The Road

When I was in middle school, many MANY years ago, Ms. Foster-Winton made us memorize a Robert Frost poem for her language arts class. I was so annoyed. Poetry hardly ever made any sense to me. How was I going to remember all these meaningless words? I chose the shorter of the two choices (of course!): "The Road Not Taken". Somehow I remembered it long enough to pass the class. The last stanza of that poem has revealed itself to me over and over again through the years.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

Emotionally, I want to fit in and be accepted as one of the crowd. Alas, it was not meant to be. It seems I'm always going down the less traveled path. And like Robert Frost wrote in that poem - that has made all the difference.

I'm not sure if this is an English song? I learned it in Kreyol...and I love it.

BonDye konn fe wout, kote ki pa janm genyen wout (God makes a way where there seems to be none)

Men lap travay, san'n pa konprann (He's working even though we don't understand)

Li va fe yon wout pou nou - Li va fe yon wout (He will make a way for us - He will make a way)

Today I'd like to share a little with you about the path the Lord recently led us down. It's just really cool to recognize how many little details HE thinks of ahead of time and has already prepared the way for us to walk in.

Several weeks ago we were visiting some dear friends. Lex mentioned that he was going to look at a bus that he might like to ship to Haiti. This morphed into his church (Bread of Life, Assembly of God in Westminster, MA) donating their bus to MOHI. In just a few short weeks, we had the bus packed with goods (mostly donated) and the funds in hand to ship it to Haiti.

In the meantime, our friends at Mission USA located an engine we were looking for to ship to Haiti. Getting it to us to put on the bus was going to be a major challenge. No worries - we planned to ship our van to Haiti at some point anyway, so we'll just drive it to Ohio, load the engine, drive it to Florida and ship the whole thing.

The week before we were scheduled to leave, we were getting nervous about driving our (very old) van all that way. Our busyness brought us to a town about 40 minutes away on a country road, way out in the boondocks. On that road, we saw a Toyota Tacoma for sale. Long story short - three days before we were to head to Ohio, we were able to...

purchase the truck for a fraction of the asking price
get an appointment with the RMV for the very next day (this may be the biggest of the "miracles")
insure and register the truck
have a mechanic go over the truck and then do a brake job on it

On Thursday we received the news that Lex's mom had passed. Friday, as we were driving to Ohio, the president of Haiti made the official announcement that the international airports would open again on June 30th. We knew it was important for Lex to physically go to Haiti - especially now that his mom had passed. We made some changes on the fly. Our kids were able to get Lex's passport and telephone to him and he was on a plane to Haiti yesterday morning.

Let's back up again. We had planned to spend a couple of days in Ohio, but those plans changed to just one night. Yet we were still able to connect with several friends and get the engine loaded onto the truck. From there we went to North Carolina where we were able to scope out the housing market a bit for our soon to be married son, visit with our friends, and coordinate meeting up with the bus that was being trucked down to Florida.

Back up once again - the bus was to head out on Monday morning. Monday morning, we get a phone call - "I'm switching transport companies."

We did spend an extra night in Charlotte, but it ended up that we NEEDED that extra day, as we discovered that the government of Haiti was requiring visitors to present a negative COVID-19 test result. Again, a seemingly impossible situation that God made a way for us to get through. Late in the day we were finally able to get the test done, even though the result would certainly not be ready in time. Friday, sure enough the negative result arrived verbally from the doctor, but getting the written report to Lex in Florida was impossible. Lex is persistent and another impossibility was turned around.

Together with our Bless Back Worldwide friends, we did meet up with the bus in Florence, SC. We added 14 duffel bags, 5 boxes, a big trash bag (filled with valuables, not trash!) and a big plastic tote to the bus. Lex went on alone to Florida (I do not have a valid passport right now!!! Can you believe it?) and I headed back to Charlotte (and eventually back to MA). Lex arrived in Haiti yesterday morning with no problems. Praise the Lord!!!