It's been a whirlwind of a week. Quite honestly, I'm not quite
even sure where to begin. We had a team come in last Friday, and I tagged along
on their weekend trip to visit their sister church. Let's just say after 1
night of sleeping on an air mattresses that totally deflated and then the next
night a pool floatie that half-deflated, coming home to Limbe and my bed was
such a sweet treat. But it was fun to get to see another part of Haiti and to
experience something different than life here on the compound, and also to get
to know the team that spent the week here. Piece by piece, I'm finding my heart
falling for this country a bit more and more (God's ways are just so
ridiculous, aren't they?)
School has been a bit non-existent this week, being that we didn't
get back with the team until Monday afternoon and then on Wednesday we went to
the beach. Every day this week has felt like a Monday-- starting back over,
trying to re-establish routine, introducing spelling words,
re-explaining concepts and such. It's left me a bit defeated feeling in many
ways, because let's get real, does anybody really, truly love
Mondays? But in so many other ways it has been so encouraging. I've
seen Sadrack read whole sentences on his own, sounding out each letter and putting
the words together. Abel has learned to tell time. Cassandra has participated
in class more. Judenal has had an excited attitude about learning that I had
yet to see since being back. Even Bello will sit and try sounding out words in
a book with me. So often I feel as though we take one step forward and then 3
steps back. But the Lord is faithful, and He speaks encouragement in those
moments where I doubt.
The rat continues to make himself quite at home in my bathroom. It
seems Gus-Gus (as I now affectionately call him) has been attracted to the
rolls of toilet paper that are stacked on the shelf in there, and has spent the
late hours of the night tearing into it and (I'm assuming) making himself quite
a cozy little nest somewhere hopefully far, far away. I put the toilet paper
away in a bin, so hopefully he will move on to bigger and better things that
don't take place in my bathroom. Preferably the destination of this bigger and better is not my bedroom.
The Lord continues to be faithful in the littlest, yet most profound
ways. Life here can be hard, and the hopelessness and the darkness of this
place overwhelming. But it makes the light and the love of my Jesus that much
greater and stronger. After a particularly rough day this past week, I went
outside to have a chill-out in my hammock (God bless whoever invented eno's
because mine has been my sanity the last 3 weeks). After 30 minutes of some
good ole fashioned hymns and time to just be still, I looked up to see a little
brown fuzzy head peaking from around the doorway that I knew to be Bello. His
grin broke wide as I called him over, plopped him in my hammock, and gave him
my iPod. We sat on the porch as the craziness of the compound unfolded below us
and I listened to his high-pitched voice sing along to the music in his ears.
Name above all names, worthy of all praise, my heart will sing how
great is our God.
The exhaustion and the stress and the fear from the day vanished
like a vapor as I listened to him belt out the words, eyes closed, swinging
back and forth in the hammock. It was a humbling moment, to be reminded by
Bello's sweet voice of the God I serve and the reason I am here. It's all too
easy to lose sight of this truth: He is so good. It comes in
quickly, the inclination to look only at the mess, at the many things that you
didn't get accomplished in the day, at the need that is so great, at how tired
you are and how futile it seems. You can exhaust yourself and busy your every
waking moment, and still have it all feel like a drop in the bucket at the end
of the day. But in that moment, He reminded me of Who He is, and who I am in
light of that.
The truth is that honestly, He doesn't need me. He is a fully capable,
all-powerful God for who the mountains shake and the oceans roar, at the
mention of His name the morning breaks in glory and the angels bow down. And what are we, but mere breath and fleeting shadows? Yet still, in
His infinite love and mercy, He lets us have a small part in His grand story.
And He molds us and shapes us and changes us along the way. The work He longs
to do is not so much the work I see in a physical sense as much as it is a work
in the inner heart.
While I see the boy who is learning to sound out letters, He sees
the boy whose self-confidence is growing. What I perceive as an interruption to
my day, He uses as a divine appointment, an intentionally placed opportunity
to love like He loves. I see a small one who can read little readers on her
own, He sees a girl who will one day pick up His Word and let it breathe life
into her. I sigh over a table that has to be set with 17 plates and cups and
forks and knives, He sees the opportunity for 7-year-olds and a dance party and
too much laughter and sneaking bites of hot dogs and vanilla pudding.
It happens quickly, and so
often we miss it. We are a busy people. I will be the first to confess, I am easily distracted by my own personal to-do list, consumed
with a sense of failure when the tasks left undone outweigh the things
accomplished. But the failure never rests in how much or how little I consider accomplished; in how many loads of laundry were switched or how many stories
were read or how well kids listened during school that day or how many emails I wrote back to. Failure lies in all the moments I miss what
He is doing, in the many instances I’ve chosen to run about the house banging
pots and pans or standing over a boiling stove or sweeping the ground, instead
of choosing to simply sit at His feet.
His whispers it to my soul with a tender rebuke.. as gentle as this breeze
brushing my face, as penetrating as the hot sun is on my skin. I can do more in your waiting than in
your doing you could ever accomplish.
As the day grows crazier and the pace quickens and the papers pile
high, He beckons. He pleads with us all the more as our human need to feel like
we’ve accomplished something screams loudly and we are tempted to tack one
more thing onto the ever-growing to-do list. The spot at His feet sits readily
available and He calls out with the sincerest of love…
Child of Mine, come and dwell here.
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