Nassau 2012: Day One

Hello from Nassau!

The morning before we left, I had breakfast with a student who came on the trip last year, and she asked me what I was most looking forward to.  I told her that as excited as I was to hold the Haitian babies and to be reunited with Pastor and Madam Joseph, the thing I love most about this trip every year is watching students experience it.

There is just nothing quite like seeing the sadness in their eyes as they look upon real poverty for the first time, or watching them wrestle with God as they try to understand how He can be loving and Good in the midst of such brokenness.  The joy on the Haitian kids' faces is priceless...but every bit as beautiful to me is the joy on my students' faces as they give the day's hundredth piggyback ride, swing a kid around in the air, or recognize that maybe it's not we in the States who know God best, but instead, the least of these.

We're reflecting as a team on the gospel this week--the truth that God created the world, that mankind sinned, corrupting the perfection of creation, and that God has come in the flesh to redeem it {{us!!}}.  But that's not all--He will come again to restore all things to himself, to put everything right fully and finally (Revelation 21).  That's the hope we have for the brokenness we see in Nassau this week.  In the midst of poverty and oppression, God calls us to image forth His own redemptive nature, to begin the work of restoration in the here-and-now.

He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for his Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

Proverbs 14:31

Here are some pictures from our first day!