On January 6, 2010, nine ladies and I from Beaverton Christian Church (BCC) in Beaverton, Oregon embarked on a journey that we knew would change our lives.  We just didn’t know how much it would change our lives.  We were headed to Grand Goave, Haiti on a short term mission trip with Lifeline Christian Mission.  Our purpose was to minister to the women and children in and around Grand Goave. 

We, as well as 48 other women from around the country, arrived in Haiti on the seventh of January and completed our orientation by the next day.  We then began to prepare for an annual event in Grand Goave: Ladies’ Day.  Ladies come from as far as three hours away to participate, and they look forward to it year after year.  Our theme for this year was “Tempest in a Teapot.”  Our goal was to help the women see that like steam builds up in a boiling pot, anxiety or worry does much the same thing inside of our hearts and minds.  It can cause unnecessary side effects, but as steam escapes from a teapot, our worry and anxiety can be calmed by the word of God.  Philippians 4:4-7 was our focus:  ^“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Little did we know that four days later we would be clinging to that scripture ourselves.

January 12, dawned bright and early as the previous mornings had.  We met with our prayer partners asking for God’s strength for the day as we distributed over 400 Christmas gifts to the children.  The sun was brightly shining and the children waited patiently for their turn.  There was much joy on the faces of these children as they opened the gifts their American sponsor sent.  Several of the women from BCC sponsor children and were able to present their gifts to their child personally.  One of the women had been planning for some time to give her sponsored girl, Amelia, a sewing machine.  Amelia had expressed a desire to be a dress maker from an early age, and now that she was fourteen, her sponsor decided it was time Amelia learned to sew; so, she purchased a treadle sewing machine through Lifeline.  Amelia’s face lit up upon see the gift and it touched each one of us deeply. Before the children were sent on their way, we took time to pray with them.  I felt God prompting me to pray for the protection of each and every one of them.  I even remember thinking, “From what do they need protecting?”  Our day was scheduled to end at 5:00 p.m., but by God’s grace we were finished by 3:30 p.m. 

Many of us went upstairs to our dorm room to rest before dinner.  Some napped, others read. I was working on writing out an email that would be sent on behalf of our team when I suddenly felt my bed shaking violently.  All of the lockers in our dorm room crashed to the floor. I could hear screams and a roaring.  One of our ladies, who had been heading downstairs when the earthquake hit, started screaming, “Get out! Get out! It’s an earthquake!” As soon as the room stopped moving, we all made a beeline down the stairs into the yard.  No sooner did we get out and start praying when another quake hit.  Once the ground stopped shaking we were evacuated to an adjacent field that was wide open.  Access to it prior to the earthquake was through a gate, but no gate was necessary because the security wall had collapsed.

All 58 women were soon accounted for and we found one of the ladies had been seriously injured and few had scrapes, bruises, and bumps.  Gretchen DeVoe, co-founder of Lifeline with her husband Bob, was miraculously able to make one call before completely losing reception and it was to let Bob know of the earthquake and that all of us were okay. 

Soon the Haitians from in and around Grand Goave began to stream into the Lifeline compound which sits on seven acres.  There was much wailing and screaming and some of our ladies had to watch on as a little four year old girl died from her extreme injuries.  We continued to pray and sing God’s praises and the earth continued to rumble.  Aftershocks and tremors were nearly constant through the night and even though our building was deemed safe, we all chose to sleep out in the yard under the stars which was a great reminder to me that our God is HUGE and bigger than any earthquake. 

In the days that followed I saw God to be our sustainer, our portion, our strength, our peace.  He reminded us of Lamentation 3:22-24, “Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”  God also used Psalm 91 in the lives of many of the women. For me these verses were the ones I clung to:”He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night.  For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. ‘Because he loves me,’ says the LORD, ‘I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.’ He will call upon me, and I will answer him I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.”  

We spent our days ministering to the now thousands of Haitians who were camping in the compound.  Some were seen in the clinic (although the clinic was not equipped to handle the broken bones and lacerations, but they did what they could) and others were given clothing and shoes.  Our Haitian translators would walk among their brothers and sisters with us so that we could pray with them and encourage them in any way we could.  During the night many of the women remained out of doors to sleep and the translators turned to guards.  It wasn’t because of any immediate threat, but no one knew how the Haitians would react to the devastation and the aftershocks that continued.  By the second night after the earthquake, we could hear the Haitians singing God’s praises, though, and we knew they were going to okay… well as okay as you can be when you have lost at least one loved one and no longer have a home. 

By the grace of God our one seriously injured team member was air evacuated on January 15, and the rest of us were able to begin our journey home the following morning. We arrived at the Port au Prince airport at 6:15 A.M. and were greeted by American soldiers. The airport building was still standing, but its structure was definitely compromised, and so we filed out to the tarmac and told to walk towards the American flag.  I have never been so happy to see our flag.  We joined several other Americans to await further instructions with more arriving in droves.  I have always heard it said of the military that you will know on a need to know basis, so apparently, we didn’t need to know anything.  And really, this was okay.  The time, again by God’s grace, flew by. It helped, though, that some soldiers showed up with ice cold Coke for us.   

I’d say that within seven hours of our arrival at the airport we found ourselves walking towards an Air Force C-17 cargo plane: our ride home.  Not sure the Air Force is accustomed to people being their cargo, but they took good care of the nearly 200 citizens who were ushered into the belly of their jet. An hour and half later we were landing at Homestead Air Force base in Florida and we were well cared for by the Red Cross and the Immigration and Customs officials.  We were quickly processed back into the United States and then taken to the Miami Airport.  My group of ten ladies who originated in Portland, Oregon, arrived in Portland only twelve hours late from our original arrival time. 

I have always known God to be a very personal God, but through this experience I know it on a much deeper level.  He showed up big time and as I saw and heard about the destruction throughout Haiti, I was in awe of His mighty, mighty hand that protected us and guided us home safely. To Him goes all the glory!!

-Shari Swanson