This morning I woke up at about 5:30 to the sound of Kristen unzipping our tent in Yosemite National Park. That sound was the last breath of my vacation. A week of swimming in mountain streams, playing games with the kids late into the night, campfires, hikes, and a million giggles. It was awesome. But waking up simply meant it was time to start packing.

We got up extra early so I could sit in this seat tonight. It’s 9:00 PM. I’m sitting at a gate at the San Diego Airport. We drove 9.5 hours from Crane Flat all the way to San Diego on a single stop so that we could be home in time to get me on this red eye flight to Miami, then Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Why?

Why is the only question of relevance. Why end a vacation like this? Why drive like that? Why pull into the driveway and put things straight in the laundry, pack up, and go again? I can assure you it was just as non-relaxing as it sounds.

The why is pretty simple. We, as a family, refuse to forget that there are other people whom are more important than us. We are servants of a Mission greater than just our family which, we believe, is more important than our comfort or our recovery days or any other American smoke screen I can think of.

For whatever reason God has given me both a heart for His work in Haiti and a voice to help others discover opportunities to get involved in His work there.

And we’ve learned, by mistake mostly— that when you are called to do something you shouldn’t ask a lot of questions about your own comfort. Instead… you should just make it happen. (This is the same conditioned response Kristen is leaning into next month as she takes 12 days to go to Cambodia.)

So that’s my challenge to you this week. This week I’m going to be asking you to do three things.

1. Follow along. Marko and I are both blogging about our experience with Praying Pelican this week. We’ll be doing some behind the scenes stuff as well as getting to meet some of the 160 people in Haiti with PPM this week. 
2. Share. If you read something about my trip that you find interesting, I’d really appreciate if you’d share it, like it, tweet it, or email it to someone you think might be interested. I’ve done several trips to Haiti now… and I’ve learned that you don’t know who is thinking about going and just needs a little nudge to take the first step.
3. Get personal. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met, some of whom I don’t even know personally, who feel a nudge from God to go to Haiti but are just too _____ to make it happen. As you follow along this week, I simply ask that you remain open to whatever God is calling you to do. Maybe it’s to go? Maybe it’s to learn more? Whatever it is… I am asking that you are sensitive to how the next few stories on my blog might move you to action. (Faith is pretty worthless without action.)