There will come a day.

I was sitting on my bed in front of my computer today, iTunes pulled up, listening to my worship playlist. I was having one of those rough “I miss my friends and family” moments, wishing I could see you and be with you all, even just for a short while. The song that came up on my playlist was a song about Heaven (We Will Dance- you Wheaton-folk know it well…), and I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that there will come a day when we will all (for those who know my precious Jesus) be together, worshiping Him unceasingly. The beauty of that picture brought me to tears. I may be separated from you all now, but one day we will be together, standing before the throne of our perfect Brother and King. And we’ll be joined by members of my wonderful new Haitian family. How I long for that day!

N.B. – I don’t pretend or assume that all of you who read this blog believe the same things or feel the same way I do about Jesus. I believe that He is the way to God the Father, and that each of us needs a relationship with Him. This belief shapes my life- what I do, how I act, the decisions I make. If you don’t believe this, or if you just don’t get it, I’d love to dialogue with you about it. I’m not going to fight with you, and I’m not going to try to shove it down your throat. But if you want to talk, let’s talk. Get in touch with me on facebook or email, or leave me a comment and I’ll get in touch with you.

For now, I see Heaven on these faces!

Sabbath Reflections.

I’ve been thinking hard lately about Sabbath rest. Coming into this adventure, I wanted to be really intentional about safeguarding my Sabbath- taking time for rest and being with my Lord. But when you’ve got 40ish hours of work to do in a week, along with laundry, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, helping host short-term teams when they’re here, and you compound all that with the fact that we're not supposed to be out after dark taking care of errands and such…it makes finding a day for such rest tricky, if not virtually impossible.

Yet God commanded us to a Sabbath of rest. So I’m stuck, trying to figure out what exactly I’m going to do. In the States, it seems that everyone’s over-worked, over-stressed state of affairs is a product of pride and the need to be better and work harder than the Joneses. Here, it’s more an issue of simple math- there aren’t enough daylight hours in the day/week. And for many Haitians, who barely make enough money to eke by, any hour when they can be making money is an hour not to be wasted on frivolous things like rest.

It’s such an interesting paradox: Haiti is a slow culture, but often by necessity and not by choice- we don’t have the means to make things run more efficiently, so we resign ourselves to waiting for things to happen. Yet the culture of busyness that I know from life at home (always-working-never-stopping-advance-advance-advance) is alive and well. What to do?

I get frustrated with these things- both for my own life and on behalf of the Haitian people, particularly those that I know and care about. I see how hard they work and how often they work, and I tend to project my own weariness onto them. But in the midst of this, I am still struck daily by the beauty in this country. Everywhere we go, sweet children wave as we pass by (our whiteness makes us a novelty, and if we wave back, they are delighted). When we drive through the village where our school is located, the community kids who attend the Kids Alive school will run alongside our car, or wave and shout our names. Haitian friends will come over to our house after a 12+ hour workday to help us change a flat tire. We’ve been in Haiti long enough that hardly a day passes when we don’t see someone we know on the road, either driving or walking. Honking, waving, stopping the car in the middle of the street to have a chat or let a friend hop in- all of the above happens on a regular basis. And it boils down to the fact that I feel like I’m part of a family here- loved, accepted, welcomed. In this way, Haitians do the Kingdom of God much better than we North Americans. Would that we could take a page out of their book! 

A big part of what makes Haiti so wonderful. I mean, come on. Look at these faces!

Sniff, sniff, sniff...

Do you hear that noise? It's the crying and snuffling of my poor, sad, neglected little blog.

It’s been well over a month since I last wrote, and that wasn’t even a real post. Ouch. 

My apologies to you, dear blog and dear readers.

I was in conflict regarding whether to give you a “life in Haiti” post or a “what’s going on in my heart these days” post- because, believe me, there’s plenty to say in both departments. I think I’ve decided on a little blog-series over the next few days. Going from absentee blogger to over-enthusiastic blogger…how d’you like them apples? 

Today, we'll start with the news. (Coming to you live from Cap Haitien...)

The most recent “big news” is that I started teaching my English classes last week- with success, by God’s grace! It’s been affirming to really jump into the work that I came here to do and find that God has equipped me to do it! As usual, it’s one of those things I should have known, but I had no problems coming up with reasons to fret- what if the kids don’t understand my Creole, what if I can’t understand them, what if what if what if…

What if God really, actually has called me to Haiti to do a job for His glory and has equipped me to do it? (Well all right, then.)

Other big news for Kids Alive Haiti:

1. We got our bus painted! Before, it was plain-jane yellow, and now have a look at this beauty.

    Pretty cool, huh? I think it gives everyone in the ministry a sense of pride to have this sweet ride pull up to their house. (And, from a utilitarian standpoint, it’s a lot easier to know when it’s our bus coming and not one of the other fifty-thousand-million buses in Cap Haitien…though our rockstar bus driver, Tilou, usually honks the horn loud enough for you all to hear it on the other side of the ocean.)

  2. We’ve had several short-term teams here recently, and they’ve made fantastic progress on our Children’s Village site. For those who don’t know about our new Children’s Village: We’re in the process of constructing a compound that will house all of our ministry families, our director and his family, and several independence homes for our kids that finish high school and are preparing to transition out of Kids Alive. Currently we rent homes all over town, but when this project is complete, we will own the land and the homes, and will be able to control things like water and electricity. It is SO exciting to see this take shape, not only for me, but for our kids as well. We pass the site on the way to school, and our bus usually stops to drop off some of the construction workers. When the gate is open, the kids press their noses against the windows and ooh and aah over their soon-to-be new home.

one of our close-to-finished houses

a skeleton- our last team put up these panels in one day!

So there's your news update. Tune in again soon (I can't promise for tomorrow, but I'll try!) for more!