Pastor Markes had a dream he believed was from God that a group of twenty “blan” (whites) would visit their village and that two from that group would stay to live with them and bless their community. When Cornerstone Church Milwaukee showed up with a group of all “blan” he just knew that two from that group would come to live with them.
Those two were Jesse and me (Kirsten)… though we didn’t know it at the time. And we definitely didn’t know that we would be joining the Gwo Cheval community together only 19 months later being five months married and four months pregnant! God works in some wild ways! But I’m getting ahead of myself… let me back up a little bit.
In January of 2010 an absolutely devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the densely populated and poorly constructed capital city of Port-au-Prince (the epicenter was 16 miles southwest in Leogane). Upon seeing this on the news Jesse’s heart cried out in intercessory prayer for the people of Haiti. He had never before felt such a heartache or deep connection with a people group before. Being a newly devoted follower of Jesus, he knew he had to do something. His church family, Cornerstone Church Milwaukee (now MIX), was planning a trip to the southern part of Haiti in March and although he couldn’t go due to another trip commitment, Jesse put a check with “Haiti Trip” in the memo into the church offering. He couldn’t go, but he wanted to be part of the sending.
A month or so later the pastor reached out giving Jesse details about the trip including his non-refundable, non-transferable plane ticket to Haiti. Talk about miscommunication! Or was it God’s divine hand, leading Jesse to the land He was calling him to? Through a string of miracles, Jesse was able to find a replacement for the other trip commitment and got the rest of the funds to go on his first trip to Haiti. During that trip God spoke clearly to his heart that he was to stop pursuing his engineering degree and begin taking Bible and ministry classes in preparation to go into full-time missions in Haiti. From 2010-2013 Jesse made 10 short-term trips to Haiti through Cornerstone Church, making connections, learning more of the culture and preparing to launch full-time.
While God was doing this deep work in Jesse, He was also encountering me (Kirsten) in powerful ways during my junior and senior years of college. I knew I wanted to do foreign missions since I was a little girl, but God was taking time to purify this desire. I had two different mission experiences during college, one to Haiti in 2008 and one to Argentina in 2010, where God continued cultivating my heart’s “yes” to Him.
Upon graduating from college in 2011 with my nursing degree, I moved with my oldest brother and his family near Milwaukee, WI. After leaving a tight-knit Christian community in college, I knew it was important to find a local church family to join. With help from my mom and sister-in-law’s google searches, I found myself at Cornerstone Church Milwaukee, a small church near UW-Milwaukee that met in a night club on Sunday afternoons. This mostly twenty-something group was passionate about Jesus and seeing the world be impacted and brought closer to Him. I immediately felt that these were “my people.”
My first trip to Haiti with Cornerstone Church Milwaukee was the March 2012 trip that confirmed Pastor Makes’ dream. Jesse had already been moving toward ministry and life in Haiti, but it was on this trip that God spoke clearly to me that Haiti was the country I was called to.
So we have the dream and now the two “blan.” What needed to come next? There was a “yes” on both of our hearts to abandoning everything to Jesus. There was a “yes” toward the people of Haiti. There was a “yes” about committing to full-time ministry. But before the “yes” of moving countries and settling in roots, God wanted to cultivate a “yes” in our hearts toward each other.
Part three coming soon…