I really wanted to be like her and I wanted to make a difference with my life and possibly even be a missionary.

I grew up in a very mission-minded church up in Missouri, and we had missionaries that come through all the time speaking on their country that the Lord had laid upon their heart.

And we had a missionary come through that had been in Haiti and was going back to Haiti.

And as a young boy, I just felt like the Lord spoke to my heart and said, someday you'll be there.

I hit my teenage years and I argued with the call that God had placed upon my life because I had other things I wanted to do.

I went to community college for a year during my first year there.

I was just not happy.

And I think what kept us continuing to serve God there in Haiti is just that we knew that God had called us there and we knew that there was a work to be done and that he would protect us no matter what happened and he would intervene and help us.

... is what we mean.

So, you know, I lived in Haiti longer than I lived in the States now, so, um, it's home.

Jude, our director, his two young children, Timothy and, um, Esther, we're their grammy and pappy, so, uh, they called us that from the time they could talk, and it's just we got family there.

If there's a tragedy happens across town and you got family that live in that town, you still go see your family, and we haven't been released from Haiti.

You know, people say, "How did you end up in Haiti?" Well, that's another story, but, uh, uh, I just felt like Haiti was where I was supposed to be from the time I was a young man growing up in church and missionaries coming through, and we're not there full time, but our hearts are full time.

We're doing other things while we're in the States, teaching at Bible college and just whatever the Lord has, opens the door for us, preaching out and different things.

But the missions in Haiti had a tremendous work, um, going on, uh, through the schooling and job creation and the church there.

[laughs]

A-and you guys were in America, so you're experiencing this over the f-phone lines, and they cut in, and they go out, and, and they're back on, and okay, what's going on now? Kind of talk me through how, how you experienced that day.

Well, [chuckles] um, my youngest son and myself had just returned from Haiti the day before, and Alisa had come out a couple weeks before that.

So the flights had been shut down in and out of Haiti, and then, then, um, the Haitian airline, Sunrise, had a charter company.

They had restarted flying in and out of Port-au-Prince again.

So I went to Davey and Natalie that week before and said, "Hey, the, the flights are flying.

Would you guys like to go out first, or you want me and Sam to go, and then come back in two, three weeks, and you guys go?" And they go, "No, we're good.

Just go ahead and go in." And I think we ended up getting home to Claremore probably about 2:00 AM that morning, um, on, on that Thursday morning, the 23rd, and that afternoon, it was about around four o'clock, kind of getting hungry, and my son, him and Alisa had left, and while they were gone, I got the phone call from my director, Jude, and he says, "I don't know what's going on, Pastor." He said, "My wife just called me.

Except the Lord.