Week 2: Compass – Pastor Elbarre
Our second week of trips was a special one, to say the least.
If you want to take a moment and read the trip journal – go here!
First off – my mom came down for her first trip!!
This in and of itself was such a huge thing for us. Not only did mom come down to serve as a nurse in the clinic, but she also came to play nanny for Edison! Plus, it was simply huge to have one of our parents come down to see what we do, meet the people we love and see our ministry in action. To have her eat the food, meet the pastors, feel the love from the people and experience it all, makes it so much better for us to be able to understand one another. It brings our relationship that much closer and helps us have someone from home who gets us – someone who gets this half of our world/life.
Secondly, our home church came down!! woohoo!!
We’ve been throwing around the idea of “we have GOT to get our home church to come” since we started going to Compass. And we finally got the chance to lead their team in the mountains of Jacmel, in a little mountain community called Manze Marie.
Our host pastor was Pastor Elbarre, the sweetest, most genuine man who has a heart for good ministry in his churches and communities. He desires to reach the people in the areas of his churches.
pastor, on the left. Ronald PPM staff, on the right.
Pastor has been requesting a medical team for some time for his community, but his church sits about 45 minutes down an incredibly difficult to navigate and travel mountain road. But Compass said, let’s do it.
Pastor Elbarre is the kind of pastor who greets every member as they come in, takes up offering, leads worship during the service, hops over to tweek the sound system, plays the guitar, dances with a child while he sings and then wipes his brow, buttons his vest and preaches. He wears endless hats with joy – his heart is to serve his church. It was nothing short of a blessing to work with him this week.
Our group was 6 of the most unique and awesome women.
Kim, Brittany, Summer, Charlene, Nicole and Shannon (and my mom) saw almost 200 patients in 3 days. What is truly impressive is Shannon was the only Doctor! We also had Devyn, one of PPM’s interns for the summer, with us for the second week in a row. It was so great to get to know him more.
Devyn, the Canadian, center. Davidson, PPM staffer on the right. Beyonce on the left.
If I could sum up this week in one word, it would be:
community building.
Okay, that’s two words, but who’s counting?
You probably know exactly where I’m headed with this… but listen you guys, this week was just so HUGE for our family. First, my mom comes down, which was amazing enough. But then, our church family comes as well? And on that team is my best friend, my pediatrician and friend, and our children’s director (whom I’m going to start working more and more with in the future at church), plus three other incredible women who I had the chance to develop relationships with. It was just so awesome.
Nicole was in tears every 5 minutes. And I think that might have been my favorite part of the whole week – me watching her experience Haiti for the first time. Her heart was just so open and she was so real in her processing of the whole week.
And those ladies – they are my community now. I feel like with every passing day, Eric and I build more community at Compass than we ever thought possible.
It’s hard to keep that community feeling alive while doing this “job”. When you are traveling a lot and gone out of the country for months out of the year, it’s hard.
And yet, they made the decision to join in with our ministry, one that is just so humbling and beautiful and means more than we could ever express.
I’m so thankful for this week. From my mom, to Pastor Elbarre, to our team to the ministries – it was a blessed week indeed.
-Bethany
