While some of us struggled to find our personal contributions to this trip, Rita's became clear. Her prayers resonated with us, appealing as she did with such strong conviction to a God she knows so personally. To be sure, there were moments of uncertainty in these prayers, moments when she could have been embarrassed by her conviction to pray them; but her God was bigger than her fears, a truth so rooted in her that you could hear it in her very voice.
Like so much else that is meaningful in life, this conviction did not come easily. Her story in Haiti began with a doctor's diagnosis of a brain tumor. She was told she would need surgery to have it removed, a surgery that was scheduled for May 1st and that would require at least four weeks of recovery time. This put Rita's trip to Haiti in danger, given that we were scheduled to leave exactly one month later, on June 1st.
What happened next would send shock waves throughout our group and the church at large. Two weeks before Rita's surgery-- a Wednesday-- she underwent a routine MRI to take note of the tumor one last time. That Friday, Rita received a call from her nurse stating that whatever tumor was there was there no longer, and that everything about her brain was normal again.
This was her testimony, showing her that when God calls you to something, in her words, "nothing can stand in your way." As a result, she has had the opportunity to share her story with an array of people: doctors, coworkers, family, and acquaintances alike. Beforehand, she found others asking her how she could leave with the problems she faced, problems that included not only this tumor, but also finances and an array of other challenges. Many were doubtful, in fact, but Rita arrived in Haiti both healthy and fully funded.
One could see, then, the source of Rita's strength. It is a strength developed through hardships, faithfulness, and prayer. It was in part through these experiences that Rita knew she would be changed on this trip. Concerned for the daughter and family she would leave behind, she was forced to trust God again, this time to care for those she so dearly loves; but she met this concern with a knowledge that God would remain true to himself, that he would be faithful to her.
This peace about the trip allowed her to learn another, equally important lesson from her time in Haiti: it taught Rita her purpose as a mom. We saw this in her compassion for the orphans in Haiti. It was Rita, in fact, who broke through the barriers of language and emotional distance to counsel one Haitian boy who tended at times to be unkind toward the others. At first relatively silent, this young man opened up to Rita more and more as the week unfolded, until it seemed he trusted her.
Events like these showed her how purposeful her role as a mom truly is, a lesson that she brought back home to use in her place as a single mother. For Rita, in fact, God had weaved a passion for motherhood and a conviction in prayer into a single, new tapestry whose emblem was most distinctly his own. More than anything else, Rita's story is God's story, a story of healing, faith, and purpose.
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