Mission Moments: Haiti

Patience personified

By RUSSELL YANDURA

The Jeep smelled like a ham and Swiss croissant as we left the Starbucks near Denver’s airport. Gary and Elaine Fallesen and I were tired but excited. Finally, we received Gilbert into the United States from the Dominican Republic after airport delays and cancellations shortened our time with him from five days down to just one full day and one morning. Having not eaten all day, Gilbert somehow waited to eat that croissant much longer than I would have. He was patient in spirit and in action.

With our compressed timeline we squeezed in two interviews, saw Gilbert test his new leg at Quorum Prosthetics in Windsor, CO, and heard him tell of what the Lord had done in his life. Off camera, Gilbert shared a few words with me at a breakfast table in the quiet morning of my last day. Through my broken Spanish understanding, I knew he was excited for what was to come in the next year as he graduated. He was grateful to simply be provided for every step of the way.

Gilbert is someone that I had read about for years in Climbing For Christ’s email blasts before I knew Gary, the founding president of Climbing For Christ. Now, the center of a documentary project, he was sitting next to me in the backseat of a Wrangler as we headed back to our Airbnb.

One Monday in October of 2024, after creating twentyfold, a celebration documentary about the first two decades of Climbing For Christ’s existence, I felt an unrest, as if another story was to be told. Just after noon that same day, Gary emailed me about telling the story of Gilbert. I knew this would be complex, given the high and low moments spread across the previous 17 years of Gilbert’s life. I also knew that feeling of being on the edge of a great story.

I want to present two points as a storyteller:

First is that you, reader, are pertinent to the story. Whether you have prayed, given, gone on mission, or simply expressed interest in the work of C4C, you are a part of the story.

My second point as a storyteller is one that I hope opens your eyes to the work of God around you. We like to think of the high moments, like Gilbert finally graduating from medical school after years of effort and months of delays. These are the days when God’s favor feels obvious. Between mountaintops and valleys in life are the moments that demand patience. To witness God’s work is often to witness slow, arduous work, of which Gilbert is no stranger.

To witness Gilbert is to witness patience embodied. The Lord has taken a boy with a death sentence into a life and purpose that is to show God’s glory and Jesus’ unending love for “the least of these” in the world.

I challenge you, reader, to watch Rescued from the Jaws of Death, Climbing For Christ’s newest documentary, as it is not a story I have written, but one that God has crafted over two decades. Desire a heart for the lost souls in this world. Show those around you that following Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations has real impact through stories just like Gilbert’s.

I don’t want to forget to tell you the best part about Rescued from the Jaws of Death.

Gilbert is one out of millions of people in this world who deserve to hear the hope of the Gospel despite the circumstances and hurdles they face. Imagine a world where one more child’s life is saved from the jaws of death because the world hears someone’s story. That world requires patience to build, and it might just so happen to start with a story like Gilbert’s being told and shared by you.

This story originally appeared in The Climbing Way (Volume 72, Sept.-Nov. 2026). Russell Yandura, a member of Climbing For Christ since 2021, is a filmmaker living in Houston, Texas. His latest work for C4C, Rescued: From the Jaws of Death, is available for viewing on the Climbing For Christ Video Page, YouTube and Vimeo.

HIS story

Gilbert Lindor’s God story began for Climbing For Christ in August 2007 when C4C rescued him on the 27^th day after he suffered a compound fracture of his leg in the mountain village of Gentilhomme, Haiti. He was days from death; his father having already dug his grave. But God rescued Gilbert. He lost his leg, but his soul was saved. Gilbert became a believer, lived with C4C’s Haitian worker, received an education, and was supported by Climbing For Christ through medical school in the Dominican Republic.

Which brings us to today and our God-sized dream: to build a clinic (or clinics) in the mountains of Haiti where medical care is slim or none. Gilbert wants to save others in a place that nearly cost him his life. We are kicking off a fundraising campaign to build a clinic with the release of Russell Yandura’s documentary, Rescued: From the Jaws of Death. Please watch this film, pray for Gilbert and C4C’s ongoing work in Haiti, and consider giving to this divinely inspired cause.