Hearts in Haiti

by Chris Surber, pastor of Cypress Chapel Christian Church, Suffolk, Virginia and CCCC Area Rep for Mid-Atlantic States

My life is not my own. Of course, I’ve known and taught that for a long time. I’ve taught on 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 many times. But last year my wife pulled me to Haiti, where God pulled my heart out of my chest and broke it in pieces.

My life has always been His. Now it is His in Haiti.

On that trip, Christina introduced me to an impoverished little girl on a dusty, trash-strewn hill in a little Haitian town called Montrouis (pronounced Mow-ee). Out of a sea of children, Carmelie came running to my wife. This little girl is being raised by her grandmother. Her mother is dead, and her father is nowhere to be found.

She remembered the love my wife had shown her a few months earlier on Christina’s first trip to Haiti with a group of Christian women from Suffolk. She also remembered that my wife had given her clean, cold water. Carmelie saw my wife and said, “Dlo, dlo.” That’s Creole for “water.”

This was only my second day in Haiti, and I was still in a mild state of shock over the trash, the shacks, the rubble, the filthy and the penniless state of affairs in this island nation.

My spirit was still reeling from seeing people living amidst garbage in a tent city as I rode on the back of a truck through Port-Au-Prince. My heart was still trying to adjust. I had to find the shut-off valve for my tears. My feet still wanted to run back to the airport, fly straight back to the comforts of Virginia and pretend I had never seen poverty of a scope that I couldn’t fully fathom.

But I couldn’t run. What I could do was to give this little girl some water. So I did. I pulled her to the side, away from the other children. I broke open my Camelback water pack and poured ice-cold, clean water into a large cup for her. She drank every drop. I hugged her and sent her back to the Bible class my wife was teaching for a ministry there called Empowering Haitian Moms. I hid my tears and sensed the presence of God in a way I had not known before.

Later, while sitting on the back of that same truck, I realized why giving that little girl some cold water was so moving. In Matthew 10:42 Jesus says, And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of My followers, you will surely be rewarded. (NLT)

It hit me that for perhaps the first time in my life I had ministered to someone in absolute purity. There was no pretense, no veneer, no trappings, no nothing — just me and a little girl and a cup of cold water. I said, “Here, drink this water! Now go back to Bible class and receive the Bread of Life!”

That week in Haiti changed me forever. God showed me the reason for the unrest my wife and I have felt in our hearts for the past few years and the reason for our increasing passion for global evangelism.

There’s the background. Here’s the next chapter of the story.

The Surber Family in Haiti

Sometime during the first few weeks of 2015, my family and I will relocate to Montrouis, Haiti, where Christina and I have accepted an invitation to pastor the Montrouis International Fellowship. It is an English-speaking fellowship of followers of Jesus composed mostly of missionaries to Haiti. We will serve and shepherd and encourage the missionaries who are there pouring their lives out in Jesus’ name.

We will expand the ministry of MIF to encompass more of the local Haitian community. I will develop a ministry of mentoring and training Haitian pastors. My family and I will come alongside our partners at the Agape House Children’s Home (an orphanage) and partner with them in that work. We will also stay awake to the Spirit’s leading for other ways we can support our ministry partners in Haiti.

Here’s how you can be a part of it.

We have incorporated a ministry for Haiti called “Supply and Multiply.” The Lord directed us to 2 Corinthians 9:9–11 as we sought a vision and a name for the ministry: As it is it written, ‘He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.’ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. (ESV)

We are looking for partner churches and individuals who sense God leading them to support our work financially and bathe it in prayer. We’ll be prayerfully seeking pastors and church leaders to do pastoral and leadership seminars for Haitian pastors and church leaders. We will welcome short-term missionary teams to participate in various kinds of missionary work.

I’ll make no bones about it. I need your money. But I want your partnership more. There is a Haitian proverb: “Si Bondye voye ou, li peye fre ou.” If God sends you, He pays your expenses.” I’m confident God will provide for what He has called us to do, but I don’t want anyone God calls to be part of this work to miss out on the blessing attached to it!
Last month my wife and I took our four children, ranging in age from one to eight, to Haiti to seek confirmation from God for His call on our lives. I was concerned about how they’d do in Haiti. I watched them make friends. I watched them joyfully play with kids who could almost seem to be from a different world. I watched God dismantle my last excuse not to be obedient to His call. God is calling us to Haiti. I wonder if He may be calling you to find some way to be a part of the work of Supply and Multiply.

To find out more about the ministry please visit www.supplyandmultiply.com.

“We ou nan Ayiti!” See you in Haiti!