Northview Stories

Jason:
In 2011, I led a team to Haiti and there were 14 of us. The purpose of the trip was to just connect with the local church there. The services were building each night. The crowds were growing. Lots of people were finding Jesus. And so we were really excited. About three quarters of the way through the trip, things changed. We were staying in a two story apartment and we were on the second floor. Generally at night, the power can go off and the power was out, pitch black.

Morgan:
That particular night, we got back to the place where we were staying and it's late. Somewhere around midnight I hear breaking glass, which is kind of one of the worst alarm clocks ever.

Speaker 3:
I'm hearing women screaming. I'm hearing Haitians speaking in French Creole screaming. And I'm like, what is going on?

Jason:
We're somewhat trying to get into the apartment, and we were trying to prevent them from getting in. I remember there being a crowbar that got stuck through the base of the doors. We couldn't get the door all of the way closed.

Morgan:
I don't even have time to take it in before Jason Braun says, "Morgan, get on the door." And so I throw my shoulder up against the door. And the next thing you know is you hear gunshots.

Jason:
For the next 30 minutes, we were attacked by six armed gunmen. We experienced incredible terror we never imagined ever having to go through.

Speaker 3:
I was beyond scared. This is - you're going to die, or you're going to fight.

Morgan:
I think we've all heard the phrase, desperate prayers, but man, these were, these were desperate prayers. These were like from a part of your heart that you don't really pray from very much.

Speaker 3:
I remember praying to God at that point in time. I can't believe I'm not going to see my daughter's first birthday. Why would you do that?

Jason:
We were just trying to fight for our lives, trying to defend ourselves really without any defense mechanisms of our own.

Morgan:
The more that the shots came, the more your hope sank.

Speaker 3:
We need a miracle bad. Like this is, this is getting worse by the second.

Jason:
I made the decision to jump out of a two story window, barefooted, into the dark in hopes that I could make some kind of an escape attempt. I remember looking at my son and just saying, "Stay here. Don't, don't go. I love you," but not knowing if I'd see him again or see anyone again. But I made that jump and I was able to run about a quarter to half a mile down to a house that I knew where there was a missionary staying. In those 30 minutes, four of our team members were shot: one in the hand, one in the elbow, two in the leg, none were life-threatening.

Speaker 3:
My pre-med background early on in my life and career led me to realize that there were some things I had learned from a life-saving technique, where things were at, to when Rex had gotten shot, to when Bruce had gotten shot, thinking about what I needed to do to fix the problem. Jason went to the mission house, got help, brought the missionaries back. All of a sudden I hear help's on the way - the police are coming.

Morgan:
In that moment, where I realized that they were gone, I cannot explain to you how incredibly, ridiculously strong I felt in that moment. Like not strong in myself, but like this supernatural just kind of fell over me, Holy Spirity, kind of - it was overwhelming.

Jason:
It really makes no sense what happened that night as to why many of us weren't killed or more seriously hurt.

Speaker 3:
After the attack had happened, we were in the mission house and I knew we had to get out. There was a sense of trust that you just don't have on anybody now. Through the airline industry not giving us any options. I happened to work for a company at that point in time that had private jets. And lo and behold, by another miracle of God's grace, they were in the Grand Cayman Islands with a jet at that point in time, which is only a 40 minute flight from Haiti. The amount of actions and miracles it took to get us to that point and get home within basically 36 hours after the attack happened, you can't write a story like this. You can't make things up.

Jason:
There's just truly miracle after miracle after miracle that happened that just is unexplainable.

Speaker 3:
This was a true modern day, biblical size type miracle. This was the things you read about in the Bible.

Morgan:
As a pastor, a question I get a lot is, "Do miracles still happen?" I'm telling you what, I lived through one. I saw one.

Jason:
God clearly is in the business of doing miracles. So never let the presence of a storm cause you to doubt the presence of God.