I wake up at 4:00 a.m. and check the time. Internet has been down for the past 2 days and it still isn’t working.
I wait a little longer before getting up and enjoy a beautiful sunrise.
At 6:30 we say goodbye to the Lemuel staff and climb onto the old school bus heading towards Port au Prince.
The drive is hard to describe. The roads are extremely rough and narrow, dipping through valleys and curving around mountains.
The scenery is constantly changing and every now and then we catch a glimpse of the beautiful Caribbean Sea.
At one point a broken down dump truck blocks the road completely so all we can do is wait for the driver to get it going again. Thankfully this does not take too long.
The first larger city we pass through is Gonaives, and it quickly envelopes us with sounds of blaring music, honking horns, and a cacophony of voices.
Five hours later we reach a hotel on Haiti's beautiful coastline. We now have a little time to debrief and relax.
In our evening devotions we read about how people can be so foolish as to come up with all kinds of reasons why salvation is not for them.
"In these days, a simple, childlike faith is very rare; but the usual thing is to believe nothing, and question everything. Doubts are as plentiful as blackberries, and all hands and lips are stained with them. To me it seems very strange that men should hunt up difficulties as to their own salvation.
If I were doomed to die, and I had a hint of mercy, I am sure I should not set my wits to work to find out reasons why I should not be pardoned. I could leave my enemies to do that: I should be on the look-out in a very different direction.
If I were drowning, I should sooner catch at a straw than push a life-belt away from me. To reason against one’s own life is a sort of constructive suicide of which only a drunken man would be guilty. To argue against your only hope is like a foolish man sitting on a bough, and chopping it away so as to let himself down. Who but an idiot would do that?
Yet many appear to be special pleaders for their own ruin. They hunt the Bible through for threatening texts; and when they have done with that, they turn to reason, and philosophy, and scepticism, in order to shut the door in their own faces. Surely this is poor employment for a sensible man.
Many nowadays who cannot quite get away from religious thought, are able to stave off the inconvenient pressure of conscience by quibbling over the great truths of revelation. Great mysteries are in the Book of God of necessity; for how can the infinite God so speak that all His thoughts can be grasped by finite man? But it is the height of folly to get discussing these deep things, and to leave plain, soul-saving truths in abeyance.
Thousands are now happy in the Lord through receiving the gospel like little children; while others, who can always see difficulties, or invent them, are as far off as ever from any comfortable hope of salvation.
I know many very decent people who seem to have resolved never to come to Christ till they can understand how the doctrine of election is consistent with the free invitations of the gospel. I might just as well determine never to eat a morsel of bread till it has been explained to me how it is that God keeps me alive, and yet I must eat to live. The fact is, that we, most of us, know quite enough already, and the real want with us is not light in the head, but truth in the heart; not help over difficulties, but grace to make us hate sin and seek reconciliation.
God has sent His messages to man, telling him the good news of salvation. When a man believes the good news to be true, he accepts the blessing announced to him, and hastens to lay hold upon it. If he truly believes, he will at once take Christ, with all He has to bestow, turn from his present evil ways, and set out for the Heavenly City, where the full blessing is to be enjoyed. He cannot be holy too soon, or too early quit the ways of sin. If a man could really see what sin is, he would flee from it as from a deadly serpent, and rejoice to be freed from it by Christ Jesus." (Spurgeon, Around the Wicket Gate)
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