Heaven in Haiti

Today I had another slice of heaven in Haiti. Some people who have been here find that hard to imagine, yet others who see beyond the rubble, grime, and poverty understand completely, because those who have eyes to see know that the treasure of Haiti is it's people. 

Today's 'slice' came in the form of children.  Not so surprising for those of you who know me well. Actually, those who don't know me deeply still discern that pretty quick.  So yeah, though I and almost 200 other kids were crammed into a space about the size of two American  master bedrooms,  I was happy as a looney lark. These children all live in what the world would call a slum, but every Saturday afternoon, they forget their environment and focus on Jesus.  They come running, smiling, dressed in their finest, just so they can be embraced by Jesus' love that we carry to them.

I had to walk 2 or 3 miles over uneven garbage-covered dirt roads, to get there, but it was worth every step.  I kind of relish walking such roads where I see chickens, pigs, cattle, goat and lots of people. On one small rickety bridge we had to make room for both motorcycles and cattle to cross before us.

Though I don't speak much Creole and was mainly there just to help my two  Haitian friends with their 200+ participant kid's club, I marveled at the fact that the children hung on me afterwards like I was their best friend.  These children are so eager, so hungry (physically and spiritually), and so open, I wonder why there aren't armies of Christians here seeking them out.  They certainly aren't hard to find.  

Nonetheless, I thank God for the opportunity to participate in what He is doing here.  It truly is amazing and the fact that the local voodoo priest, Jonas Joseph, came to the meeting underscores that fact.  We met him on the way in, shook his hand and prayed for him.  He was curious and spiritually hungry and admitted that the only reason he was a voodoo priest was because he couldn't find work in any other business.  

If you want to help this work continue, please contact me.  The two Haitians who run it do so at their own expense, and neither of them can 'afford' to do so.  Their hearts of compassion though tell them they can't afford not to, so they move in faith for the sake of the children, Jonas Joseph, and Jesus.  I personally know that the 35 year old man who started this has no money in a bank or in his pockets.  In fact, we are staying with his family and we'd have no food tonight if we hadn't brought some packaged food from America.   Haiti is recognized as the third hungriest nation in the world and that reality was highlighted once again  as I walked the roads and strangers greeted me time and time again with, "I'm hungry."

Thank you to each one of you who has prayed or contributed.  It is humbling to be here amongst His servants and I couldn't do it without your support.





Compassion

"It might well be that the greatest threat to human survival now confronting us is not the loss of energy or the increase of pollution, but the loss of compassion. We are confronted daily with the pain of human tragedy- the breakup of family or the sunken face of a starving child- to such an extent that we soon learn to turn off what we see, In order to cope with our feelings of helplessness, we teach ourselves how not to feel. The tragedy in this response, which is probably more widespread than we dare believe, is that we also deaden our capacity for love, For Christians, the cross stands as an ever-present reminder that love and suffering are two sides of the same coin." James C. Fenhagen

I cannot sleep when the rain falls without thinking of the ones I know who get soaked because they have no roof, or at least no adequate roof. As I lie warm and dry in my bed, I think of the slum community I lived in where soggy mattresses were dragged out into the mud when the rain stopped.

I have many many memories that God has given me in 25 years of ministering amongst the poor, and some of those recollections cause me pain. But I choose not to run from those impressions or the suffering they evoke, because the greatest tragedy of all, would be to distance myself from the hurting. C. S. Lewis reminds me why:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

Perhaps now you understand my daily prayer in this loud distracting grieving brilliant beautiful world I live in: "Lord, let not my heart grow numb."

As David and I prepare to return to Haiti next month, will you pray with us that God continues to enlarge our hearts, so that we truly have His love to give.

Am I my brother's keeper?

Yup, I'm alive. After tag-teaming with a friend to care for the former Son of God orphans, I journeyed back to America in time for Christmas. Though I'm still on US soil, I expect to find out today when I get to return to Haiti and love up on my kiddos in person.

One reason that return might be delayed is because there is still an ongoing investigation by a government agency (IBESR) about what happened to these children - and IBESR doesn't take too kindly to missionaries, especially since there's corruption in their midst.

I don't want to put the pastor caring for these 37 children (and the 40 other children he already had) in any danger, so though I want to wrap my arms around these precious gifts of God and clean their wounds and wipe their tears and laugh at their jokes and feed their bellies and soothe their souls and break up their fights and check their homework and remind them by my presence that they are not forgotten and are worthy of His love, care and attention, instead, I find myself in consultation with various people who have been on the ground there about when to make my comeback.

What matters to me most is not for my Haiti-hurting heart to be coddled or soothed, but for these children who have been through so much to not be further traumatized.

Would you pray with me for His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven- and that I'd have discernment about this particularly as it relates to these kiddos?



The first pages of Holy Scripture contain a dreadful saying which
people use an excuse for themselves: 'Am I my brother’s keeper?'
This question, with its implication of irresponsibility permeates the whole
history of humankind and the life of each of us.

Each one of us has to take issue with such reasoning : ‘My horizon is limited. So-and-so is no concern of mine. I can take no responsibility for him.’

How cleverly we try to pass this off as logic, but in our heart,
faithfulness says: That is not true. We are obligated to do everything
we can for others, for friends and strangers alike. Jesus impressed
this upon us, in his moving way when He said that everyone who needs us
is our neighbor. Everything we do for anyone is also done for Jesus
and will receive it’s blessing from Him.

Albert Schweitzer

Noises in the Night

(I am behind on getting my blog posts uploaded through the internet, but this and the next few entries will be thoughts I wrote earlier, but are still relevant and supply a taste of Haitian life.)

I live on a 2nd floor with a balcony. Right below me is a small courtyard that separates me by about 20' from the school this pastor runs. This building also has a balcony, so though there is air between us, I can practically "reach out and touch someone" on this neighboring second floor balcony. What this all means, in practical terms, is that I am effectively a zoo animal.

Yup, whether I am in my room or on the balcony, there are usually many sets of eyes staring at me. In the beginning, it was unnerving, but eventually I stopped noticing (unless it is coupled with 20 voices calling my name at the same time!).

Since I live 20' from a school with 600 students, let's just say "quietness is not a virtue here," or at least it's a hidden unexperienced one. And since loud blaring music does seem to be a virtue in developing nations, particularly at late night/early morning hours, I've been wondering how I will adjust to the week I am back at our cabin in the woods home base in Michigan.




After all, it is a place where our neighbors are only occasional weekend warriors and the most prominent sounds are those of woodpeckers, songbirds and cheeky chipmunks.


Will I be able to sleep without the dragging scraping metal noises of 2 a.m. furniture rearranging of our gatekeeper? How will I handle the absence of 3 a.m. U.N. heavy equipment sounds? And what about the 4:15 a.m. blaring U.N. loudspeakers? Will I miss the boomboxes of the night hours (I don't think so!) and how will I wake without the sounds of 80 rambunctious orphans coming to life every morning at 5 a.m.??

Will the sounds of silence deafen me?

Life is definitely lived out loud here!

They're Watching You!

Developing world children have a fascination with trash. Trash is equated with treasure. When you own nothing, there may be something of value in someone else's garbage. Innovation excels here.

In fact, I failed to mention in my recent blog entry about the pedicure the girls gave me (http://haitiheart.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-love-you-sooo-much-jesus-i-love-you.html), that they used a piece of asphalt to wear down my callouses. That was their tool of the trade, for it's what was available to them. It was remarkably effective, considering.

The creativity of the poor always impresses me. I remember being in Mozambique after the devastating floods, and before long the homeless and poor were offering car washes with the excess water that had pooled in the road's potholes. (Mozambique has vehicle-sized potholes and I'm not joking!)

But here in Haiti, the most recent trash innovation took the shape of vitamin bottles. Yup, I had taken a plastic bag full of trash down to the bin, and I did so during the night, hoping to go unnoticed. Well, when you're living with 80 children, little goes unnoticed- there is always a set of eyes watching you, and usually 20 or 30 sets at any one time!

So even though there was no electricity and I 'casually' dropped it in the bin as I kept moving so as to attract less attention, my careful plans were for naught. Within 15 minutes, every single one of the empty vitamin bottles I had placed in that plastic bag were in the hands of one of the children. I have no idea what they plan on doing with them, but no doubt, they have lots of ideas. Perhaps they'll become their own personal water bottle or something to roll down the sloped driveway or a place to put some rocks that they find. I found 2 year old Guerlande sitting on the ground one day with a plastic bag full of pebbles she was collecting. There was nothing else for her to play with, so she was entertaining herself with plastic and pebbles.

I cringe that these children instinctively go through the trash, even when instructed otherwise, but I do understand why they do it.

"I love you sooo much, Jesus, I love you so much...!"

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of they who bring Good News, who publish peace, who bring Good News of happiness. Isaiah 52:7

Tonight I was ambushed by the older girls- in a good way. In fact, in a holy memorable unforgettable God-glorifying way.

You see, they've been asking me if they could paint my toenails before I returned to David. So I finally agreed, but this was WAY more than a teen toe-painting party. They filled two basins with water: one for feet and one for hands. Then four girls went to work at once in washing and massaging my hands and feet. I was floored. They were incredibly thorough.

Honestly, no one has ever spent time like that on my feet before. I don't give a lot of time to beautifying my body. In fact, I remember living in a Mexican dump in my 20's and my cousin came to visit and remarked that my feet looked old. The thick callouses they sported from a decade of long-distance running made sure they'd never be nominated for a magazine shoot, that was for sure. But I was surprised by his comment, even though I hadn't paid much attention to them. That's because I'd never compared them to anyone elses. They were just my feet. If you asked me if they were young or old, I would have looked at you funny, and just told you they were the feet of someone my age- because they were.

Well, my aged feet took on a beauty of their own tonight, thanks to some teens whose histories are ones of abuse and abandonment. They have traded their sorrows for beauty, their fears for strength, their mourning for gladness and potential bitterness for kindness- and I was blessed to be the recipient of it all in a stunning display of God's grace.

Besides washing and cleaning my feet, they filed the nails, pushed back the cuticles and massaged them thoroughly before finally painting them. It wasn't an efficient operation by any means, but it was a slow deliberate act of love. I was lavished by their love. Singing, talking, laughing...I will never forget tonight. By the time they got to the toenail painting, darkness had spread its blanket across the land, so it was all done by flashlight.

And then they began to sing, "I love you sooo much, Jesus, I love you so much...." Over and over they sang this line. Maybe because they didn't know the rest of the song, or maybe, simply because they were overcome by its Truth.

I have so much emotion welling up inside me, I want to say more, but their thorough act of love has left me speechless. I am undone by their love. And I am reminded of the man who defined love for us with His life:

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. John 13:12-17

One of those days...that God gives us more opportunities to love Him

To love another person is to help them love God. Soren Kierkegaard

Some days you wake up and just want to go back to bed. Today was kind of like that. I've been fighting something and for the first time in weeks, I truly felt drained of all energy. But today was not a day for resting. The worst health attacks on the children since being here all seemed to coalesce into one non-perfect storm. Fevers, coughs, stomach aches, staph infections marked by huge underarm boils, children with suspected AIDS/TB being passed on from clinic to clinic for inconclusive tests...and then Ericsson.


I posted earlier (http://haitiheart.blogspot.com/2011/12/to-love-another-person-is-to-help-them.html) about how I had 'missed it' in loving this lone boy and God surely gave me opportunity to make up for it today. The poor guy was in so much pain today that he was crying for 4 hours. It all began with a slight fever and stomachache which I treated with prayer and children's acetaminophen. Eventually that slowed his crying down to a whimper, but two hours later he appeared with a swollen left eyelid and hives all over his body.

The crying began in earnest once again. I rushed upstairs to find we had no benadryl, but thankfully I had a few personal tablets in my computer case. As I returned down the stairs, I ended up falling/slipping past the last four onto the concrete below due to the darkness (no electricity). I sat on the hard floor holding my ankle for a while and praying, and then got up and continued on with my mission of healing.

Ericcson was trying to scratch his skin off, so I doused him with calamine lotion. The tears continued for 2 more hours while the benadryl ever so slowly did its work. I gathered all the children around him and everyone prayed for him as well as surrounded him with songs of praise to our King. The pastor came and prayed authoritative healing prayers. All the while, Ericcson had his head in my lamp while he cried and whimpered and I stroked his head and body trying to comfort him with love.

Eventually I had to attend to other kids and as I heard him continue to cry, my heart was breaking. Honestly, partly it is because the sound of crying and pain is not a pleasant sound (I don't like suffering!)- and I just wanted it to stop. Partly because I was frustrated that my efforts in prayer and medical methods didn't seem to be helping a whole lot.

But most importantly, because God was reminding me what an 8 yr old boy in an ocean of girls must feel like when he needs comfort but has no mommy and daddy. I did my best and ached as it didn't feel like enough, but I suspect all mommy's experience that at times.

Yup, some days in Haiti you wanna go to bed as soon as the day begins, but God has other plans.