

It’s a picture of Luke’s Mom and Dad who have stayed in touch with Erick for the past 15 years.  When I saw this picture and learned about the relationship it represented, I realized something about the Haitian people: Relationships are one of their most treasured posessions. Many Haitians may not have much by way of  possessions or money, but few of them are without close relationships.

Maxime

Maxime would drive us around, translate, crack jokes and ask me all about my family. He’s a guy I can’t forget. What struck me most about him was his deep joy.

As we were getting ready to leave for the aiport, we stopped to pray. Before we started, Maxime asked to sing a song. Right then and there, in a voice much better than mine he sang, “How Great Thou Art” knowing the French version by heart. He sang with an incredible joy.

I hope that I can live every day with fraction of the joy Maxime has.

So when I got back home, I was caught a little off guard when I was reminded that Haiti is so poor. Sure, Haiti’s economic problems are severe, complicated, longstanding. That’s not going to end anytime soon. The earthquake was a great reminder of that. Yet what I think alot of us miss is that in the midst of those extreme challenges, Haiti is also a place full of deep relationships and great joy.

What do you think about the label “Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere”? Do you think it helps raise awareness? Or, does it cause us to miss out on the real Haiti?

Paul came up to me shortly after we arrived at the airport and said “Well, I just saw an older woman singing ‘Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul…’ while she was cleaning the men’s room.”

Then he said something that captures part of what drew us to Haiti to begin with.

“There must be something different about these people if a woman is able to sing worship songs while she’s cleaning a bathroom at the airport.”

I case you didn’t hear, our good friend Paul Yokubaitis and I were able to take a quick trip to Haiti a couple of weeks ago. Becca and I wanted to share some of the highlights here with you. I’ll share some more of the details of this trip in future posts, so this one will serve as a recap.

Sunday at QC

Sunday Morning, we headed across the street to Quisqueya Chapel where I preached in the morning service. It was great to be back there with those people again. I was able to see some people I hadn’t seen since 2006!

One of the things I miss the most about that church is the singing. When Ronald sits at that piano and the praise team gets up on the stage, the congregation sings in a way I rarely see in the states. Here’s a short clip that Paul grabbed with his iPhone:

Below is some audio he grabbed from another song:

“Shout to the Lord” being sung at QC.

On that particular Sunday, the singing was lead by a visiting Korean worship team from Toronto. Yes, you read that right. It was international church at it’s best with Haitians, Americans, Europeans and Korean-Canadians worshipping together.

Maxime’s Birthday

Since it was my good friend Maxime’s birthday that day, Paul and I headed to Epi D’Or in the afternoon, bought a birthday cake and went to Maxime’s house to celebrate with his family. He hadn’t received electricity in a couple days, so we lit some oil lamps and gathered around his table to laugh, sing, eat cake and drink Haitian Coke. For those of you who know his kids, you’d be shocked to see how tall they are now. Little Josematte, who was just a couple of months old in the earthquake, sang Happy Birthday in Creole, French and English. Crazy how time flies.

Monday at STEP

We spent most of the day Monday at STEP seminary in Bolosse, meeting with leaders of the seminary and connecting with the Crossworld team there. Once we raise our support and make the big move as a family, I’ll be serving with STEP teaching classes, leading Spiritual Formation groups and helping the administration. The meetings were very productive and left me feeling eager to get down there and get to work!

One of the big projects I’ll be tackling is the development of a strategic communication plan for the school as it begins to share it’s story with the world and expand its donor base allowing it to re-build.

I’m particularly excited about that. Communication has been a big part of my role at DTS these past few years, so it will be exciting to use some of these skills at STEP.

I’m also excited to step into a teaching role after we complete some language learning. STEP has ten tracks it would like to offer as a part of it’s four-year degree program, but only has enough faculty to offer two. The need is significant and I’m looking froward to putting my DTS training to work.

The best part of the day was getting to connect with some more of the team STEP has in place. We are very excited to be joining them!

Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday and part of Wednesday we worked through our long list of to-do items and were able to visit with several Haitian and Missionary friends along the way. One of those to-do items was to get a sense for what the housing situation may look like when we arrive. We were able to get a couple good leads on some places. There is one place in particular that would be perfect – as long as our fundraising and timeline work out, it looks like it has potential to work out.

As we worked through our list and made visits here and there, I was reminded again of the solid community we’ll be a part of once we’re there. This move would be a lot more scary if we didn’t already have a solid network in place on the ground. In addition to our awesome Crossworld team we have friends from various missions and organizations all over the city. It’s going to be great to be a part of that community again and to serve along side them.

Finally, one of the best highlights of the trip was being able to visit with Falonie at her store. Falonie lost her home and her business in the earthquake and was forced to live in a tent with her kids for about two years afterwards. In 2012, we brought a team down to get her back into a house and help her get her business started again.

What a joy it was to see how successful the business has become since we left her! Not only has she been able to support herself without any further outside help, but she has expanded her store to offer quite a bit more product.

When we walked into her store, it nearly brought tears to my eyes to see all the Lord had done in her life.

 

The best part of the trip: Hanging out with Karl and Ann. Paul and I stayed in their home and we were able to spend some good time together. It’s hard to describe how much their friendship has meant to Becca and I over the years, but it is safe to say that relationship has been the major catalyst in helping us to consider long-term ministry in Haiti.

Karl turned 72 yesterday and after 16 years of serving in Haiti, they will return to the states next week and continue their ministry with Convoy of Hope from Florida. Even though they’ll be in the States, it’s safe to say I’ll have his US number on speed dial.

Stay tuned here on the site for more updates from this trip. There were some cool things that happened and as we move through the spring, we’ll be sharing them here.

We had our 18 week sonogram today!

It was fun seeing your guesses on our last post. If you missed it, you can see Grace’s announcement and the results of the poll here: perkinsinhaiti.com/three/

75% of you said we are having a Boy and 25% of you said we are having a girl. Well, the verdict is in. We thought it would be fun to let Grace tell you the news:

The baby sure was stubborn! After several tries with Becca rolling this way and that, we were finally able to get a clear shot indicating the gender. We’re thankful that everything appears normal and Baby #3 is growing just as he should.

July will be here before you know it!

Grace has something she would like you all to know…

In case you missed it – Becca’s pregnant! While we weren’t exactaly planning for another baby just yet, we are beyond excited about baby #3.

During her first two pregnancies, Becca’s nausea was almost unbearable. This time, she’s been a little sick but it’s been much more manageable. Even so, we would appreciate your prayers for her as she progresses further into her 2nd trimester that she’ll leave all the nausea behind.

Here are the details

Due date: July 1, 2014.

Gender: Don’t know yet, but we both think it may be a boy. We’ll take either, though! We’ll find out the sex at the end of January.

Birthplace: We’ll still be in Texas, so this one will be a Texan. But as with our other two, this baby will be a New Englander at heart.

We’ve had two sonograms now and everything looks great so far. Here’s the latest one from a couple weeks ago.

Everytime we ask Grace what she wants, she says: “I want a little brother.”

 

 

What do you think? Vote below and we’ll see if you’re right in a couple of weeks!

For those of you who want to make more of an educated guess:

• So far we have two girls.
• Luke comes from a family of three boys. Luke’s Dad comes from a family of three boys.
• Becca comes from a family of four girls. Becca’s Mom comes from a family of three girls.

Have you ever read the whole Bible? It is the best selling and most widely distributed book of all time and has shaped culture and history in ways that are immeasurable.

Regardless of whether you’re a Christian or not, the Bible is something everyone should be familiar with.

Bible reading is not a way to score points with God, but I find when I make it a part of my regular routine it helps me come to know Him in a deeper way. Since this is resolution time, here are a couple ideas that could help you make “Read the Bible” or “Read the Bible more” a do-able goal in 2014.

Have a plan

Let’s face it. It’s a big book. If you want to tackle a book as long as the Bible, you’re gonna need a plan.

Thankfully there are several that already exist:

1. The Bible in a year

This is a lot easier than you may think. If you read 200 words per minute, you can read the whole Bible in 10 minutes a day. Read slower than that? You can test your reading speed and see how many minutes a day it will take for you here: How Long Does it Take to Read the Bible?

Here are some tools that can help you make this happen:

The One Year Bible

This (and other Bibles like it) is designed specifically to take you through the entire scripture in a year. The pages are organized by day (Jan 1, Jan 2, etc) and each day contains selections from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs.

If you want something you can just open and read without having to think about where to start, this is for you.

Bookmarks

You place these at various places in your Bible. Then, each day you turn to the different bookmarks and read the passages that are next on the list.

There are several of these available:

If you’re a student, I recommend one developed by DTS that organizes your reading plan in a semester format and gives you 10 weeks off between the Fall, Spring and Summer semesters. You can download it here.

If you’re not a student, I recommend one developed by Discipleship Journal. It organizes the Bible into 300 readings, allowing you a miss a couple days each month without getting off track. I’ve used this plan in the past and it is one of my favorites. You can download it here.

2. One book per month

If you’re worried about moving too fast, this may be the plan for you.

Each month, you pick a book of the Bible to read. For the entire month, you focus only on that book. If it’s a short book like Ephesians, you will read the book several times over throughout the month. If it’s a longer book, you may only get through it once.

I love this for the shorter books because it really drills the material in. I’ve used it for several of the epistles and found each time I read the book through, I would notice things I didn’t see the previous time.

3. One chapter-ish per day

If you want something that you can pick up and come back to easily if you get off track, this one is for you.

The plan is simple:

Pick a book and start. Each day, read at least a chapter. If you want to read more, go for it. If not, no sweat. When you get to the end of a book, choose another one and start again.

This is what I do now and I’m currently working through Isaiah. Some days I read just a chapter, some days I read three. I love the flexibility and I’ll probably stick with this in 2014.

Set your plan up for success

In order to make your plan work, you need to set yourself up for success by making a place for it in the routine of your day.

When will you read?

For me, this works best in the morning. I know if I’m going to get my reading done for the day, it’ll to have to be the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk.

Now here’s the catch: I know if I’m going to successfully add this to my morning routine, I’ll have to get up early. For me, this means I’m up between 5 and 5:30am.

You may be thinking: “But, I’m not a morning person!”

If morning isn’t your best time, no problem. Choose a time when you’re at your best and put it on your schedule. That’s the key. If it’s not on your schedule, it’s not going to happen.

Want to become a morning person? Check out this helpful post: How to Become a Morning Person

Where will you read?

Designating a specific location will help cement it into your daily routine.

My mentor in Haiti has a special chair. Every morning, early in for morning, you’ll find him in that same metal chair with his Bible in his hands and a cup of coffee sitting next to him.

For me, it’s my office at the seminary. I try to arrive an hour or two before everyone else, so I know it will be quiet. As soon as I get there, I close the door, turn on the light by my desk, sit in my chair facing the window and start reading.

What will you have with you?

I always want to be sure I have the following three things:

1. Coffee

Not only does the caffeine help boot up my brain, but there is something about the steaming cup sitting next to me on the desk when it’s still dark out that tells me: “It’s reading time.” It kicks me in gear and helps me focus.

2. Pen

I’ll underline, I’ll circle and I’ll put notes and questions in the margins. I may come back to these markings and I may not, but something about the process helps me interact with the material at a deeper level.

3. Bible

I try to use the same Bible every time. Over the years, those markings have started to pile up and it is nice to come back to a passage later and quickly see some of the things that were sticking out to me the first time I read it.

Digital Options?

This isn’t exhaustive. You may notice I’ve only really talked about analog options. In the age of digital media, there is room for a whole series of posts covering apps and other digital resources. If your iPhone or computer works better for you – go for it!

There are a whole host of other options and plans available, too. If you’re interested, Justin Taylor has an extensive post here: How to Read the Whole Bible in 2014

The important thing to remember is that reading the Bible regularly is good for you (whether you’re a Christian or not) and it is much more do-able than you think. If you have a plan and you are intentional about setting your plan up for success, you can easily read the whole Bible in a shorter amount of time than you expect

What would you add to this list? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your tips!

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