The kids have been off school this week (Easter break) and so this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday two of the teachers initiated what they call "Break-Out". It's a 3 day Bible camp where the kids learn new worship songs, have a Bible lesson, and play ridiculously awesome games (like bobbing for mangos. haha). They have loved learning the new songs and games, whatever kids come with us home at the end of the day, they all say the highlight of their day was Break Out. The afternoons are a mix of shrinky dink crafts, water balloon tosses, yard work, and mango hunting/rock chucking. The week off school has been nice; U haven't had to rush out 3 kids out the door by 7:45 or try to do spelling words while keeping on eye on Trouble, the man himself. Jahntzy and I have started to come back to the house for nap time, versus trying to have him nap in my room at the orphanage. It's easier all around, to not feel like I am living in 2 separate places, to not have to pack lunch and a milky and paci, and -in complete honesty- to be away from the kids. The kids call from the balcony during nap time and knock on the door and I hear them playing and my heart feels so torn between the 3-year-old and the other 29 kids downstairs. So for sanity and nap time's sake, we leave the compound entirely. This way Jahntzy gets a full nap, and Hannah gets some almost-guilt-free chill out time.
The days seem quite simple and relatively not busy, yet somehow by 6 o'clock, I feel as though I've just finished a 10 mile run and pulled an all-nighter. The other night Jahntzy laid in bed next to me, not quite tired enough to fall asleep right away. And he laid there making fake snoring sounds while I struggled to stay awake. Pretty sure he won, because the last thing I remember was him sitting up singing the words, "My lighthouse," over and over again. He popped out of bed with me at 5:30 the next morning, ready to rock and roll. My birthday was spent getting 30 happy birthday greetings and hugs, even Judenal wished me a happy birthday. I also got the best night's sleep I've gotten in a a long time (that's basically priceless here). Jason and Nikki treated me to a burger in town (Jason braving the Saturday Cap Haitien traffic definitely made me feel loved) and Fredline wrote me the sweetest birthday card. After the kids went to bed, I also may or may not have eaten almost an entire bar of chocolate. It was a most wonderful day.
Today the kids had an Easter celebration-- complete with cupcakes and fancy dresses and egg coloring and a dance-off. If I ever get it together enough, I will have to post some of the pictures of the evening. The party that was supposed to start at 3 didn't start until 7. What's a Haitian party (or any event) if it doesn't start at least an hour late? The kids sang some of the songs they learned during Break-Out, "Hosanna" and "Forever Reign" among the mix. The boys danced quite the snazzy little dance that left all the kids screaming and cheering at a eardrum-blowing volume. They colored eggs-- teachers Dianna and Darleen oversaw that, and my goodness was it the most organized egg-dyeing I have ever witnessed. The girls did an amazing job planning this party and all of Break Out. It was so incredible to see the way they love these kids-- planning the games and the songs, cooking the meal and running to the market for eggs, waking up at 5 a.m. to decorate the downstairs to surprise the kids. We left the party a bit early and had to rush home in the thunderstorm and pouring rain. Poor Jason was entirely soaked by the time he walked from the orphanage to the team rooms back to the orphanage and to the car. So thankful for the ones who drive you home in the rain and become so drenched they look like they just got out of a swimming pool.
Most days life is a rush of messy and crazy and such ordinariness. Some days we are put together and the 3-year-old's face has been cleaned and the dirty dishes are washed spotless. And then most days I feel as though it's been a successful morning if I've brushed my teeth and gotten the 3-year-old out of his pajamas. My fingers click the keyboard and my mind is a mess of thoughts and I'm so tired but the sleep just won't come.
This place, it brings out the worst in you. Cynicism and frustration, self-righteous judgment and impatience, pride and selfishness.. these things come easily and swiftly in a place like this. Day to day tasks take twice as much time and effort as they would back in the States. Cooking supper, washing your laundry, even doing the dishes, all these end up more complicated than they ought to be. The other night the power went out on me mid-shower, and I'm grasping in the dark trying to get to my flashlight while the three-year-old bangs on the bathroom door and the dogs howl in the yard. That coupled with the corruption of a third world country, the immense need, the heat and the dirt, the kids in school and the kids out of school, not having your own space or the familiarity of home, missing the friends and family you've been with all your life, and the lack of sleep…it's as if you're living in a pressure cooker.
The past week replays through my mind, all the things I have said and thought and done, and nearly every moment is laced with a sense of deep and absolute regret. The last month has held more moments of impatience and frustration, more situations I have looked at through skeptical and judgement eyes, and more children I have brushed off out of selfishness than I'd care to recall. I am quick to form my own opinions and quicker still to shush them and ever-so-slow to spill the grace. Perhaps it's because here in this place I am exhausted and stretched so thin, moreso than back home. Or perhaps it's because I'm out of my comfort zone here, absent of all things familiar and easy. Or hey, maybe it's because rats run across my toes and little boys throw spiders in my face. Whatever the reason, there is no hiding it: here I have seen what lies in the darkest recesses of my heart, and apart from Christ, I know there is nothing good in me. As a people, we're a tangled mess of sin and ugly. We make a mess of ourselves and our lives, wreaking havoc on everything we touch. Even with the greatest intentions, we turn the most beautiful things into atrocities because we are a sin-tainted people.
But He does not leave us here. And I am so thankful.
I've sat in the nap time silence over the worn pages of Isaiah and spoke it to no one-- I've got nothing left. And suddenly I realize, that's exactly where He has wanted me. Here, where I am stripped away of any sort of 'righteousness' or 'good deeds' I think I might acquired on my own, any sort of love or compassion I believe I've mustered in my own strength, anything good I think is in me that is apart from Him, I remember who the true Source of those things are. I stand before Him broken down to nothing. Nothing but my pride, and my selfishness, and my impatience, and my sin. He breaks me, that I might see how desperately I need Him. "Where sin runs deep, His grace is more.."
He brings me back to the cross, again and again, and whispers it, "Here is where I've made it right." I look at the cost of my salvation, the price of my sin that He did not shy away to spend. My eyes take in the splintered cross, deep stained with precious red. I run my fingers across the scars on His hands. This is how much I love you. A torn garment and twisted thorns, a back beaten bloody and a sky gone dark, and this is how much grace has cost. It was not a list of rules that brought me to Him (for surely that is an impossibility to attain), nor was it the most noble of deeds. It wasn't in seeing the grandest of miracles or watching the most majestic of sunrises. What brought me to Him was Calvary, where His love spilled out on a heart so undeserving. What changed me was that whisper of grace, in a world of ungrace and rules and striving to earn. Where He whispered most assuredly…
I have loved you at your most unlovable.
We love because He has first loved us. And I pray to never forget the depths of my own depravity. He's loved me at my most unlovable… and oh, how thankful I am. In wake of that gratitude, how can I not do the same for the 30 little faces and voices down there that I live among? When the 3 year old screams because I've told him no, again.. when he utters the meanest of words with the most defiant personality.. when they fight and kick and argue and bicker amongst themselves.. when she screams from the depot.. when he throws rocks at her or he purposely eggs him on to the point of yelling and crying.. when she bullies the one who can't stand on her own… when we can't play a simple game or do a fun craft because it ends in chaos and crying… I see myself. I pray it again and again, a constant murmur under my breath.. to hear the melodies of His grace, that we might be changed by the One who sings the tune.
Grace, how greatly He has lavished it upon us. Laying at the foot of a blood-soaked cross, clinging to a slaughtered Son, where it all spills out and runs over and pools beneath my feet.
Oh, may I never forget.
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