Love

Yesterday was a beautiful thing. It didn’t start out so well, the night before my body decided to start exploding from both ends. Between that, the fever, aches, mosquitoes, and weird dreams, it made for one long night. But as usual, God takes something not so great and teaches me through it as well as turns it into something incredible. So therefore, I can do nothing but thank the Lord for when my body revolts against me because I know there is something to be gained from it. So on with the story, I wake up yesterday morning, and needless to say am not feeling my best. So I make a call to Tia, asking her and Julie to take care of the things needed that morning for school. They happily pick up my slack and take care of all the needs of the school, allowing me to rest and recover. Thank you to you both for all your hard work, everyday that you put in! Ok, it just keeps getting better and better- as I am writing this a few of my students have come upstairs to tell me that they have been praying for me to get better. (I sat out most of today too, what a pansy!) Ok, and now they just prayed for me on the porch. They are so incredible!! Of course they didn’t listen to me and are Still on my porch instead of going downstairs, but , what can I say, they are a rowdy bunch!! Oh, they make my heart so happy. They are now sticking their faces under my door to tell me they love me and that they did good work today! Yes this is a ploy not to have to go downstairs, but still. . .
So back to yesterday. I am laying down in the clinic, being kind of pitiful, and some of the Mamas and Grandmamas that I work with stick their heads in and check on me. Shelove’s Grandmama tells me it breaks her heart to see me sick. She asks if there is anything she can do and tells me that someone needs to bathe me and put me in clean clothes. I assure her that I am ok, so she doesn’t come back until later to offer to bathe me herself! (which I politely decline) At least three others come to tell me what I should eat and drink and do to feel better, all trying to offer whatever they can to lessen my “suffering”. At some point in the day I hear “ don’t worry, I don’t think she is going to die.”(still not sure what to make of that part) I finally move upstairs to rest some more, the explosions having stopped for a while, and then I wake up that afternoon to find at least 4 women on my porch, washing my clothes and dishes, sweeping my porch, cleaning anything and everything they can get their hands on. After the disorientation wears off, I realize what is happening, and my heart just wants to burst. They love me. They care about me. We are a family. We fight and fuss and love and protect and serve and do life together. Emmanuella, Dieunide, Meloo, Jil, these are four of my sisters, four of my sisters that I take for granted more often than I appreciate them. But these past two days, they have loved on me like I have never wronged them. They loved on me as they would their own sick child. I am still processing this, and seeing all the beauty in it, but one thing I know is that its official, getting sick has restored my faith in the adult population. So often I get frustrated and jaded by adults, offering them little or no grace, even though with children it comes out almost freely(to a point!) I know that mostly it is my own sin that doesn’t see the good in adults, only the flaws. But times like these, when I am forced/allowed/able to see the good, the love, the compassion of the adults, it restores what I so quickly disregard and reminds me that it is me that needs a change in attitude. Mr. Watson came and checked on me today. I am harder on him than any person I know here, and he still came and checked on me. I know that nothing about this life is about me, but God sure does use personal things to show me who He is and the beauty of His children.

So, many people know that one of the issues I deal with is depression. For some it comes as a shock because they see the goofy kid running around acting stupid and laughing, they don’t think that it’s possible. For others, they don’t believe depression exists, it’s just being sad and people should get over it. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, I don’t know what goes on in their heads completely, but I know what goes on in mine and sometimes it is a dark, dark place. Maybe no darker than anyone else’s, but for me it has been hard battles to fight. A year ago, heck, a week ago I would have been terrified to do what I am about to do and talk about the things I am learning about the struggles in my mind. But, because of what I am learning, I am realizing that hiding it doesn’t help, it doesn’t make it not real, it doesn’t make me more normal, the only thing hiding does is create distance between myself and other people. I have been wanting to blog recently, to keep people posted on what’s going on here, but the truth is that the majority of what I am learning and working on at the moment has mostly to do with the thoughts in my head and friendships and community. I could tell about the school and about the feeding program, but it would feel kind of deceitful because if I am to talk about what God is doing—what I see right now is all happening in my little brain! Don’t get me wrong, God is doing AMAZING things here and with the children and the people. But He kind of has me at this point of where- I gotta figure some of this mess out so I can operate out of a more whole, healthy place. The fact is I will never get it perfect, but the more a “missionary” can get their own baggage out of the way, the more space there is for God to work. So apparently, God has been dragging out my baggage and saying, ok, its time to get rid of this, and examine this, and so forth. So, needless to say, this is a painful, yet beautiful time of growth in my life, and one of the main lessons in it has been about truth and lies. So I figure that if I am seeking out truth, and seeking to be truthful, then that means I have to throw this stuff out there, whether I want to or not! And God first made/allowed me to do that at a youth group in Brunswick. If anyone has ever heard me speak in the US, they will know that it is not a pretty site, between nerves, ADD, and just lack of storytelling skills, it just is a hard thing for me to do. But God had been working on me about some stuff and it all fell into place that I should go and talk to them—so I did, and here is kind of what it looked like.


Confessions of a “missionary”
The more I learn and experience the more I learn how much I suck at life. That isn’ t a statement to envoke- “oh no you don’t, you are great!” What that is, to me, is a simplified version of the verse in Revelation where it talks about how We don’t realize that we are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. But then Jesus goes on to say some more but we will go there later. (3:17-19) Honestly, I usually kind of hide from revelation cause I have always thought of it as this stuff about the future and I have enough to figure out in this moment, that I kind of shied away from it. It actually wasn’t until today, faced with the scariness of being up in front of 80 English speaking people that I even found this verse. But I found it because the word “WRETCHED” has been on my heart lately. And I want to share these thoughts I have been having because when I thought of what talking to you might look like, it kind of felt like tonight could be called confessions of a missionary. Which I believe is God ordained, because the things He has been teaching me are the kind of things that I would need to confess, not things I could bounce up here and be proud of. I could talk for days about the incredible things I have seen in Haiti and the people and the poverty, but from what I hear of you guys it sounds like you already get that. Many of you already have the heart for the people and for serving and for loving. And let me tell you that is so exciting and beautiful, because that goes against what much of our culture promotes. So tonight I want to do something I have never done before. I want to come before you broken and exposed. I want to tell you what it feels like to be wretched.
This word, like I said, has been on my heart for a few days, or maybe weeks I am not sure. And the place I think I have been thinking about it from is in Romans 7 “I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to sin that is still within me. Oh what a miserable(wretched) person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The Answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is. In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”
I was extremely blessed growing up that I didn’t struggle with things like drugs or alcohol or sex. Actually I kind of thought something was wrong with me because I didn’t have this great turn around story that showed God’s power. What I didn’t know was that my confessions wouldn’t be about how I used to do drugs and then God turned my life around. My confessions look more like the fact that I thought I knew what it looked like to love people and the more I learn, the more flaws I find. I guess I always thought that love is love and you just do it. But the past month or so my focus has been on doing things WELL. Not just doing things, but doing them well. Because I am learning there is a big difference between having community, and having community WELL. Between doing school, and doing school WELL. What I have been doing in my life I believe has been love, but I haven’t been loving people WELL. So it is making more and more sense to me why we have definitions of love in Corinthians, because you actually can mess it up if you aren’t really focused on what it should look like. And that is just one of the lessons God is teaching me. The truth is the more time I spend on the mission field, the more ways I see that I mess things up and sometimes Christians in general mess things up. Because every second I try to work out of my own power, I get in the way of God’s (which we all know is NOT a good plan!) And even when I am trying to work out of His power, we are broken and flawed which means a great deal of the time we will be learning from our mistakes even more than what we do right. And I will be honest, that is a painful way to learn. But its real and it ‘s beautiful because being broken for Jesus beats being whole for myself any day. And being in the will of the Lord, no matter what that puts us through, creates a joy and a peace that is even bigger than the struggles. But the struggles do exist. I know at least for me, I was ready to jump in head first to serving the Lord and was frustrated when I felt like I wasn’t getting where I thought I should be fast enough. It took I think about two years after I finished College for God to let me go overseas. I was pushing and pushing, trying to find out where I was supposed to go, feeling out of place where I was but not yet finding the opening to where I was headed. It wasn’t until I started the work in Haiti that I was able to look back and see the incredible, intricate journey He had taken me through. I was looking for where I belonged, had a heart for so many things but didn’t know what to do with it. So in the mean time I had multiple different jobs, not really related, but like I said, when I look back now, I see how HE used each job, each role, each individual situation, to prepare me for the Work that I am doing in Haiti. He purposed those things so that it would all come together to be used in what I am doing now. Even the painful, confused times, He uses those. That is probably one of my most favorite things about the Lord- that he gives beauty for ashes. (Isaiah 61:3) That is what I have seen the most in my time in Haiti, in the midst of disasters and pain and suffering, that He does make everything Good. Sometimes that process hurts really bad, but there is no place I would rather be. Which is why that verse in Romans is not completely depressing because it says, Thank God, the answer is in Jesus Christ. The end of the story is not just the struggles, it is in the beauty He creates from them. And in the verse in revelation Jesus goes on to say” I advise you to buy gold from me-gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich. And also buy white garments so you will not be shamed by your nakedness. And buy ointment for your eyes so you will be able to see. I am the one who corrects and disciplines everyone I love. Be diligent and turn away from your indifference.” (3:17-19) Now I am sure we could pick out some really incredible symbolism from this scripture, but the overall picture is- we are wretched and broken but God makes us whole and new- but for me at least, this isn’t done in one fail swoop. It is in the sense of we are His so we are perfect in Him, but our lives are a process of working out that perfection and calling it out in us. And that is kind of where I am at today in my journey of seeking out who I am in Christ. And I don’t know how that translates to you, or even if it does, but thank you for listening to it, my head has been all over the place and if nothing else, you have blessed me by having me here.

So after putting this in here, this is about all I can do for the moment, so I guess I will get into the depression, lies, truth part another time, but I am working on it!!

November

Sorry for the huge gap in entries, if you watch the news at all you know there has been quite a lot going on around here. At least that is what they tell me, I have not seen any of this news—only life as it has played out here. The month of November is probably one of great concern to many- well at least the three people that called me eleven hundred times throughout it!! Starting with a cholera scare, then hurricane tomas, followed by actual cholera, the past few weeks have been somewhat. . . something, not quite sure what word should go there, which is part of why I have yet to write about these events. Trying to operate during this time, much less trying to figure out what I am feeling through it all made writing about it a little more than I could handle at the time. So I guess now I can try to go back and tell about it. Don’t know how close it will come to what it all really looked like, but I can only try right?
Hurricane Tomas is the least hard to recount, the adrenaline and little damage made it honestly more of an adventure than a disaster (thank the Lord!) Although parts were heart wrenching, because everything turned out ok in the end, I can look at in a much lighter way than that of the events of cholera. I might as well go ahead and admit my ridiculousness, I think Rachel already ratted us out! When we heard news of the possible hurricane we first dismissed it, (since the hurricanes ALWAYS miss us at home), but as calls from the US became more frequent and I got orders to save all the school papers, we decided we would try and take it seriously at least a little. We put stuff up off the floor in the school, protected our school books, threw some tarps up, and then waited to see what would happen. Thursday night we are waiting and waiting for this big bad storm to show up, and there is not even the nice Jubilee breeze going. So what do we do? We get antsy, we are all geared up for a storm, so we do what any logical human being would do- we walk out to the ocean! We figure if we put on our rain jackets and boots, if it starts up we will have plenty of time to get back home and experience the rest of it! Thankfully we got to enjoy a nice look at the beach without Tomas, and then waited a while longer for it the next day. Friday morning it was only raining a little, but only one student showed up for school. Bless his heart, I think David’s mama would have sent him in the middle of the hurricane! So we ended up having a little party out there with children that were around. We listened to some music and colored and had a really good time goofing off. Then that afternoon Tomas finally graced us with its presence. The rain came, but not a great deal of wind. But slowly people started showing up, drenched looking for a dry place to bring their families. This was when the reality of the situation hit me. It’s pretty messed up, but I forget sometimes all the hardships these families have already faced in the past. So when a man comes to us, with one child, terrified and pleading with us to watch him and let him get the rest of his family, it took me a minute before I understood. I have not been through a flood that has taken away the little bit that I own. I have not had family members and friends swept away, many before anyone even knew. I have no idea what that is like, and therefore no idea what the terror that feels like thinking that it is coming again. So Rachel wrapped up the little boy while his daddy went back out to get Dordeline and all her brothers and sisters. After that it was a rush of trying to get children dry and clothed and comfortable(as possible) to sleep for the night. I think we figured out around 30 or so crammed in to Mr. Watson’s math classroom. After a few attempts we finally were able to keep enough rain out of the windows to give a semi-dry space to sleep. One of my teenagers, Hobenson, was trying to lay on a shelf, with his cast up to his thigh hanging out. So we rearranged and ended up having some space in the clinic to let him and his brother sleep in there. Thank the Lord the rain came but the winds were not too bad. We woke up the next morning to I think a foot and ahalf of water everywhere. Many of my students’ homes were full of water, everyone spent most of the day digging ditches to drain their dirt floors, putting sand inside to lessen the mass amounts of mud everywhere. The air was interesting the next day, everyone buzzing around, just taking what they were delt and doing the best they could with it. It felt almost like a sigh of relief that that was all Tomas had brought. Thankfully everyone had fixed their houses enough that they didn’t even need to come and stay the next night. So that pretty much started phase one of this craziness, still don’t know if I am ready to write about cholera, we will see.

Happy Birthday!

So, instead of reaching in and actually trying to recap or relive the last month- because there is so much, I think I am going to just pull out the most fun day and save the hard stuff for the book( Rachel Greene doesn't know it yet but I have decided since she is a real writer she should tell all those stories while I just get to put in IVs and run around in boots in stormy weather). Those that have been around me anytime lately may have noticed I have been contemplating the idea of righteous anger. Well, actually I have just been getting angry so then it has made me contemplate if it is righteous or not! When I see things that I know hurt God's heart it makes me think to Jesus flipping the tables and putting people in their place! This morning didn't start out like that, it actually started out taking it easy because we had just had a wave of cholera patients and I was actually feeling a little sick. But I was called out onto the porch by two of my friends to see Alberto holding his wife down on the ground with his foot while seemingly trying to rip her arm from her body. Please know there has already been two instances with this man injuring his wife( one just days after she had given birth to his son). So needless to say I already have a particular dislike for this man's behavior- and he is very aware of it. I am learning that in Haitian Culture- or really I only know of Jubilee culture- interfering in "personal" business is not something that people jump into. It is not for lack of concern but what seems to be a feeling of lack of power to change anything. I on the other hand, seem to stick my nose into EVERYTHING so of course I tear out running across the mud flats. By the time I get to him he now has their two month old baby in his hands, Kenzie, who is covered in mud. I take the baby from him and send Emmanuella off with him to bathe and check on him. So by now they are split apart, and he is yelling about her trying to kill his baby. I ask around enough to get the story that basically he had pushed her with the baby in her arms and both had fallen into the trench of mud around their house. So then he attacks her for "trying to kill his baby." He works himself up enough to try and come after her again while I am standing there. Here comes the table flipping- but remember, this has been a reoccurring problem that I haven't quite known what I could do about it. He was already kind of flailing about, obviously weak from trying to kill her just moments before. So when he came back at her, without thinking really, I reached my arm out and grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground.

I can't lie to you- I am not a believer in violence usually(Shelby doesn't count) but that was probably the best birthday present ever. Because I have watched the fear in that woman's eyes, and the hurt in her face since I have been here. And getting the chance to put him in his place, to protect her, even just for a moment, was incredible. As he was on the ground I started screaming in his face (in english) that he better stay away from her, I may have said more but I don't actually remember. Anyway,after that I sent him off with one of my guy friends and sent her off with some ladies hoping we could calm down the situation, because having a crowd there, things were just getting revved up even more. Walking back, mud all over me and carrying a machete (after he got back up, a few minutes later he had a machete-don't think he was going to do anything with it, but I took it just in case)I am sure I looked like a crazy person. But I went and checked out the baby, and made sure that it was Alberto that had made the baby fall, not her before giving him back to her. Thankfully this time was serious enough that he moved out and let her stay in the house. I don't know how long it will last, but I was just glad to have the chance to stand up for her, and hopefully let her know that she matters.

For those of you that think I did wrong, yes, I did struggle with it afterwards- had I just made things worse? and how was my reacting in violence any different than his? but the next day, when he showed up bleeding from working outside, and I bandaged his wound, I think he and the community saw that the heart behind it is coming from a very different place. It's not easy to know how to show love here always, I mess it up all the time, but righteous anger I believe sometimes is a part of it. And it may be bad, but I was so thankful to God that He let things happen the way they did. No person should have to live in fear of the ones who are supposed to be loving and caring for them. And having the opportunity to stand up against that really was a great birthday present!

School

Just wanted everyone to know, that kids in Jubilee are reading!! The students from last year are actually starting to READ! amen!

My job

Being in the nursing field already gives you a bit of a twisted sense of what is interesting and what you "like" to do. Because although I hate to see people in pain, the rush of getting to be a part of helping them and getting them what they need so they can get better has this quality about it that I can't really describe. Yesterday my heart broke for this women- she had been stuck in her house since the night before because she had no way to get to the hospital, and could barely walk. While making dinner she spilled boiling water all over the inside of her legs and had been laying in her house ever since. Some friends told me about her so we went over there, and found out no one had taken her to the hospital because she would not be able to get on a motorcycle. So I called up Mr. Beaver and he came to the rescue! As we were driving her to Care Hospital, and i am holding her knee to keep her legs from hitting each other on the bumpy road- I just keep thinking about the fact that this is so easy-just a truck ride and holding someone- but was so impossible in isolation. But you bring the body together and things can be taken care of. The same goes for things that I would not be able to accomplish, but because of my family in Jubilee we make things happen. I can't thank the Lord enough for putting people together to achieve His purposes. It also makes me wonder how much we miss out on when we don't work together- when the body is so disconnected, or when pride says I can do it on my own. The next part of the body working together in reference to Santania is please for you to pray for her. Pray for healing on her legs, for their to be no infection, and above all that she knows that Jesus loves her.