when He fights for you

Where to start? It's been a long week with little sleep and lots of crazy and a decent amount of homesickness involved. When it's been over a month since you last had a clean-feeling shower, since you last hugged your dad or laughed with your sister, or since you've been on a good, long, mind-clearing run… it's as if the honeymoon stage of it all has faded, and you're staring square in the face with reality. 

In school this week we've created a new reward-and-punishment system for the already perfectly well behaved classroom full of little angels keeping our crazy class semi-functionable. For all you CFC teachers and mamas out there, we've introduced the all-familiar green, yellow, red stoplight to our classroom. In complete honesty, it's worked better than I had hoped it would. Six of the kids got four (some even five! what?!) days on green, and therefore will be rewarded with a flashlight pen tomorrow morning. My wimpy, lack-of-discipline self wants to hand out 8 pens on Monday, but I know that would totally defeat any sort of progress we may have made this week. So six flashlight pens it will be, and hopefully next week there will be 8 charts on the wall filled with stickers for staying on green everyday. At least, a girl can hope. The cabinet in my classroom also got a lock (with a key! hey hey hey) and so yesterday I spent the morning organizing the cabinet while Carl soaked Jantzee with a bucket of water outside and 6 'helpers' got their stinky little fingers into everything I was working on in the classroom and Sadrack chased the rest of the screaming kids around with a lizard (gecko? I still didn't get the full story) tail  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good day.

On Thursday night I woke up to the sound of a crinkling wrapper in my room. I remember thinking in my dream, "Oh, that's not a good sound." and fully awoke to the sight of not-so-little Gus Gus (aka the rat) eating a package of crackers on the bed across the room. The kids have been giving me their candy and crackers to hold up in my room for them (such little hoarders they are) and it appears the stash has been discovered by the rat. So here I am at 1 a.m. staring at this nasty looking rat, trying to use the beam of my flashlight to chase him from the room. I successfully managed to corner this cracker-loving-critter into the corner of the bunk bed, where he then slipped under the bed entirely and I lost all visual contact. Which was pretty lame, because then I could hear him, but not see him. Eventually he made his way to the bathroom, and then out to the kitchen. I suppose I kind of deserved a night like that, seeing as I put crackers out in the open of what I knew to be a rat-infested place. Regardless, two lessons have been learned. First, put crackers and candies away in tupperware containers. And second, a rat's a rat, no matter how cute of a name you try to give him.

What else? Bonnie and Ray left for the States on Friday, despite the scare we tried to pull off in attempting to convince them they weren't booked to leave until April 15th. Entertainment has to come from somewhere when you're in Haiti, come on now. It'll be a bit of a sad and lonely month without them, but they also need the time back in the States to be refreshed and filled. Their absence has left me in charge of little Mr. Jantze (the Tiny Terror 3-year-old). The past 2 nights have been lots of thrashing and kicking and face-slapping and snotty boogers on my pillow, which is awesome. But I woke up this morning to little hands on my face and a voice whispering, "Eenna, Eenna." in my ear. It's moments like those that I will cling to when the tantrums rage and the sleepless nights catch up with me and there's another poopy diaper to change and nap time ends too soon.

Right now there's the hum of the fan and a fast-asleep little head pressed against my legs and my thoughts in a complete disarray from the past week. It's late and this is mostly rambling and oh friends, where do I even begin?

I came across a quote by John Piper a few weeks ago that has struck a chord deep within me. "Fight for us, O God, that we not drift numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter about the porch of eternity." Perhaps this week more than any, I have sensed the realness of heaven and hell and eternity. All around us wages a battle unseen for the souls of every one of us walking this earth. It's a vicious battle, and there's a prowling enemy ready to pounce and attack at any given moment. He knows our weaknesses, what trips us up, what causes us to doubt in our great and good God, and what leaves us terror-struck. 

I am distracted all too easily. This world that is fading fast is so tangible-- I can touch it and see it and smell it and hear it. Heaven and hell and eternity seem like a far-off dream in comparison. I live like I belong to this world, to the here and the now; not that I have been, in fact, made for an entirely different world. But the truth is that we were made to dwell here for just a short time, because this world is not our home. We were meant to be people with a heavenly mindset-- looking expectant towards eternity and such a glorious day, and doing our best to further His kingdom here on earth in the meantime. We are made to be a people all about the kingdom of God.

And there's an enemy whose only goal is to keep us from that.

In a place where voodoo ceremonies and crazy holidays and witchdoctors run rampant, one can hardly deny the battle that rages in the unseen. Sin is enslaving, lies leave you in bondage, and the hatred of our enemy is a strong force. There is no subtleness about it here. I think of all that God and His kingdom are about-- light, truth, love, mercy, compassion, kindness, redemption, forgiveness, freedom. As Christ-followers, we are ones who should know the depths of this, because we have been set free by Him. As Christ-followers, we are the ones who proclaim this message to an enslaved, hopeless, hell-bound world. As Christ-followers, we should sense the direness of it, because we are the hope on earth.

I love the quote from C.S. Lewis's "The Weight of Glory" (so much that it's on the side of this blog). The words are ones I long to have shape every interaction, every conversation, every moment of my days. The idea of it is overwhelming: that each person I look at and see is a soul that will either spend eternity basking in the goodness and the love of our God, or a soul that is eternally damned, forever separated from all He is. And how am I helping this person in front of me now to know of His goodness and the life He offers? 

I pray to grasp the direness and the realness of the battle that rages on, that I would not be so easily distracted by empty excitements. I know without Him, I would drift along numb and blinded in oblivion, ravaged by sin and the effects of evil. If I were to attempt to fight in my own power, it would quickly end with my defeat. But thankfully, we can know the One who is the Great Victor. And in our weakness and dependency, we can pray:

Fight for us, O God…