How A Missions Trip to Haiti Prepared Me for Marriage

In January 2010, a major earthquake hit and devastated the small Caribbean island of Haiti. Well over 200,000 people were killed in the natural disaster and they are still recovering to this day. We were tasked with rebuilding the protective wall that encircled a Christian orphanage there. The trip taught me a lot about what being the hands and feet of Jesus means in action. I learned a lot about myself and working with a team to accomplish a unified goal.

What Haiti Taught Me

1. Serving is a ministry. We Christians often toss around the phrase “be{ing} the hands and feet of Jesus” and don’t always fully grasp what it means. When Jesus was on earth and working in His ministry, He served the lowest of the low, He associated with the outcasts of society, and broke the rule that any one person was better than another, {Luke 15:1-2}. He revolutionized what it meant to be a child of God and showed us how to live that out {James 1:27}. Volunteering at an orphanage to offer protection to those who needed was a privilege; we helped to return some sense of normalcy to a vulnerable population whose world would never be the same.
2. Self-care is important. I’m a crafter and love to build things; I was very much in my doing construction. When everyone took a break, I kept working, determined to do as much as I could with the time that I had. By the time I stopped working to take lunch, I was shivering and sweating, my body fighting to regulate itself. I had succumbed to heat exhaustion.
3. Learning someone else’s language helps with communication. The locals spoke Kreyòl {Creole,} which is a French/Spanish/African blend. I spoke minimal French but just a few words were all that I needed to be able to build relationships with the orphans and the locals. I learned key phrases in their language that would allow me to better serve them.
4. Be grateful. With property and possessions destroyed and the children living in tents, they were grateful. The children smiled, laughed, danced, and played. They had joy in the midst of their trials. They were grateful just to be alive.

How Lessons From Haiti Prepared Me To Be A Wife

1. Marriage is a serving ministry. Marriage is not about self. It’s the ministry that is a tangible example of the sacrificial love that Jesus showed for the Church. A successful marriage requires patience, humility, forgiveness, and sacrifice. My missions trip gave me a hands-on opportunity to practice these habits for strangers well before I did them for my husband.
2. Self-care is important to the health and success of your marriage. Because marriage is such a sacrificial and giving ministry, it’s vitally important that you take care of yourself. On airplanes, they remind you to put on your oxygen mask on before trying to help someone else. In marriage, you can’t keep giving from an empty tank. You will become exhausted if you are not replenished.
3. Learning your partner’s love language is essential for communication. Communication is key in maintaining intimacy and intention in a marriage. If you’re speaking one language, but your partner understands another, miscommunication is guaranteed to happen.
4. Be grateful. Marriage is beautiful. It can also be difficult and trying at times. Another important pillar of marriage is gratitude. Having a grateful heart in all things will carry you through the good and bad times of marriage. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” {1 Thess. 5:18}

Have you been on a missions trip or done missions work? What did you learn? Let me know in the comments below!