There comes that point in every trip the Lord may lead you on that you discover that what you have brought with you will fail.

Your doctorate in medicine, and years of residency and public and private practice. Your 36 years of nursing experience. Your physical strength as a mighty man in the Lord and as a physical trainer. Your knowledge of carpentry honed through decades of experience. Although we had over 10 huge bins stuffed full of every type of medication you might imagine – 51,000+ total pills and vitamins and creams and liquids to start with and which we replenished at the local pharmacies in Port au Prince, there will come that moment that whatever you have in that huge plastic bin – no matter how big it is, and how many pills are in it – will not be enough for the situation you face.

Today was one of those days.

We had heard earlier in the week of a young mother who had been sick. She recently learned that she is HIV+. She lost hope, and she has is choosing not to take the medications that are available to help keep the HIV+ under control and boost her immune system. She is very ill now, and not able to care for her two year old son, who was placed into an orphanage.

Today a woman came into the medical clinic we opened at Mega 4, where there are over 6,000 people still living in tents. She met with the Nurses. Her eyes were jaundiced – dark yellow, and she had been feeling exhausted, with belly pain, and came to the medical clinic for help. The woman had Hepatitis, which is a disease caused by a virus that infects the liver. In time, it can lead to permanent liver damage as well as cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver failure – and finally, death, if left untreated.

As a team, we can provide medicine, and we can provide instruction to the 137 men, women and children we met this morning, including even a beautiful set of four month old twins carried in the arms of their mother and her friend.

But there is only One who can provide what is missing to those who are in a valley of decision here in Port au Prince, surrounded by giants daily who threaten their very destruction. Lack of food, little to no access to clean water, lack of jobs, tents that leak, mosquitoes carrying malaria and fire ants that bite, rain that causes flooding and mud to fill your tent, sewage that spreads disease, hot sun that heats the tents to unbearable temperatures. When women and men look around at these giants in their present circumstances, fear floods the mind, and may cause them to consider giving up.

The Nurse and our translator Joanne, joined hands in prayer with the woman who is battling Hepatitis, to ask the Lord Christ Jesus to provide her what our medical bins do not contain.

The promise of freedom.

Freedom – it is an incredibly beautiful word. We toured the devastation of downtown Port au Prince this afternoon. Near by the shaken and broken Presidential Palace, and the huge tent camp of 50,000 people across from the Palace ruins, there is a famous statue that is much beloved, Neg Mawon – the Freed Man.

Freedom. Freedom from every fear. Because perfect love casts out fear. Fears of today, an uncertain tomorrow, and the things that haunt you at night from many yesterdays.

Freedom from the things we do in our lives that over time would destroy us (sin). Freedom from emptiness and hopelessness, searching endlessly for the meaning of our lives, and not finding it whether we are rich or poor, searching and never finding it from Wall Street to the rocky unpaved roads of Port au Prince.

Until the truth is revealed that we are loved by the very Creator of heaven and earth, our Father. Who sent His Son Christ Jesus to the earth to demonstrate this love in the physical as the Word became flesh, – and He walked the dirt roads of a society thousands of years ago that was also hurting, facing tribulations and disease.

Jesus Christ laid down His life on the cross, so that we could be given the gift of His love. That leads to freedom. We are untangled from the cords of fear, confusion, hopelessness, anger, greed, lust, pride, bitterness, unforgiveness and so much more. Forgiven for every failure. Freed Freed from the fear of death itself, as that perfect love also provides us with the roadmap home to eternal life with our Father, the Creator of heaven and earth.

We are given the most powerful cure in the universe for every condition of the mind, body, and soul – the love of God in the person of Christ Jesus who chose to lay down His life for us.

It is a priceless gift – all the money in billion dollar hedge fund and bank accounts amassed over a lifetime, or all the gold and diamonds socked away in the deepest vaults in the world are not sufficient to purchase it.

The only way to receive it is to open the door of your heart, and accept the love of Christ Jesus that He offers. The way the medicines offered in the clinics each day, this priceless gift is given freely to all who choose to receive it….or not.

It’s a gift that brings freedom – within His perfect love, there is no fear. And freedom from fear restores hope.

Hope!

It allows a woman with Hepatitis living in the tent camps to live for another day, in freedom, not fearing those giants that surround her any longer.