Not Home Yet

My hand imposed by my student Loudianna's hand, waiting parent pick-up (or taxi pick-up) after school

Jezu se tout bagay pou mwen.
Jesus is all things to me.

This is a song we sang in church last Tuesday night. The words got me thinking. See, in this church in Ti Goave, we don’t sing a song through once and then move on. The words are sung repeatedly, and, as Beverly notes, are able to be appreciated, chewed over, reflected upon, agreed with and related to.


Those words of Jesus being all things got me thinking.

As Beverly and I are yet incompetent in Creole so that we can’t follow much of a sermon, church provides ample time for reflection. Usually we study our Bibles, exchange notes, observe the congregation, do some journaling.

I didn’t pay attention to what Beverly was doing (it’s possible she was dozing) because I set myself to writing, thinking about those words and their relevancy to Haiti.

Jesus is the only hope these people have.

Truly, Jesus is the Only Hope for everyone, our only Salvation and the only Satisfaction to be found anywhere in or out of this broken world.

However, most of us don’t consider Jesus as the Only Hope. We don’t consider Him at all, more often than not. We of the First World, the Age of Technology and Convenience and Microwave Society, we consider a hundred, a thousand solutions before we turn to Jesus.

Except these “solutions” are misnomers. They are temporary fixes, distractions and readily dissolved, like putting a band aid over a laceration that needs cleaning and stitching. Cleaning the cut will be painful, stitches laborious and strenuous, but they are the only true way to heal the wound.

Jesus is the only Healer. The only Remedy. He’s the only Answer.

Many Haitians know and accept that.

You ask someone how they are doing and they answer, “Je suis bien, grâce a Dieu,” or “Mwen byen, mesi Jezi.” “I am well, thanks be to God,” and “I am well, thank you, Jesus.”


These words may sometimes be a rote response, but in my experience, they are heartfelt.

The person saying these words is truly thankful to God for doing well, for being alive, for being able to walk around, interact, give an answer at all. She is thankful for life, although life probably involves questioning where the next meal is coming from, toting water from a cistern, washing with a bucket and sponge, and trekking dusty, sewage-drained streets to reach school or work.


It’s a hard life wherever you go, but those raised in the Third World know no other kind.

They know trial and struggle and hard work that leads to firmly closed doors. They know generations of poverty and illiteracy. They know the mountains are always followed by more mountains.

They are grateful to God for another day of breath, life, and the chance to praise Him.

In the First World, we have access to medical care. We have emergency services. In the United States my mother dialed 911 when I had continuous chest pain. She was on the phone with a medical advisor within a minute and an ambulance was preceded by a police officer and an EMT who carried medical equipment right into our home, at 12:30 AM.

In Korea my friend drove me to the hospital and within ten minutes I was on a gurney bed being hooked into an IV. In both countries the staff were knowledgeable and considerate. They checked in frequently to ensure there were sufficient blankets, tubes weren’t crossed and all was generally well.

The sheets were clean, the floors sterile, and I had no doubts all equipment was strictly sanitary.

That’s not the case in the third world.

Here in Ti Goave, the hospital is not a place you want to be healthy or sick. It’s simply not clean.

When we took Jameson, Beverly warned us not to touch our faces, not to touch anything. I was tempted to sit on a waiting bench but Jonas shook his head.

“It’s not clean.”

Well, what is life like if even the hospital is found unhygienic? When even the hospital is not a refuge for the sick and weary?



The church we attend is largely open-air. There is a concrete structure with pillars and a roof, there is a poured floor. But there are no walls. Benches are set in three sections and up front is a stage and a pulpit. The air flows through. A generator is powered up on Sunday mornings for audio and on Tuesday evenings for light as the sun sets well before service ends.

We know that a church is not a building. Thank God, because we might be insufficient.

A church is a body, a group of faithful followers of Christ.

Certainly there is no lack of those faithful here.



God is the one on whom these people depend. He is the reliable source of income. He is the bread-winner, the caretaker. He is the Provider and Protector.

I’ve said before there is nothing consistent in Haiti except the heat. I stand by that now, except to add that God is constant. God is dependable. But His sovereignty is not confined to Haiti.



Madame Eunide, mother of the beautiful twins, put her faith in God before her faith in surgery. She declined the doctor’s suggestion, saying that God would take care of her and her unborn babies. He did. That doctor witnessed an “unnatural” occurrence. We say “miracle.”

Our dear friend Touttoute, a twelth-grade student at the main campus of Christian Light School in Port au Prince, made me chuckle last weekend as he scrunched up his face before swallowing a pill.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked.

“Oh, your facial expression was funny.” He stared at me. “Oh, were you praying?”

“Of course,” he answered.

I nodded. Yes, of course. Faith before medicine. Turn to God, the Great Physician, before turning to man-made remedy.

It never occurred to me to pray before taking medicine.
Wow.
How shameful is that?

As believers in Christ, we profess to walk by faith, not by sight. We profess to trust God before anything else.

How truly are we living that, fellow believers? How much are we truly trusting in God first? Aren’t we so often living and acting with God as the back-up plan? We make our own plans, attempt to determine our own steps, and then pray to God as a sort of after-thought, rather than starting with God and relying wholly on Him through all things.

He did tell us to pray, mandated that we should pray without ceasing, giving thanksgiving for all things and giving up all worry.


We can always pray more.
I can certainly pray more, and should pray more.

And I need to recognize anew, with conviction, that Jesus is the Only Answer. He is not only the Only Hope, the Only Savior, but He is the Only Joy.


Jesus is the only source of true Joy.


Joy does not come from the world.

The world cannot satisfy us.

No matter how beautiful the sights around us, no matter how generous the people, how lavish the settings or loving the people, how delicious the food, how exhilarating the experience, how high the goals—none of these worldly pleasures last.

Even the person whom we love most, perhaps that soul mate who we adore as beautiful inside and out, even the best friend who seems to know us better than we know ourselves, even those reliable, supportive, ever-loving members of our network—they cannot satisfy. People will always disappoint us. Always.

I will always disappoint the ones I love and those who love me.

Because we are humans in a broken world and inevitably we will stumble in selfishness.

We are consistently inconsistent and unable to uphold our word at all times.

We change and shift like shadows through moods and circumstance.


God does not.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Praise God. He is faithful when we are not. And He is the source of Joy. He is the source of fulfillment.


Recently Beverly and I listened to the song “Where I Belong” by the Christian band Building 429, a song which previously I would sing with gusto. One of the last times I had sung along was driving back to my parents’ house, beating the steering wheel in time, feeling the familiar ache of longing, knowing that that small town southern New Hampshire was not where I belonged.


Now I live in Haiti. I’m living my dream. For ten years I have longed to come to Haiti to stay, to dwell among the coconut palms and the people, the mountains and the mayhem, greeting strangers with a smile and a “Bonjou” and sweating in the constant heat.

Well, here I am, a resident with a room in a lovely house and a teaching position at a blossoming school. Although it’s not quite a month since my arrival I have been adopted and loved on, and have adopted and loved, with a humbling abundance.

I am happier here and now than I have been in a long time. Consistently happy—with eagerness for each day, for each upcoming event and that whimsical sadness when another day closes. It’s a deep rooted contentment, a certainty of belonging.

Suddenly I don’t want to agree with those words. “All I know is I’m not home yet, this is not where I belong. Take this world and give me Jesus…”


Wow.

I don’t want to trade my world for Jesus. Not anymore.

Uh, oh.

Pwoblem, as we say so frequently.


When Jesus said we must forfeit the world or risk losing our souls, He did mean the world. That includes all of the rottenness—the disease, the war, the violence, the sorrow, the despair, the injustice, the aches and pains, the debts, the worries, the unpleasant people, the fears. But it also includes the wonders—the mountains, the sea and its palm trees, the sunsets and sunrises, the stars, the perfect hands of our lover, the laughter and merriment of the children.

Everything of this world is inferior to Christ.

We, as humans, are of the world, until we are made new by Christ.


Nothing is as important as Jesus.

He is all things to me.

Jezi se tout bagay pou mwen.


He comes before the rotten unpleasantries.

But He must also come before the dear wonders.

He must come before His Creation—before His marvelous Nature and before His beautiful children.

Even our dear children who are so easy to love, dear Jameson and his gap-toothed smile and adoring squeezes, dear Shemaly who grabs my hand and kisses it and runs back to press a caramel into my hand before her mother leads her through the gate after school, dear Adeline with her impossibly big eyes and shy smile that lights up her face when I smile at her.

Even these marvelous Creations are not the Source of Joy.

That’s hard for me to recognize.

I told Beverly that it’s hard to consider Heaven as home. Hard to consider a place so beyond comprehension. I cannot imagine Heaven, can’t relate to it—that place we speak of with streets of gold, no more tears, and no end.

I cannot imagine this absence of worry, lack of doubt, relief from all responsibility and pain.


But our feeble-minded human comprehension is not important in Heaven.

Everything we worry about in this life will be obsolete in Heaven.

There, only one thing matters. The thing that should matter most on earth is the basis of Heaven.

“It’s all about the presence of God,” Beverly said. “It’s about being in God’s presence.”

We sat at our favored quiet place, the retreat where we gaze over the mountains and the sea and sing of God’s amazing grace and faithfulness, read scripture and reflect.

“I think that when I get to Heaven, every question I’ve ever had, everything I wanted to know, will be answered in an instant," she continued.

Our eyes met, and I nodded. “Yes, and they won’t matter anymore.”

In Heaven, all that matters will be Jesus. There we will meet Him face to face.


I cannot imagine this intimacy with God. Who can imagine God’s face?

But also I cannot imagine a time without worry, a time without pain, without doubt or fear, a time without time.

And right now I’m struggling with the thought of giving up this world, this place and these people who feel like home.



I don’t have a solution. As I write this I know I’m not fixed. I haven’t overcome this worldly mindset. I’m not certain that Jesus is my utter All in All and comes first in all things.

I’ve got a lot of growing left to do.

A lot of burdens, habits, and notions to give up. A lot of faith to build. However, we all know that recognizing you have a problem is the first step.


Jesus is all things to me.

Those are powerful words.

Words I see lived every day here in Haiti where electricity is unreliable (and generators run out of gas.) Driving is an adventure where traffic laws are actually suggestions. Food, medicine, clean water, and government aid are (perhaps sporadic) blessings. It’s dangerous. It’s hot. It’s hard.

Life for most is much harder than for me, residing in this well-constructed, large house that has yet to run out of food and water, yet to leave me feeling insecure.

Jesus is all things to many of these people, who wake up not knowing if they will eat today, not knowing if there will be money enough to buy food or medicine or soap.

Not knowing if today there will be another political rally that gets out of hand, or the moto they take to school collides with an over laden taptap, or the outlet will burst and electrocute those nearby.


Jesus is the only Comfort, the only Solace, the only Hope, and the One to whom they look for all answers. He is the Source of Joy.

Tonight when the thunder crashed particularly forcefully, rocking the house with its might, little Saintilus jumped under the table with a shout of “Allelujah!”

We all laughed.

But how appropriate that he should call on God in his fear, react with an expression of glory rather than of crudity.

Last week when Hosanna and I washed the dishes we spoke about church.

“Beverly and I can’t understand, and we really want to because church is so important!” I said, speaking in that somewhat coherent Creole and French slur (Hosanna cannot speak English.)
“But we love to sing! Do you like to sing?”

She nodded and smiled. “Oui.”

I smiled, too. “I think all Haitian people like to sing!”

Frequently the house is filled with voices raised in song.

Pastor sings constantly, the girls sing while they’re working, music plays and voices join. The cavernous space makes wonderful echoing acoustics.

A little over two years ago I visited a Haitian friend’s family in New Jersey. His mother had been living there for seven years but still couldn’t understand or speak English, and hadn’t been educated to speak French.

You can imagine her job situation, the struggle to get by with Haitian Creole as your primary tongue and a lifetime of letdowns. Her husband had abandoned their family in favor of a new one years before, leaving her primary caregiver and breadwinner for four children.

When we visited her daughter’s New Jersey home I watched her dance and sing in the kitchen, waving a spatula and shuffling in front of the back door. She was oblivious to all but the song in her heart pouring over her lips.

She was praising God.

“She’s thanking God for everything he’s done,” her daughter told me.

“By the blood of Jesus we’ve been saved,” they agreed.

I realize that she, that abandoned manman, was never the caregiver or breadwinner on her own. God was.

Jesus is all things to me.


Jezi se tout bagay pou mwen.

I’m doing well, thanks be to God.

I had a good day, by the grace of God.

J’ai passé une bonne journée, grâce a Dieu.

Mesi, Jezi.

Thank you, Jesus.


Jesus is the only source of Hope, the only source of Love, the only source of Joy.

I hope your day is filled with all of those, and you can recognize the ceaseless source from which they come.

As Beverly says to everyone she meets, “Pase yon bon journen avek Jezi. I wish you a good day with Jesus.”

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, give your requests to God.” ~Philippians 4:6 NIV


For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ~2 Corinthians 5:1-8 NIV

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” ~Hebrews 13:8 ESV

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ~Luke 14:24-27 NIV

“Where I Belong” Building 429
Sometimes it feels like I'm watching from the outside
Sometimes it feels like I'm breathing but am I alive
I won't keep searching for answers that aren't here to find

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

So when the walls come falling down on me
And when I'm lost in the current of a raging sea
I have this blessed assurance holding me.

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

When the earth shakes I wanna be found in You
When the lights fade I wanna be found in You

All I know is I'm not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong
[x2]

Where I belong, where I belong
Where I belong, where I belong



The view from our ocean-side quiet place





Second grade

Loving is Easy: Starting School

On Monday we started school at Christian Light School, Petit Goave.

Students begin gathering in the small courtyard at 7:30. They are supposed to line up by grade: 3 year olds against the wall, then 4 year olds, 5 year olds, 6 year olds/first graders and finally 7 year olds/second graders beside the stairs.

Somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00 we arrive, Madame Beverly and Madame Rose, the directors, Jonas, the handy man/custodian, Saintilus, a student now living with us, and myself. We deposit our belongings in the office, all the way greeting and being greeted by children and a few parents.

There’s lots of grabbing, hand-holding, hugging and kissing. There’s lots of smiling and of course some tears from the tiny ones.

That first day there was lots of crying. It seemed the whole 3 year old class was weeping. A few of the tiny ones had tears wetting their faces silently, which seemed worse than the ones audibly wailing.  

Some of them came with handy green aprons stitched boldly with their names in red thread. Many of them don’t like to talk at first, especially to a white person. Blans are yet an unfounded phenomenon to them.

But apart from those frightened, bewildered little ones, Monday was rife with smiles. Everyone was happy to be there. Beverly was amazed at the number of parents milling in the courtyard.

“Wow!” she repeated.

Clearly parents have come to recognize what a good thing is happening here, what a blessing for their children to attend CLS, and they are as eager for school as their offspring.

Every morning after lines are formed the students pledge and sing. They sing the Haitian National Anthem, right hand held horizontal with thumb touching the heart. Then they recite the Pledge to the Christian flag in English and French. And they sing one of the bouncy Sunday school songs. This week it was “God is So Good.” The words are simple and beautifully true, ringing forcefully as the students jump up and down to the beat.

“Bondye m’ nan bon. Bondye m’ nan bon. Bondye m’ nan bon. E li bon pou mwen. God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He’s so good to me,” we all clap and sing, bouncing up on our toes like fools (“I will become even more undignified than this…” ~2 Samuel 6:22) before landing hard and freezing on the final word.

Beverly always performs with the same enthusiasm as the students, although many of them like to spin in circles and she’ll face forward. This seems wise, as most of those spinning students will then collapse into one another, or any nearby obstacle.

Each song is offered in English, French and Creole.

The teachers sing, also. Before we go out to join the masses of orange (the school “uniform” is the orange t-shirt printed with the name and logo paired with navy bottoms of free design), the teachers gather in the nearest classroom and sing a devotional song. We use song sheets of paired choruses in English and French or Creole. We always sing in two languages, pray together, and then greet one another with hugs, kisses, and “Jesus loves you, Jezi renmen ou.”

After this cheerful exchange, we troop outside, shooing students along, and the morning routine commences.

What I remember best about Monday, my first day teaching as a full-time missionary in Haiti, is the happiness. The students were so happy to be there.

They didn’t care that our classroom was dirty, gritty with dust and hung with spider webs. They didn’t mind that they had only narrow benches from which to sit and work. There was no chalk board, no desks, not even a water bucket.

Instead, they said “Wow!” as they turned into the classroom from the dismal concrete hall, faces lighting up at the light in the room with its finely painted white walls cleverly designed with bold borders and real windows, not just cement blocks with artful holes.

They were delighted to sit in such a room, and delighted to have not one but two teachers, two grown persons who spoke to them with interest, asked and used their names and sang with a smile. Of course I had the added advantage of novelty: a blan to stay with them all day, as eager to give hugs and head pats as they were eager to receive them.

But my dear Haitian co-teacher (hired the previous evening) Madame Alice proved herself more than competent in her immediate seizure of control and engagement. While I stood awkwardly at a loss, uncertain of schedule and placement, Madame Alice roamed the room, pulling students off one bench to fill another, tipping up chins and asking names, singing about the day with loud, instigative clapping.

 Yes, it was good to be in that room with its painted walls and windows letting in the sunshine of the day. Downstairs was perpetually gloomy as the rooms were basic gray and the “windows” chiseled out cement blocks disallowing much entrance of sun. Upstairs a step into the hallway and the breeze welcomed you; the cheery yellow of the large open space at the front of the building set you at ease. I was certainly grateful to be up there.

It wasn’t smooth by any means, that first day. There were the expected hiccups and the unavoidable awkwardness. Readily obvious was my own lack of Creole and French paired with Madame Alice’s lack of English. Lately I find myself unable to complete a sentence in any of the three languages, splicing together words to make semi-coherent babble. That’s how we communicate here, Beverly and I. We say what we can in whatever language we can. Then we wait for a decent translator to clarify.

On Monday there were things to pass out and rules to set. There was a room to arrange and tallies to take: who has their books, who has a shirt, who brought a water bottle, who remembers how to properly use a toilet. The numbers are always disappointing.

As of this week, the second week of school, no child in our class of 19 has the complete set of books, and most are missing half. Anyone who teaches knows the frustration of an unprepared class, of students lacking books or materials. You can scold a child who left his book at home, encourage or shame her into remembering it tomorrow, but you can’t in any decent conscience scold a child whose parents can’t afford the books. You certainly can’t scold a child who doesn’t have books because the bookstore didn’t have them. Or they haven’t been printed yet. (We learned that the government sought to delay the first day of school until October, although most schools had set to open the 12^th of September. Many high schools thus began with the books not printed due to the confusion.)

Madame Alice helped arrange the students to be evenly spaced, tucking their backpacks out of the way and reiterating in French her name, where we were, and students’ names.

Students filed in and out to use the bathroom. This was the cause of our first cas d’urgence. One little girl unwittingly locked herself in the bathroom, pushing in the lock and then holding onto the knob so the door could not open to let her out. I noticed the crisis when a blockade of students formed in the hall, and drawing near, heard the wails of Eneldine inside.

Not being able to speak Creole enough to say, “Let go of the door!” or “Back away!” I tried to comfort.

“It’s okay. Eneldine, calm down,” I cooed, and told Jonas we needed a key. I didn’t know if such a key existed. But we needed to open that door.

Meantime, I returned to the room and rifled through my bag in search of a lock-pick, a bobby pin perhaps. I came up with nothing save a nail file, and fruitlessly tried to slide this between lock and frame. I thought I might have to throw my shoulder against the door (it seemed flimsy enough to give by my feeble force,) but was saved from this dangerous endeavor (the risk of bowling over Eneldine and causing far more chaos than necessary stayed me) when the door clicked and I wrenched it open.

There was Eneldine, tear stained and rubbing a knuckle across her eyes, sobs subsiding.

I squatted down to her, saying soothing nothings and then demonstrated the door lock mechanism.

“Pa puisse, Don’t push it,” I said, demonstrating that by pushing the button the door would stick, but by merely turning the knob the lock released and the door was free.

Then we splashed water on her face and dried with my skirt and we returned to class.  

Eneldine has Down’s Syndrome.  It’s a miracle she attends school at all—Haitian society tends to hush up mental illness and handicaps, tucking away the needy in dim back rooms rather than permitting them in public. In an environment where there is virtually no special needs care available, this is not excusable but is perhaps understandable.

I shared with Beverly my surprise that Eneldine attends school.

She looked at me with those raised eyebrows and still face that accompanies the “I know—it’s a terrible reality” situations.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And she would be hidden away, if her father weren’t a church member.”

Well, Praise God! Church members are setting themselves apart.

So Eneldine is part of her class, and Beverly has been training the others to watch out for her.

“They’re the ones who are going to have to take care of her in the future,” she says. It’s true.

I have no idea what the future holds for Eneldine. I wish there was more I could offer her.

But her presence in class is a blessing in surprising ways.

Special needs, handicaps, disabilities, people with these conditions have always been rather a mystery to me. I’ve never had a special acclimation or understanding of proper behavior. Most of my life I’ve over-thought, walked on eggshells or behaved abnormally because I thought I should around people with disabilities.

Now, there is no way to treat Eneldine differently. I can’t.

There are eighteen other children in that room: the smallest in the school (there are 30 six year olds!) All of these children need attention and aid—some of them are behind, learning at a slower pace than their peers. But mostly they are just seven years old, an age of imagination and activity and affection. They all want to be sat with, worked with, touched and loved on. And I want to do so for each one of them.

I cannot make the extra time or cloning myself to sit always with Eneldine, to hold her pencil or chalk, to keep pressure on her shoulder or hold her hand, have her repeat every word after me. I must treat her like I treat the others, with equal love and affection and occasional spurning: Wait. Tann. Chita. Sit. Not right now. Pa kounyeya. Demain. Tomorrow.

Eneldine, walk, mache. Eneldine, kanpe, stand up. Eneldine, let go. Pa kenbe.

Beverly says right now she’s being “mean.”

“I’m being really…firm with the first graders right now. Because I want them to learn!”

She tells us this while driving home from school, having started English classes with the five and six year olds.

“I’ll be nice later. Now, it’s, ‘Oh, pa respekte! Ale! Oh, disrespectful, go! If you are talking, I don’t want you here.’”

This morning she sent one of my class out from Recreation because he was talking during prayer. She had him write lines in the kitchen, bending over the bench to copy “I will not talk during prayer” ten times.

This Monday started the second week of school, when the first and second graders remain until 2 PM and a routine should begin to set. And with that routine must come discipline, maintenance of rules.

In the morning we gathered for assembly, taking advantage of that large open yellow breezy space upstairs, the students standing in their horizontal lines, seven year olds back against the wall, three year olds at the front.

Beverly called three students at a time to lead the group in song (The B-I-B-L-E) and the Bible verse (John 3:16), then all were sent back to listen to Madame Patricia read the story. We use the Jesus Storybook Bible in Creole to read from, and the larger printed English edition to show pictures. While Madame Patricia read, frequently stopping to ask the children questions, Madame Agenose walked among the students with the picture-book.

Today we heard the story of the Way Made in the Sky, when John baptizes Jesus and God’s Spirit descends as a dove.

The kids made appreciatively disgusted faces when Madame Patricia told that John ate locusts with honey kriket ak myel.

After the story was finished, Madame Beverly and Madame Rose took the floor again to give announcements. Students were reminded to keep their pencil cases and Bible verse notebooks in the classroom, to bring a water bottle every day (and tell Mom today if they needed one), and to properly use the toilet.

Three year olds possibly need aid using a toilet. They may be so tiny they can barely scramble onto it, they probably cannot finagle the buttons and zippers of their shorts, and don’t understand the imperative chore of washing their hands.

The returning students know all of these things, and are accustomed to dealing with the complications of tucking undershirts into waistbands and pulling belts snug. They know to wet their hands, rub the soap into a lather and rinse. They know that only one at a time holding the hall pass (a former medicine jar) can they exit the classroom and trek to the bathroom at the back of the school.

The first floor restroom students use consists of a tile floor with central drain, two stalls and two toilets. Perhaps when designed the surfaces were white. I certainly hope they were cleaner than they are now.

The restroom is unisex and no, the stall doors do not close.

Before you freak out and start to call Protective Services, remember where we are.

We are in Haiti.

This is a sentence Beverly and I recite often, perhaps more than we ought, being insensitive to our Haitian family. However, Reality knocks.

This is Haiti. This is the Third World.

Our reality is training children how to use the toilet because their reality doesn’t have toilets.

The returning students know how to use a toilet. They did so at school before: sitting on the toilet then exiting the restroom, washing their hands with soap and reconfiguring their clothes before returning to class.

However, these returning students left school in June and many of them spent two months without access to a toilet. They used a latrine, a hole beneath a cement seat shielded by a tattered curtain that moves in the breeze. The lucky ones did, anyway.

The rest squatted over a drain or a ditch when the need presented itself. Wherever, whenever.

The little boys know to face a wall and let loose. The little girls know to drop their drawers and squat.

While driving last week we passed a grown woman baring her backside to the street as she squatted down beside the road while her friend waited.

This is the example many of our children have at home.

It’s agonizing.

Modern plumbing such as we fortunate first-worlders enjoy today is not a new invention. Neither is soap.

On Friday I watched a disturbing number of children squat down on the restroom floor in the inevitable muddy water. Jonas and I crossed paths in front of the restroom to see someone had pooped in one of the water scoopers we use to pour water over hands for washing.

Jonas picked it up and dumped it, and I went to eat lunch.

You are probably disgusted. I was still hungry and, as schedules and food are not often predictable, but exertion is, knew I must eat to keep up.

And I enjoyed my rice and beans, like always.

I also enjoyed watching the kids eat, afterwards.

The last time Beverly and I were in Port au Prince we went to Epi D’Or with some of the elder students from the CLS PAP campus, as Beverly does every time she visits. As we sat around a few tables shoved together, I leaned in close to Beverly so she could hear me over the din and over amplified music.

“It’s good to see them eat,” I said as we looked at the five students, young men between seventeen and nineteen years old, consumed with consuming their dinner. At the other end of the table were two old friends of mine, young men in their twenties, also eating dinner. It was good to see all of them eat, to witness this consumption and not just take their word that that day they’d gotten a meal. Schedules and food are not always predictable. Just like some of our students in Petit Goave, some of these dear young men are guaranteed food only at school.

That is agonizing.

No one should have to be hungry. No one should have to worry about where that next meal is coming from, or be dependent upon their school attendance for a meal.

Of course, hunger is a problem all around the world, from the United States to Haiti to Korea to the Philippines. There are homeless and hungry people everywhere. That doesn’t mean the fact is less agonizing.

And if you are a rather self-absorbed person such as am I, you don’t really consider most of those hungry people. If, like me, you enjoy food, you are always happy to eat. Maybe you are even grateful for your food and express appreciation. Maybe you are conscious of waste.

Even so, you probably take food for granted, sometimes. You probably don’t list hunger on the lengthy tally of daily concerns.  I hope you don’t.

Just like I hope you don’t also have to worry about whether your drinking water is contaminated, whether there are mosquito larvae growing in your wash water, whether your neighbor’s latrine is overflowing or if you can afford the book list for your child’s school year, the list that costs perhaps $35 USD.

Here in Haiti, all of these concerns are pressing and habitual. So is common safety. Just last week in Ti Goave a man was jumped and beaten by a gang after dark. Later that night the same group assaulted a woman in the cemetery. Our host pastor told us this while scrolling through his news feed, further affirming his rule that no one, particularly “no girls,” be out after dark.

Beverly and I readily agreed.

But many of our students live in homes without proper walls. Recently I wrote about Jameson, who lives with six other people in the house with the magenta walls. The house with the flimsy plywood door that sticks at the top, down at the end of an alley of houses similar to his. Perhaps there’s not anything worth stealing, nothing to interest thieves, but when you’ve got nothing, anything can be tempting.

Last week Jonas was walking after dark and some thieves stole his phone. He was walking by the school where we work every day.

Danger is very real, very close.

Disease and contamination and hunger are real, too.

They are just part of the norm for these children, our dear darling students who love and yearn to be loved on.

Who deserve classrooms finely decorated with wall borders, alphabet and number charts, birthday announcements, projects, bookshelves sagging with books and surrounded by cushions, a carpet upon which to sit and read, building blocks, desks labeled with their names and stuffed full of papers and pencils and crayons. They deserve more attention, aid for their struggles. They deserve class parties and celebrations with cake and punch. They deserve the best that we can give them, iPads, a projector, a clean whiteboard easily visible to the back of the class. Clean floors, clean bathrooms, ample soap and a nurse available to treat all the little ailments that can’t be addressed at home.

What we have to offer is much less than all of the aforementioned, most of which is standard in the States or any other first-world country that takes pride in education.

Haiti takes pride in education, too. You won’t find a prouder group than students in their freshly pressed uniform, freshly shined shoes, freshly oiled and braided hair. They are impeccable and spotless while we blan teachers sweat through our shirts and gather dust on our feet.

But as our school lacks electricity and running water, never mind all of those extravagant comforts, the first offering we have is love. Then, we choose what we can buy and supply at the school. There’s always something lacking, but bit by bit we can give them more.

It might not sound like much, our classroom on the second floor of a rented building. Inside there are seven student desks at which two or three sit, most often leaning forward on the bench as there is no back-support. There is a book shelf in the back corner currently holding pencil cases with already battered crayons, a couple of pencils, and some cayes, notebooks; there are slates and clipboards, the Jesus Storybook Bible in Creole, and a set of French-English dictionaries the children delight in perusing—the only books yet in our hopeful “library.”

There’s a bench at the front where Madame Alice sets her purse and I my folder, and upon which the water bucket rests. There’s a chalk board of difficult legibility on the front wall and a small wastebasket beside the door. On the wall is a steadily growing supply of posters, some of them purchased at the dollar store Stateside, some dusted off from Beverly’s office, and some drawn by me. They’re held up precariously with tacky blue painter’s tape ever at odds with the dusty walls. On the back wall, under the lovely bold border, there is a dubious line of name cards, where each child wrote her or his name with new crayons. Madame Alice and Madame Rachelle (I’ve accepted this new spelling of my name) have name cards, too.

These are my favorite decoration after the children. For the children are what make the classroom.

They are the light more cheerful and brilliant than even the Caribbean sun.

They are the joy and the hope. They are the reason we carry on through the frustrations and the agonies of reality, of such squalor and tragedy in such a broken, beautiful world.

They are who Jesus loves most, and so we love them, too.

But it’s not hard to love these children.

My hands never get tired of rubbing little boy heads, hair shorn short for school. My arms never get tired of hugging little girls close, of picking them up and spinning them around. My voice never gets so tired it won’t lift to speak to them, continuously calling out the English phrases and the odd Creole and French words, making that semi-coherent babble we use to communicate.

There will be more frustration. There will be more agony. There may be a time, or more than one occasion, on which I feel burned out, exhausted physically and emotionally, and yearn only to flee back to the first world.

I was cautioned this weekend that perhaps I’m still in the “honeymoon phase” with Haiti. I’ve been here less than one month, after all. I’m in such golden joy over being here I haven’t truly noticed the difficulties. Perhaps. But does time matter?

I feel I’ve lived here for months. Every return to the house is a welcome home-coming, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed the excursion or how weary of noise and commotion (this house is ever flooded with people and action.) Every sunset is a gorgeous miracle. Every morning greeting the banana trees at my window is a delight.

All the lunacy of life here makes us laugh. We shake our heads a lot, Beverly and I. And though I may frequently throw up my hands, and though we often feel the need to retreat to our sanctuary beside the ocean for some peace and quiet, life here is good.

I don’t go a day without laughing and cuddling.

Last Tuesday night I had a panic attack.

I’d been suffering from a cold, had to over-exert my voice at school, was having trouble breathing well in congestion and humidity while there was no electricity at the house, and the stress of this ill-health collided with the stress of the past couple of weeks. Pastor and Madame Rose sat with me on the floor of my bedroom as Beverly searched for my anxiety prescription and tried to contact my parents while I panted with head between my knees.

They all prayed over me, stroked my head, loved me through my weakness.

The next day we went to a clinic in Gressier, and an American doctor who’s worked long in Haiti examined me. He listened to my chest and heard nothing amiss. He asked the usual questions.

“You seem really upset to me,” he said.

Beverly told him about the panic attack.

He nodded and affirmed that the problem was mostly emotional, a cold exacerbated by stress.

Before we left he prayed over us, telling us to return if ever we needed, and to take care because “we don’t want missionaries who are burned out.”

After we left the clinic, I felt worse.

We’d wasted time doing this, I thought. I was being dramatic and had caused a fuss. When we stopped for lunch I didn’t eat, just set my head on the table in an attempt to be insivible and tried to stem the irrepressible tears and mucus.

On the car ride back to the house, I scrunched up in the backseat. For a while I slept, dozed undisturbed.

When I properly woke up we were almost back to Ti Goave. Pastor drove (irrationally) fast through Gran Goave then proceeded up the mountain. Soon we were cresting that glorious point where the Ti Goave bay opens before us, the mountains pressing into the sea and the verdant valley spread to the left.

I decided there was no time for this, for this stress, for this depression, for this sickness.

“Okay, God,” I prayed. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. I have students who need me, people who depend on me, and people who have sacrificed for me to be here.”

Looking out at the lush semi-jungle of our province, I repeated Beverly’s words.

“I’m not going to let the Enemy steal my joy.”

So I didn’t.

When we reached Pastor’s house I smiled. I didn’t feel great—my throat was still scratchy, I coughed and I was quite tired out, but I was cheerful. I was happy to be there, happy to see everyone in that chaotic, buzzing household ever filled with family, workers, guests expected and unidentified, scooters, basketballs, laundry and dishes.

I was eager to take off again because we were scheduled to visit Madame Eunide, mother of the beautiful twin girls. It was Wednesday and we had milk to deliver to her home. I wanted to see those babies. I wanted to hold them.

They were far more important than me, than any stresses or self-pity I was harboring.

I did hold one of the twins not long thereafter. She awoke before I picked her up, eyes wide and still blue in her brown face. Her fingers were impossibly small and her hair impossibly soft. She was utterly delightful and I easily could have cuddled her all day.

It’s easy to love.

One of my friends has said that the “more Jesus you give the more Jesus you get.” As we believe that God is Love, we also believe that the more love you give the more love you get.

Certainly I experience that here.

It’s not easy to live in Haiti. All of you dear folk supporting me in prayer and finances and donations, bless you, you are blessing me and helping me be a blessing in turn.

No, it’s not easy to live here. The smallest things become difficult: visiting the ATM, buying minutes for a phone, walking on the beach, washing dishes. It’s not for everyone either. It is hot, it is humid, it is inconvenient and often dirty and risky and uncomfortable. There is always another demand for money, always another delay, another blòk, another heartache.

But there is always another friend, another delight, another situation about which to laugh, recall and retell, another beautiful sunset and beautiful child.

Katie Davis in her book Kisses from Katie says she never wants to go a day without laughing. She wants to end each day dirty and exhausted so she just falls into bed.

I go to bed gratefully with sore feet, semi-sweaty body, aching eyes and regret that another day is closed, because it’s been delightful.

God knows what tomorrow will bring. Chaos and confusion will most likely abound once I open the door of my room, leaving behind the solace of my banana-tree windows and strip of carpet where I can sit to read, sing and pray.

But I know with blessed assurance that tomorrow will be full of joy, full of love, full of singing and laughter and opportunities to shine.

“You’re here for a reason, just like I am,” Beverly reminded me after we talked of a difficult situation that needs addressing. “Pray about it, and God will give you an opportunity. Probably sooner than you think.”

I know that I am where I am supposed to be. Thank you all so much for helping me to get here.

It’s not easy, but it’s well with my soul.

As to those agonies—we cannot end them, we cannot remedy them all. But step by step we can improve, help to improve the lives of our children and their families. They in turn can improve the lives of others.

As we talked about proper toilet usage at assembly, Beverly told the children that the President doesn’t ask to go “pee-pee” and squat over a drain.

“We may be training the next president of Haiti,” she said. “We’re keeping high expectations.”

Tomorrow we will see which little girls remember to pull up their skirts and sit on the toilet, and which little boys remember to wash their hands with soap after pulling up their belts.

Surely some will forget. But they will learn, day by day.

And through all the frustration of watching them adapt to restroom etiquette, all the satisfaction of watching them eat nutrient-packed food, thank you Manna Pack rice from Feed My Starving Children!, we will love them.

That part is easy.

“We love because He first loved us.” ~John 4:19

“As the ark of the LORD came into the City of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart…

And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD—and I will make merry before the LORD. I will make myself yet more contemptible than this, and I will be abased in your eyes. But by the female servants of whom you have spoken, by them I shall be held in honor.” ~II Samuel 6:16, 21-22 ESV

“I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” II Samuel 6:22 NIV

“But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth…We love because He first loved us.” ~I John 3:17-18

Jameson -- Preventable Tragedy

Today we took a little boy home. He led us down the alley, sidestepping the gray puddles and dodging the little dog with its ferocious bark. He turned right at the end of the row of concrete and tin houses and stopped with his hand on a tall pink door, wooden and crooked.

“Bonswa,” Beverly called out as Madanm Rose knocked on the door. There was no welcoming response.

“Anyone home?” Beverly asked.

Madanm Rose translated. “Gen moun nan kay la?”

Jameson, our seven-year old friend, shook his head.

Rose took hold of the door and pulled, then reached up and tugged at the latch at the top where the door was held back. It gave way and Jameson stepped inside, his orange shirt disappearing behind the fuchsia gold-trimmed curtain hanging in the doorway.

I followed him, if only to put down the carry-out box of food I was holding.

Inside the floor was stone, a compilation of concrete and odds and ends tile. The room was about ten by twelve feet square with bright magenta walls. Framing the room were a bed, shelving, chairs, surfaces stacked with dishes, pots and pans. The bed was full-sized, a mattress mostly covered with a white slip. It took up perhaps a third of the space.

I set the food box down on one of the chairs and turned to Jameson.

Madanm Rose asked him where he slept. He gestured to the bed.

“There’s no one here,” Beverly voiced our mutual observation. The house was certainly devoid of people. There was nowhere to hide.

I picked Jameson up and set him on the bed, wishing for a clean cloth to wipe his face and hands. All I had were my own grubby hands, so I pulled off his shoes and watched him lie down on his stomach, his face flat to the mattress. There were no pillows.

I stood there stroking his head as I’d been doing all afternoon. The shape was familiar now.

The others went outside looking for the neighbor, vwason-la, to whom they could explain the medicine.

Jameson has typhoid fever.

According to the Center for Disease Control, typhoid is “common in most parts of the world except industrialized regions such as the United States, Canada, western Europe, Australia, and Japan…and the highest risk for typhoid is in south Asia.” It’s caused by contaminated food or water.

“He could have fecal matter in his food. He could have fecal matter in his water,” Beverly said as we drove towards Jameson’s house after leaving the hospital. Beverly was driving and her eyes were faithfully on the road before us. I was sitting in the back as I had for the past hour, Jameson’s head in my lap and one hand stroking his hair.

“He’s got to wash his hands,” Beverly concluded.

“How?” I asked.

Beverly turned to glance at me. “Exactly.”

Jameson’s lives with six other people. Seven people somehow compact into that wee magenta-walled space, all corners crammed with odd assortments. On the shelf on the back wall were some VHS tapes, American movies. Above the bed a smaller shelf held some illegible bottles and a toothbrush. To the right of the door was a stack of pots and pans and cookware, and promisingly, next to this was a narrow table covered with a plastic table cloth and dishes of rice and beans topped with those handy plastic fly-screens.

There is no electricity. There is no sink. There was no one there to greet us, listen to the instructions of medicine or comfort one sick little boy.

“We had to teach the children how to pee in the toilet,” Beverly told me recently. “We had to teach them to use the toilet instead of just squatting over the drain in the floor.”

At our school, housed in rented space, there is a bathroom with two grungy stalls. The toilets must be force-flushed periodically with water barreled outside the door. That bathroom is a luxurious accommodation for many of our students.

“We’re bringing them up in society,” Beverly added.

It might sound degrading if it were not so heartbreakingly true.

At our school parents are required to be involved. They must attend parent meetings, they must get their children to school and pick them up from school on time, and should call if the child cannot come. If parents do not comply their children may be expelled.

“They do not pay,” Beverly says, “so they need to try.”

This morning we had a meeting with children and parents preceding a dentist visit tomorrow and the start of school on Monday. Each parent had to sign in his or her presence and take a photo with his or her child before leaving. By the end of the morning there were only 20 students (of 121) without a check beside their name—and quite probably a few check marks were missed.

Parents are trying, the majority of the time. Or the guardian is trying. But when you have nothing, trying might not look like much.

Earlier in the week I went down into the “Ravine” behind Christian Light School, Port au Prince. Ms. Sherrie started doing a feeding program down there in addition to the school and orphanage she ran. These days the feeding program focuses on babies and children younger than three, for the school accepts three year olds and all students are fed during their school day.

Every morning around 9 or 9:30, time is relative here, Ms. Guetty and her helpers step out of the gate with their clipboard and buckets and trek down the road, turn into an alley, maneuver a market, cross a recently constructed bridge over a ravine of trash, sewage and pigs, and turn onto a corner.

On Tuesday Ms. Guetty sat down on a rock, one of her helpers sat beside her, setting his bucket down. The other two stood nearby as the children started to appear. They are too young to be unchaperoned. Many of them are only babes in arms.

For most the sight of a blan, red-faced and freckled, was a new experience.

Some were too shy to return my greeting of “Bonjou,” but one little girl instinctively knew, perhaps, to associate white skin with open arms.

No taller than my knee and her face lit up when she turned towards my voice. She got a huge grin and toddled right to me, arms spread wide. What a warm welcome she gave!

For about half an hour Ms. Guetty marked her clipboard with the attendees. All of those who came with their buckets, bowls and containers were already listed. Careful records are kept of who is fed and how they are progressing, or not.

That morning there were some no-shows, including a few who had not appeared in days previous.

The rest typically didn’t linger, but received their egg, bread and avocado and made their way back out of sight.

Behind us, sitting on the dusty corner of a dusty road, cringing out of the sun, were some houses. They were rusted tin and plywood doors. Laundry hung over a wall. Inside a baby cried. I would cry if I awoke in that house, too.

They’re not truly houses. They’re not homes.

These tin and scrap structures are the stuff of children’s forts. They’re something young ones build enthusiastic in their scavenging, unheeding of dirt floors or the odd nail or rust-eaten metal. They play happily in this private space they’ve built themselves, and then when they’re hungry, tired, cold or called, trot more happily homeward to their secure, clean, food-filled house.

But this is reality here.

Reality for Jameson is lack of soap.

He needs to wash his hands.

How?

That’s the question.

How to keep clean when the very bed you sleep on is infused with dust.

Before we left Jameson alone in the magenta-walled house that is sometimes filled with seven bodies, we prayed over him.

Beverly, Rose and Jonas, our teenage handyman, translator, and jokester, filed back through the doorway after talking with the neighbor.

Beverly instructed her when and how much medicine to give Jameson. Rose and Jonas translated the milliliters and frequency. Before leaving the hospital I’d doled out the five milliliters and tipped them back into Jameson’s mouth. The first one went down easily but the second one made his face scrunch up.

“Ooo, I guess it tastes bad,” I said, holding the water bottle so he could wash it down.

Beverly thought we ought to give him the medicine although he’d thrown up the little food he’d eaten.

“There should at least be a little something in his stomach,” she said.

Jameson came to school with his parents and brother this morning. They were faithfully on time and pleased to collect their school shirts and smile for the camera. However, Jameson complained of a sore throat and Beverly sent Jonas to buy some water for him, saying he had a fever.

She held him back to take to the hospital after we’d finished at school.

“The problem is,” Beverly said as we walked through the hospital courtyard, holding Jameson with his exhausted head on her shoulder, “is that no one can afford the hospital. They come and get a list of prescriptions and that’s all they can do.”

We’d entered the first building, squeezing around a corner where the front desk counter jutted outwards towards a row of cots. On one lay a woman with bandages from ankle to thigh. Nurses in blue scrub tops congregated on the side. Nothing looked particularly sanitary, certainly not sterile.

Beverly had said that Rose’s sons needn’t come, because the hospital is full of germs. So we’d dropped them off at home.

“Don’t touch your face,” she also instructed us. Really, don’t touch anything is better advice.

After fifteen minutes of shuffling and different offices a nurse in a blue scrub top and suspicious latex gloves took Jameson’s blood.

“Jameson, gade, look!” Beverly called to him, grinning enthusiastically, turning his gaze away from the needle. Jonas held Jameson in his lap and we all congratulated him as the nurse withdrew the vial of blood.

The blood test was exploring a variety of possibilities, including HIV.

After labeling the vial the nurse asked if Jameson had eaten that morning.

“No,” we confirmed. He hadn’t eaten today, at all, although it was now after 1 PM.

Apparently this was a blessing because the blood tests ought to have been after fasting.

“God knew,” Beverly said, smiling at me.

“I guess so,” I said. I was having a hard time smiling.

In Jameson’s house we grouped together to pray for him. Praying is almost always preceded by singing here, so Beverly asked what song would be good.

“What’s good for this time?” she asked. “What’s one of those songs you were singing last night?”

Last night, or rather yesterday evening before sunset, she and I had spent devotional time by the ocean. Beneath the almond and palm trees we sang and read Psalms and shared knowledge and stories. We marveled at the beauty of God’s Creation and the miracles of our friends’ lives.

It was restorative, filling us with energy and peace. We both could have kept singing there for hours, but dusk prompted our return to the house and all its activity.

Yesterday there was no shortage of songs in our hearts and mouths.

Today I sang to lull Jameson, finding no words for prayer and no tools for sanitation. All I had were my hands and my voice, so I used them both to lend some comfort to one sick little boy.

I’d been singing quietly all afternoon.

But when Beverly asked me to choose a song, I didn’t have an answer. What words could cry out to God in the way I wanted?

So I tried to call out to Jesus, the Bearer of our griefs.

“What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear…” I began, the others joining after the first few words. And that’s when I dropped, ducking out the doorway to staunch the sobs.

They continued singing inside beside Jameson’s bed, and after attempting to wipe my eyes with the short sleeves of the shrug I wore over my sleeveless dress, now spotted with dried sweat, saliva, bits of rice and flecks of vomit, I returned to the room also, putting my hand back on Jameson’s head as they began to pray.

My voice couldn’t join, so instead I let my heart follow Beverly’s words.

She prayed for care for Jameson and his family, for healing, for provision.

“Oh, thank you Jesus for food and clean water. They are such a blessing. We shouldn’t even have to think about having them, but we do. We pray you would provide soap and water for this family, for all our children, so they can wash their hands. We pray protection over this household, because if Jameson has typhoid what are the odds his brothers have it, too?”

After praying we left, Beverly telling Jameson he had to give her a hug.

“And I’ll see you lundi, or mardi, I can never remember which.”

“Lundi is Monday,” I supplied, smiling at Jameson who was grinning as he hugged Madanm Beverly and she hugged him.

“Nou renmen ou, Jezi renmen ou,” Beverly said.

“You know we love you, Jameson?” Madanm Rose asked.

“Wi,” he smiled.

I kissed his head one last time, scrunched up my nose at him and said “N’ale.”

Then we left him alone in the magenta-walled house, water bottle propped against the wall near his head, food on the side table under the fly cover.

In the whole afternoon he hadn’t washed his hands once. How can he? There wasn’t an opportunity at the school or the hospital for a good scrubbing.

I was uncomfortable going down into the Ravine in Port au Prince. Most times walking the street is less than comfortable, due to physical bothers such as uneven ground and loose rocks, and psychological bothers from catcalls and fear of being run over.

Most times you just don’t feel safe walking as a foreigner in Haiti. Sometimes Haitians themselves don’t feel safe.

I got called blan more times than I could count just trekking through the Ravine area. Like Koreans and their staring, most Haitians don’t recognize, or just don’t care, about the offense of being addressed as “foreigner.”

Even this morning while photographing students, one parent told her son to “gade yon blan,” “look at the foreigner,” so his face was to the camera.

But my own self-preservative qualms were crushed while standing in the “Camp.” The Camp is the second place food is distributed. It was begun after the earthquake, but six years later there are still many people residing there, in those child’s play shacks where babies are half-clothed or naked.

I played Peek a Boo with the wee ones who came through for their food. One little boy was caramel colored, lighter than the majority of his fellows, and was particularly fascinated by my skin. He kept touching it as though wondering if the color would come off, or struck by someone lighter than himself.

“He is almost the same as you!” Ms. Guetty laughed.

After him came the smallest one we saw that day, a babe in arms too young to yet lift up her head unsupported. She was precious and minute with that tantalizing curly hair, lamb soft and springy.

“Allo,” I said to her gently, bending at the knees to peer into her tiny face. A pair of not-quite-right eyes gazed listlessly back at me.

Perhaps they just needed cleaning, perhaps they signified a defect or damage wrought on by the squalor into which she’d been born.

Probably I’ll never know.

“And that’s too bad,” Beverly responded when I told her later. “Sherrie only accepts the best and brightest.”

Another heartrending statement that would sound degrading if it weren’t so true, so practical. With limited resources, you have to prioritize. Many schools and ministries make investments in people with potential, those who exhibit outstanding qualities and high work ethics, those who will study and strive hard and one day might serve well the suffering community.

That little baby with not-right eyes and that little boy with the club foot, they don’t qualify as the best and brightest. They may never have the chance to prove they have potential. They may never know life outside of that Camp in the Ravine.

I hope Jameson will know life outside of the magenta-walled house.

I’m thankful he’s gotten to know the use of a toilet and a large meal while at school. He’s guaranteed warm greetings and hugs and reiterations of “I love you and Jesus loves you.”

“It’s all about adding value to people’s lives,” Beverly says.

Today we added some more value to Jameson’s life, I think. We spent the afternoon going between the hospital and the pharmacy, holding and carrying him, feeding him and giving him medicine, singing to him and stroking his head. We left him smiling in the house with magenta-walls.

We also left him angry.

“I need to be angry for a while,” Beverly said as she typed furiously into her phone, having researched typhoid and its easily preventable causes. “I’m angry at this government. And I want to do something about it.”

She searched through contacts for anyone who would be interested.

We agreed that Jameson’s story needed to be told. And the more prayer warriors to lift up him and his family and all of our students without soap or food or knowledge of the toilet, the better.

When we got back to the house I went upstairs, heavily laid down my things and washed my hands. I got into the shower and washed myself and my clothes.

I wished to do the same for Jameson, who we had left still in the clothes he’d worn all day, now spotted with vomit, too.

But Jameson is not my son, and I’ve no desire to take him from his family who is trying. The most obvious reason for the house to be empty is that his parents are working. There was food laid out so clearly effort is made to take care.

Nevertheless, the pain of going back to a sprawling house with solid doors, matching tile, running water, electricity, fans and a refrigerator of drinking water, a living room with sofas on which an eight-year old boy lies at ease---that pain is not reduced by considering Jameson’s parents and their efforts.

The unfairness of it is excruciating.

The injustice of circumstance, of the uncontrollable where one baby is born into affluence and one into dirt poverty.

And the tragedy of preventability: of lack of basic necessities so that a child contracts a dangerous illness because there isn’t soap and water to wash his hands. Soap and water. Soap and water.

A bar of soap sells for less than a dollar in the States. And water for washing can come from a rain bucket.

Jesus promises that in His Father’s house there are many rooms, some even say mansions. There is room for all, and there are no more tears. There is no suffering, no lack, and no favoritism. There is no need for soap and water, there is no fear of disease, there is no need to be brought up from degradation or filth.

Those are the days I look forward to.

In the meantime, please join me in praying for Jameson, for this dear seven-year old boy with typhoid who shares a ten by twelve foot house with six other people.

Please think of the people in the Ravine, of the children who look forward to school as a place of love and fun and a guaranteed meal in a life guaranteed lack.

Every time you wash your hands with clean water and soap, think of Jameson who can’t. 

John 14:2

Revelation 21:4

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/typhoid

Not Comfortable but Joyous

“I try to look for the beauty,” Beverly said, as we strolled along the black-sanded beach after breakfast last Friday.

In Haiti, beauty is abundant. But so is suffering and squalor. There is tragedy continuously at odds with the marvelous creation.

Behind us as we walked rose mountains upon mountains, the closest one, deep green and purple hedging into the aquamarine sea. Palm trees curved over the surf along with tangled jungle greenery and flowers in scarlet and white.

Madanm Beverly and I had come into Ti Goave just the previous evening, squashed tightly into the Patrol SUV along with our hosts Pastor Levy and his wife Madanm Rose, visiting guests from Pennsylvania Juanita and Angela, Juanita’s sponsor daughter Myreline and all their luggage. It wasn’t overly comfortable for anyone. In the trunk the luggage pressed against the back of the four ladies’ heads: Juanita, Angela, Myreline and Beverly cozily acquainted. I nestled against Madanm Rose in the front, straining to keep my leg from impeding with the gear shift as Pastor drove. The AC continuously poured forth cold air so my hands had long ago grown chill. But after the first hour in the car, after we’d eaten our riz et pois, rice and beans take-out and reached the fringes of Port au Prince on our way westward, Pastor started to sing. His rich baritone filled the car and inspired the accompanying altos and sopranos. As we progressed in songs in English and Creole, Pastor’s voice ranged up and down like the hills around us. He sang high and low and repeated choruses with palms lifting from the steering wheel.

“Amazing Grace,” we sang together, as tap-taps and motos and overenthusiastic hatchbacks swerved around us. It wasn’t ideal or conventional or comfortable, but that’s Haiti. It’s Grace.

Our entrance into Ti Goave was preceded by going up a mountain. We cresting the small mountain over which the national road twisted, and the valley and sea spread before us in a scene of golden harmony, as though a reflection of our spirits.

Late afternoon sun made diamonds on the water and the mountains beyond were shadowed into charcoal, edges vague and dreamy. It was almost blinding, and easy to imagine how once the country was—an undiscovered treasure, a tropical paradise, the Pearl of the Caribbean.

In ten minutes more we reached the house, a gorgeous large place within sight of the sea. Walking in the wide front door I knew welcome: the space was expansive and open, airy with high ceilings and those classic white tile floors. This was a place to host, to share love. We were home.

It’s been over a week now. Ten days in this strange place of contradictions. Of contrasts. Of being told to hurry, only to be told to wait. Of waiting and waiting, only to be told you were expected and missed your appointment. Of extreme beauty laid waste and extreme heat rendered bearable or not, depending on the Fortune’s Wheel of electricity, rain, and water supply.

You strain to avoid the sun but sigh at its passing when darkness comes so early in the evening. You’re eager for thunder storms that cool the air and reduce the dust, but quaver at the consequence of washed out streets and flooded homes.

Everything contrasts. Everything contradicts.

My heart, too.

I’m indescribably happy to be here.

Ten days after arrival and I still can’t quite believe I’m here to stay. Yet the joy conflicts with the pain in my heart, the heavy sorrow at the tragedy all around. I ache with love for the wee ones scrambling for attention, marveling at their beauty and weeping for their need.

Recently I stood at the bedside of twins—two one-month old babes laid side by side, sleeping face to face, plump lips occasionally scrunching as they stretched in slumber, minute fingers curling and clenching. They were so perfect I was certain they were dolls. They were tranquil in their oblivion, unheeding of the heat or hunger or loneliness. And who but God could have made them so—with their shining curls, rounded cheeks and long-lashed eyes? Who but God could deliver these twins from their mother’s womb, safe and whole and visibly perfect at nine months, despite an open cervix and history of miscarriages?

As we stood around the bed, gazing at the twins in wonder and selfishly longing for them to wake so we might scoop them up, ensure their warm reality in our arms, their mother explained.

She spoke in Creole to Juanita, who had learned the language while living in Haiti and had kept fluent through continued use. Juanita told us yet incompetent blans in turn what the manman Madanm Eunide said.

“The doctor wanted to sew up her cervix,” she said. “She’d lost three babies before this and her cervix was open. But she said no, she didn’t want the surgery.”

This young manman, teacher of three-year olds at Christian Light School, Petit Goave, gestured. She raised her arms above her head and looked up, past the dingy ceiling of her low-roofed concrete house.

“She said she was trusting in God and didn’t want the operation,” Juanita relayed to us. Eunide shook her head, smiling. Her eyes were large and fringed by thick curling lashes. Braided pigtails bobbed on her head like a school girl. She wore a thin-strapped turquoise dress she surely reserved for home and not company—it was far too revealing for this area and her position as pwofesè.

“The doctor answered that he’d never seen such faith, and when the babies were born, healthy and on time, he said it was a miracle. It wasn’t normal.” Juanita smiled, sweat curling the hairs on her forehead.

We all nodded, sweat beading on our own foreheads, looking down at those foreheads unsullied by sweat or care. Who could call those perfect twins anything but a miracle?

“The doctor said he’d never forget her as long as she lived. And Eunide told him she served a big, big, big, big God.”  Gwo, gwo, gwo, gwo, Eunide had said, grinning.

“Well,” Beverly said, “I hope the doctor remembers that God did this.” She gestured to the babies on the bed.

We all agreed.

Pastor Levy then entered the room, gazing down at the twins as well.Before we left, after Beverly had poured gifts for the babies on the bed where they still slept, he prayed over them and the household.

Madanm Eunide hoped to come back to school in October, giving her another month at home with the twins and her seventeen-month old daughter.

Beverly supplicated her to make an appearance next week when school opens.

“It’s her presence that calms the children,” she said.

Eunide agreed. “Wi, wi,” she said. She posed behind her babies, lying across the bed.

Beverly took pictures to show in the States, where a church group promised to sponsor her, paying for formula for the twins.

As we readied to leave, continuously sweating but helplessly grinning at those wee ones sleeping figi a figi, face to face, they began to fuss in turn. First the one on the left began to scrunch her face pathetically. I laid my hand on her stomach and gently stroked. She quieted without ever opening her eyes. A minute later her twin began to contract her body, curling up her limbs and similarly scrunching her face. I repeated the motion, softly stroking her stomach. She, too, settled without waking.

I wanted to tell Madanm Eunide “bon travay,” good work, for her babies. In the States I’d often expressed that congratulations to parents with adorable babes. But the words seemed out of place here, apart from the humor that might be lost across cultures; here, the words fit, but only when addressed to God.

So I settled for a farewell to Eunide and a final glance at the peaceful, perfect sleeping twins, and considered the immense faith of this woman who lived in a concrete house and depended on donations to feed her children.

Really, she depends on God.

The whole country does. That’s Haiti. That’s Grace.

If we’re honest, we all depend on Grace, even if we don’t recognize that dependence.

Beverly uses the word “Godcidence” to describe those serendipitous occasions in which circumstances are too perfect to be naturally. Some folks call this Fate, some coincidence. Then there are the Faithful, who recognize God’s hand everywhere. Beverly is one of those people.

In the ten days that we’ve been together, having met for the first time in the Miami airport last Monday morning, I’ve lost track of the number of times Beverly has proclaimed she sees God’s hand at work.

His hand is everywhere.

Last Tuesday we attended a conference of Feed My Starving Children CROPPS 3D which provides food to many organizations and missions around Haiti. Worldwide FMSC provides meals for 750,000 people every day.

CROPPS 3D is a smaller program which currently works in 9 countries, Haiti being the most needy. Christian Light School, Pitit Goave is one of the missions provided food by CROPPS, enabled to feed the students a large meal every day they come to school.

At the conference, representatives from missions gathered and listened to FMSC employees advise on networking, support raising and publicizing. We also introduced ourselves and outlined what we do and how blessed we are to be part of CROPPS.

One young man, Andy, Haitian born but educated and Americanized to the point of no accent, repeated his thanks over and over again.

“I don’t want to say too much,” he said, standing up at his table in jeans, an “End World Hunger” t-shirt and “FMSC” hat, “but I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all you at FMSC. Without you we couldn’t do what we do.”

As he continued to reiterate his gratitude and give a few more details of his program, a youth center that strives to keep kids off the street, providing tutoring, games, and food, I almost felt impatient.

“You said you didn’t want to say much,” I thought, continuing to wonder if he was Haitian or American. But really, can we ever say thank you enough?

The FMSC staff told us no.

“You can’t say thank you enough to your sponsors,” the Marketing Manager Gwen instructed us. “And say thank you publically.”

Everyone appreciates recognition.

We are all so blessed. That was a consensus at the conference.

We are also all so needy. That was obvious.

Person after person, self-sacrificing, hard-working visionaries, stood up and listed their greatest needs. A few shared previous struggles.

One man continues to work in Site Solay, the infamous slum of Port au Prince reputed to be the most dangerous place in the city. But this school principal has been there so long the young gangsters have grown used to his presence; when they were barefoot children he was working there, teaching school and organizing meals for local kids.

To financially support his mission this man works as a customs officer at the airport. “Most people say pastors don’t work,” he said, “so I work there. But I said I couldn’t go in today, because I had to come here.”

Another woman, Kellie, stood before us to share tips from her school’s cook on preparing the FMSC special Manna Pack Rice which is enriched with essential vitamins and proteins to boost growth and fight the ubiquitous malnutrition.

However, before opening the video she talked of the progress of the school, of the changes in the children. And she confessed she doesn’t know what she’s doing.

“You say to pray for you because you’re young and don’t know what you’re doing,” she said, peering over her reading glasses at Andy, the thankful man from the youth center. “Well, I’m old and I don’t know what I’m doing. God is leading.”

We all laughed. We all agreed.

The name of her ministry is “Grace So Amazing.”

As all the missionaries and managers prayed together later, we asked for continued energy, for encouragement and a fresh awakening every morning. We prayed for commitment to each other and our projects: God’s projects. We prayed for the vision of the young and the wisdom of the experienced.

Some representatives said they need vehicles and drivers. Some need land and materials for construction, most often because their program had expanded and there simply wasn’t enough room for all their people. Some need more workers, faithful fellows to join in the labor. Some need translators, teachers, or medical personnel. We all need funds.

We all need help.

Every person in that room, and in the world, comes before God with myriad problems. We all wake up and face challenges expected and obstacles unforeseen. We all get tired and worn out, feel discouraged and alone.

God holds each one of us in His hand.

God is arranging the intricate details of our lives. He’s looking back on our future having completed the perfect story. He’s filled each of our lives with sheer breathtaking moments of Godcidence.

“I always think of a tapestry,” Beverly said to me last week as we sat beside the ocean, cooled by the sea breezes and watching the clouds brighten from yellow to pink before dulling into mauve as the sun set behind the mountains. Her ever bright, alert brown eyes glinted behind her glasses and she smiled with her whole face, as she always does, every line quite probably the result of squinting from sunshine and smiles. “The front of the tapestry is so beautiful, but the back is all tangled and criss-crossed. That’s what our lives are like. That’s what God’s plan is like. God’s got this.”

Indeed. God’s got this.

He held Madanm Eunide in His hand and blessed her faith. He kept those twins growing inside her and then birthed them perfect and curly-haired. He nodded at the doctor’s awe and demonstrated His glory in this “not natural” birth.

He led Beverly from Port au Prince to little Ti Goave where He had her start a school, after she was sure she’d done her time in Haiti.

He’s grown the school every year. He listened to her prayer for an English teacher and answered with me.

He led me to Haiti ten years ago as a painfully shy fourteen year old with shallow ambitions. He wouldn’t let me get over it, and tugged on my heart continuously. He brought me back again and again. He had me educated, gain some experience and confidence, and now brings me back again, this time to stay.

He’s brought us all to where we are, and whether the place looks promising or horrifying, He is here with us now.

God’s got this. He’s got us.

And He’s not done with us yet.

I can’t see the tapestry yet. I don’t know what the final picture is going to be. I don’t know which characters will make the final cut, and which seemingly important bits will be trimmed away. I know so far there is already an appalling mess on the back where threads criss-cross and overlap and knots hold together the frame. Certainly I’ve tangled quite a few threads in clumsy attempts to direct my life.

But I don’t need to know the future. God knows.

Tomorrow will be Day 11, which marks the longest consecutive stay in Haiti yet. I’m living the dream here, in a place of contrasts, contradictions and discomfort. Things are not conventional. In many ways Haiti is living in the past. Gender roles, dress codes and hand-washed laundry clash with the blue jeans, smart phones and resorts. In every way Haiti is yet surviving by Grace.

It’s not comfortable most of the time, physically. My heat tolerance for temperature and spice is high, but it’s hot. Most days I sweat more than should be possible. Getting into the shower before bed at night is blessed relief, contrasting with that sadness that another day is passed.

Time is at odds. Traffic backs up the road as a pothole claims another wheel victim. A trip that ought to take 10 minutes takes 50 and an expected ride of two hours is completed in 1 hour and fifteen minutes. Lights extinguish as the electricity fails, plunging the house into darkness. Flashlights are found and the power resumes. Concrete dust clogs your nose and lungs in one corner, the stench of latrines and sewage makes you wince, and then the ocean breeze cleanses the air and you look up to see palm fronds swaying in a perfect sky. Babies as flawless as dolls sleep without care on a bed in a small home without screens on the windows or running water.

 “Look for the beauty,” Beverly says.

Beauty is abundant. If we keep our eyes open we will see it. If we keep singing Amazing Grace, keep saying mesi anpil “thank you”, then we’ll start to see it’s true.

God’s got this. The One who made the sun to be the source of life, not the bane of our existence, the One who shaped the mountains to inspire us, the One who molded each finger and toe and eyelash, He’s got this.

Maybe it’s not comfortable, squished tightly together, sweating constantly, swatting at flies. But it’s joyous.