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
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
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