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Haiti Team Interview Ten: Myra

She likes to mimic others in order to make fun of them, likes the X-Men, and falls asleep in chairs when people are talking to her because she thinks they are boring. Okay, so this last one isn't true, but it is true that Myra enjoys laughing and new experiences, not least this trip to Haiti. Of all the members of our Haiti team, none was affected as much as Myra. Tears fell as she spoke of the things she'd learned from this place. I would learn later that God had answered a prayer of hers, uttered in silence on an early morning walk through a cove. For Myra, Haiti meant change-- renewed perspective-- enough that she's committed wholeheartedly to return some day, perhaps soon.

She first heard about the trip to Haiti from an announcement at Lighthouse, in June of last year. Her first thought was that it would be a good way to spend her first summer without school (she recently graduated with her master's degree). Aside from that was the sense that joining the trip "just felt right," that it was something possible for her, something she could do. She felt calm as the trip approached, ignoring her friends' claims that she would be kidnapped and sold.

Her experience turned out to be very different from the ones her friends-- and the one she herself-- predicted. For Myra, Haiti was a new beginning, "a big reset button," in her mind. She had been baptized for the second time a few years back, but couldn't let go of certain things, guys in particular. She would, in fact, justify some of her behavior, knowing she wasn't doing the right things. Still, there was no sense of conviction in her at the time, and she didn't act to change. In fact, she saw the time preceding the trip as an opportunity to let loose, to do anything she wanted. In her mind, she knew she wouldn't have the chance to do these things afterward, so it was important for her to to do them before. Alongside this feeling, however, was a sense that something was wrong. Before the trip, she felt she needed something to force her to stop the things she was choosing to do. It was this trip, she found, that acted as that wall.

Oddly enough, she never felt forced to stop. Instead, seeing how Christian men acted made her want to stop. She saw, in fact, that the men here were what real men should be like, a perspective that showed her that even the good men she met still had something missing, what she called a "void." This was part of the overall transformation for Myra, but it wasn't all. She also saw that she needed to change how she treated money and material things, including an appreciation of the things she already has. Above all, however, Myra witnessed God's love for her, a love that she found was present even while she was involved in the things she needed to stop in her life. In fact, she had felt closer to God in Haiti, coming from her view that each child here represented a miracle.

Equally moving to her, however, was what had happened at Goat Cove one morning. She'd hoped to find a seashell as she walked, and prayed to find one. Just then, she looked down to find one submerged in sand. Though it was nearly invisible, she stooped to dig, and dug out a large, intact shell. This, however, was more than an answer to a simple prayer. She remembers, as a child at vacation Bible school, the leader telling them that they would give one person a seashell. Like this week, Myra prayed to get the shell, and they ended up giving it to her. This shell, then, had symbolic meaning as a reminder of God's presence in her life, a presence that spanned even years of inaction.

On her return to the U.S., Myra wanted to take the things she'd seen here and start something in her church (though, as yet, she doesn't know what). This is her first summer outside of school, and she would like to do more missions work in the future, feeling more fulfilled in work like this than in any other type of work she'd experienced at home. This attitude is perhaps best reflected in her more specific plans for the future. She would like to pay down her student loans, sell her house, and use the money to do missionary work. This may be in Haiti, or maybe somewhere else. It could even involve working with Hands and Feet within the United States. Whatever she chooses to do with these lessons, she has been changed, and it is this change-- I'm convinced-- that will move her to be instrumental in changing others.

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