Haiti Day #2

Meet Wuzlyn. She is one of the mom's I had a chance to interact with on a daily basis at the clinic. She is the mother to Joseph (i.e. "Machine me, Stephanie. Machine me!"). She is a dear soul. I sat down with her one afternoon and began to talk to her about Jesus. Let me make it very clear that I do not usually just approach people and start talking to them about Jesus (although I do like to talk about Him alot)! I usually try to find out what the person is experiencing, what their hurts are and see if God leads me from there.

But Wuzlyn is different. I felt the Lord just asking me to go and start talking to her about Him. So, I did. She expressed to me that she had heard about Jesus many time, and even sometimes went to church. She has never had a relationship with Jesus. It became evident very quickly that her primary problem with following God is that she did not want to be a hypocrite, which she repeated many times over. I encouraged her that her attitude was a very noble quality in a woman, because God does not want hypocrites to be His followers. In fact, He is very serious about finding people who genuinely want to love Him and follow His leading.

I shared my brief 10 minute story of the gospel from creation to resurrection (which took about 30 minutes via translating with Reggie). We then took a deep rundown on what the Bible says about hypocrites, and sin. It is by grace that we have been saved, through faith-and this not from ourselves, but it is the gift of God-not by works, that no once can boast. That as fallen men and women, sin is inevitable and is a part of our earthly flesh, but that God desires true repentance. As we practice this, we are not hypocrites but indeed are the children of God being made more and more into the image of Christ.

It was quite clear that she was enjoying our conversation, she was indeed listening intently to the words that that God speaks through HIs word. She would often smile or laugh during parts of the story. My heart fluttered as God began showing me that He was really after this woman's heart.

After about two hours, Wuzlyn proclaimed to me, "Ok, thank you for sharing this with me. I will think about it for two weeks and let you know my decision." I laughed, as I thought to myself, "She doesn't have two weeks if she intends to let me know her decision, she only has about 7 days!" However, I assured her that the outcome of her decision or my knowing about it was not important. It was the Lord who was speaking to her and she needed to wrestle through that with Him. We laughed together as I gently told her, "Wuzlyn, I think God sent me here to tell you that He is waiting for you. My coming here was just so you could know who He was a little more clearly."

Every day that I came into the clinic after that she would smile and then give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Her face lit up every time I came in the door. On the last day, she walked me out of the clinic, inquiring if I would be returning to Haiti. With joy in my heart but sadness over leaving yet another people which I had learned to dearly love, I told her that I was not sure if I would ever be returning to Haiti, or if I did if I would ever see her again. But I assured her that I was only a small speck in her life of what God wanted to do with her. That just like I said the first day we met, "God sent me here to tell you that He is waiting for you with open arms." She is the kind of woman God is looking for to bring Haiti to the place of reconciliation and restoration that God has planned.

I smiled as I walked away, knowing in my heart that God has such greater plans to fulfill in my life than even I have dreamed, and it has something to do with the nations on the earth. So even though I was sad to be leaving, the hope of God's plan for me could not be dampened. And I prayed that Wuzlyn would dream about how God wanted to work in her life, too.