on crazy hope and the champion speller

The recess bell rings, and he runs to me, his excitement growing with each step. “Hannah! Hannah!” out of breath he yells. I look at him, “Yes, Carl?” the sight of his state brings a smile to my face. “Hannah, I got 100 on my spelling today!” he announces proudly, head held high. The feelings that flood my heart in that moment are hard to describe—pride and excitement most assuredly, but even those words don’t quite capture it. It’s a feeling too sweet for words to even express, which makes it all the more beautiful.

My first week here I watched him struggle to pay attention through class. I watched him choose his bicycle over his spelling homework. I watched as he daydreamed through math and spelling and Bible and singing. And I watched as –unsurprisingly- he failed the spelling test he chose not to study for all week.

I found him on Saturday afternoon that first week. “Carl,” I say as we walked in our usual way, his arm wrapped around my waist, mine resting on his shoulders, “This upcoming week, we are going to study your spelling words.” I stare at him, trying to read the look about his face. “We are going to study so hard, you will get only minus two!” I speak with more determination and faith than I feel. “Ok Hannah,” he says, “Okay.”

That next week I watch him. On Monday I watch him copy the words from the blackboard diligently. On Tuesday I watch him run up to me after class, notebook pages flying, yelling, “Spell me! Spell me!” On Wednesday the sun beats our shoulders brown, and I watch him spell all his words right as sweat dripped from his brow. And on Thursday, I watch him be one of the fastest spellers in the class. And oh, Friday… Friday I watch his face as the teacher pinned his spelling test to the wall. 100% for Carl.

He looks at me with a smile that melts my heart. We walk the compound later that day, hand-in-hand. “I am so proud of you,” I tell him, stopping to look him in the eyes. “You studied and you studied hard and you got 100!" I bend to my knees, eye-to-eye with this little boy. "You’re my champion speller.” He looks at me, “Champion speller...” The words roll in his mouth, as if he were tasting them, “Champion speller.”

Some days I wonder what I’m doing here. More often than not, I feel so unqualified, like I’m in way over my head. And more often still, I get lost in my doubts, choosing to believe I don’t have the experience or the knowledge or the education or the years to be of good help. What can you do?  the whisper at the back of my mind growing stronger, more urgent. You’re 20. A child. And you think you can have some sort of impact here? You’re such a fool.

There are days I believe the doubts, days I get caught up believing I am of no use here, days I believe I should just board a plane back home, because what can a 20-year-old do for a place like this? There are days I let that voice get the best of me and immobilize me until I really am useless, selfishly stuck in my own self-doubt.

But another voice whispers, a voice of Truth and Love; and some days, I choose to listen to It, to not turn a deaf ear towards It. And I remember my little Champion Speller. Sweet child of Mine, you are more valuable and useful than your own eyes can see. At His voice, the doubts and the insecurities fall silent. He tells me, tenderly and gently, that His power can be at work through me. That He longs to use you, me, all of us… no matter how under-qualified or inexperienced or young or old we think we may be. I’m tired of believing lies, rendering myself useless to Him in the process. My heart is alive in this moment, wildly so. Full of the imagination of what we –His beloved children- could be used for, if only we would stop believing the lies, and start believing Him. Today I’m choosing to believe this hope… this crazy, beautiful hope.

on daily happenings and photographs

This place is stealing a bit more of my heart every day I am here. My days here are so ordinary in some ways- multiplication tables and spelling words and kids and more laughter than imaginable. Here are just a few photos of daily happenings around here and the precious kids I am falling in love with.

My view from the balcony in the mornings. God is so incredible.

School-time for the 1st and 2nd graders.

Crazy children, loving on their puppies. 

Countless loads of laundry hanging on the line.

Two crazy sweethearts, being goofy.

Silly self-ies and not-quite-ripe mangos and one very energetic kid.

"Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God?" -Psalm 77:13

on the past 2 weeks

I’ve been out at an orphanage in Limbe for the past week and a half, and haven’t had internet. But hooray- I have internet now! So this blogpost is a combination of journal pages, letters to home, and prayer journal entries combined.

October 19^th, 2013

It’s 7 o’clock in the evening and I’m sitting at an orphanage in Limbe. There’s a long wooden table, two bunk beds, cement flooring, a kitchen full of ants. And I have no idea what I am doing here. I don’t know how I fit in here, with these squishy homes and crumbling cement buildings and beautiful mountaintops. I'm doubting everything that has happened leading up to this point, if I truly heard Him right, if I really should be here. But His ways are not my ways, nor His plans my plans, and so I am learning to trust, trust, trust. It is a hard yet beautiful place to be.

The drive here was absolutely gorgeous—mountains and bridges and water and rice fields. Absolutely breathtaking, the beauty of this place. On one side of you is creation so incredible, and on the other side is a poverty so great it is devastating. Two-story cement buildings –that look on the verge of falling down—are homes to countless families here. Scrap metal roofing and gates and dirt roads and piles of garbage. Women hauling water, children walking without shoes, men pushing heavy wheelbarrow loads. It’s too much for a mind to comprehend.

The children at this orphanage are adorable, exhausting and crazy, but adorable. They call me “Hannah”, well except for the one boy who likes to call me “Blanc!” (meaning white. haha) because it has turned into a funny joke for the two of us. The goal is to give these children a safe place to grow up, to teach them and feed them and show them the love of God. And also to prepare them for a life in Haiti once they are old enough. God is doing such incredible things with this ministry here and with this couple running it. I am so thankful, to be here to have have the opportunity to be such a small part of this place for the next 2 months.

October 23^nd 2013

It’s one of those mornings, where “Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus” is on repeat in iTunes, and I need to hear it multiple times this morning while sipping my morning coffee. It’s also one of those mornings where I need coffee. Haha. Praying that from sin and self, I can cease. And simple take life and rest and joy and peace from Him who is all that, and so much more. 

The day holds spelling words and multiplication tables and a room full of kindergarteners who will fight for my attention and want help with homework and need more than I can give. We will review at, man, kind, small, boy, tall, new.. we will go over multiplication tables and get the numbers mixed up, we'll read and re-read the same stories and sing the same songs and, Lord, I'm too empty to make it through this day.  But You are enough to fill me and meet my needs, so that I can then be used by You to meet theirs. Let Your grace fall, let it fall on us like rain.

October 24^th, 2013

Yesterday started with me waking up with the kids’ cold. Fun stuff. It was bound to happen eventually, when you hang out with 30 kids who are all coughing and sniffling. At least they are cute :) Last night was mostly spent tossing and turning. Dogs barking and howling literally All. Night. Long.  And unless the sun makes a brief appearance at 1 in the morning, I have no clue why roosters were clucking back and forth in conversation. The power went out again (like usual) and I woke up (like usual) in a hot, stuffy room drenched in sweat. To top it all off, a mosquito -who managed to squeeze his way into the teeny tiny opening of my netting- was buzzing in my ear all night. And when it’s you v.s. a mosquito in the dark at 2 a.m. your chances are catching and killing him are about one in seven hundred and eighty five thousand. It was at about that point I succumbed to the fact that for the night, sleep had eluded me and a mosquito would feast on my blood all night and there was nothing I could do about any of it. Needless to say, this morning I’ve been moving at the speed of a turtle with dark circles around my eyes, clutching a cup of coffee like my life depends on it.

 But despite the horrible night, the extra bug bites, and the nasty cold, I can honestly say that here I am happy. These kids, they keep me laughing and exhausted all day long. They fill my heart, they make me dream, they teach me, and usually they are just plain ole nuts. These days are an absolutely beautiful mess of crazy chaos, and I wouldn't change any of it.

October 27^th, 2013

The goodness of the Lord is bringing me to my knees tonight, so humbled and grateful. In the past week, I have witnessed His faithfulness. His grace has been sufficient and has carried me. His love has been constant, even in the moments He has seemed distant, He has never left. Tonight my heart will sing His praises.

I have had days here where I don’t know how I will wake up in the morning, nights I have cried to be home in my bed, under the same roof as my family, with the comforts my flesh is longing for. But I have had days where the sun beats on my back and children whisper secrets in my ear and tiny humans sit on my lap and little arms wrap around my neck and someone is shouting, “Hannah! Hannah!” and our laughter rings loudly and my heart is so full.

Tonight, a girl sits on her bunk bed in a small town in Haiti while the lights flicker and crickets sing and a stiff breeze blows, and the goodness of the Lord is not lost on her. She is recounting the past few weeks, and all that has happened and all He has whispered to her. “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” (Psalm 34:8) He is good, friends; He is so good.

For the past 21 days, my soul has been taking refuge in Him. And tonight, I have tasted and I have seen and I know this-- He is good. Tomorrow His mercies will come with the sunrise, fresh and new and beautiful. No matter what the day holds -whether it’s the happiest of laughter or the bitterest of tears- He will be faithful again. He will love us again. And He will be so good, again.

Thank You, Lord. For You are Who You say You are, and that is more than enough. 

haitian school days

It's 7:20 in the morning, but from the looks of the traffic, you would guess it to be about 5 o'clock in the evening. The chaos only builds as the car gets closer and closer to town-- motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic, horns honking, children running, people walking. "And this is really good traffic," she tells me. The car pulls up to a two-story building, identical to the cement buildings surrounding it in this packed-tight city. I get out of the car, stepping careful to avoid the dark gray muck that fills the trench barely an inch from my sandaled-feet.

We open the iron gate, surrounded by white and red uniforms and hair bows and black school shoes and crying babies. "Bonjour! Bonjour!" One of the few words of Haitian-Creole I know... Good morning. I follow her through the small school. "We don't have power," she says, "So the downstairs classrooms are dark. But our teachers do a great job." There's the baby classroom, where big round tears roll down the 3-year-old's cheeks. There's the table and the chairs for the first graders, the wooden benches in the 2nd grade classroom, the sunlight streaming through the back window. The downstairs floor of this schoolhouse about the size of my living room and dining room back home.

Outside in the front again, I blink back the bright sunlight. Children are filing in, and we sing the national anthem as the flag raises. Footsteps pound and backpacks shuffle and babies cry as the children make their way to their classrooms. We go upstairs, the staircase on the outside of the building, stepping up the cement steps and gripping the iron railings as the street grows small beneath us. The school doubles as a church, and upstairs benches are scattered; half to one end of the room, half to the other. She dusts off the green chalkboard, dust flying everywhere. "Bonjour!" She speaks in a rush of words I can't understand, my desire to learn this language increasing with each word she speaks. This 4th grade class of 10 children pull out their notebooks with yesterday's homework. She's here to teach English, and today we're working on colors. Blue and green and orange and pink crayons roll across the benches; we match the right colors with the right words. Memorize, memorize, memorize.

Downstairs she leaves me with a room of second graders. I hold up a pencil, staring at a classroom of kids. "English?" I ask. Children giggle. "English?" I ask again. Finally the boy in the front row pipes up, "Penciiiil." he says. I smile, relieved. "Piiin." she says, when I told up a pen. We smile. I hold up a ruler to a room of blank stares. "Ruler." I say. "Ruler." they repeat. We start again, with the pencil. Teacher Jane comes back to work on words... a, at, and, an, am. The room splits into two lines, I point to the words, they read them back. He looks at my finger on the chalkboard, and then looks at me. "At," his little friend whispers from behind. I shake my head, trying not to smile. He smiles proudly as he says, "At,"

Upstairs again the 3rd graders are practicing for Monday's exam. A, at, and an, am, you, girl, boy, me the words are on the chalkboard. We practice writing them, we practice spelling them. We practice simple commands. "All boys stand up." "All girls sit down." "Raise your hand." "Open your book." The children laugh when a boy stands up at the wrong time. "Are you a boy?" Teacher Jane asks, "You fi?" laughter erupts in the schoolroom. By the end of the morning, I have learned to say, "Mwen rele Anna," Creole for: my name is Anna. And "Sheetah!" or: sit down.

The morning runs late, the lunch bell is going to ring soon. "Finish finish!" she says. The children are writing thank you cards to a church in the States who sent school supplies for the new year... notebooks, binders, pencils, crayons, rulers, pens. The church is raising money to provide electricity for the school next. Papers are collected and crayons picked up off the floor. We pack our things. "Thank you!" the children call and wave. The lunch bell rings and the children unpack their lunches as we walk down the steps, the whizzing of the motorcycles and the noise of the traffic and voices of the people rush around us.

Across the street a man cooks hot dogs, down the road the buildings turn to scrap metal. Children laugh, women hang the wash, men walk down the street. The car bumps down the road filled with more potholes than road, or so it seems at times. I look out the window, taking in the sights around me. Welcome to Haiti.

hello from haiti

Hello from Haiti! My flight left Florida yesterday morning around 7 a.m. and -after refueling in the Bahamas- we landed in Haiti late-morning. Such a short flight compared to the two 8-hour plane rides I'm used to taking to Uganda!

I don't have too exciting of an update to post for you just yet, as I am spending the next few days simply settling in and enjoying being with Don and Karen- who are the sweetest of people. But I am so excited to be here, and although I don't know yet what God intends to do with my time here, I know it will be wonderful. 

Thanks so much for all the prayers, and the emails and messages with encouraging words. You guys are so wonderful :) 

home

Home. Bittersweet. Right now, mostly sweet. And cold, really freaking cold. Thank you for all your prayers!
Feeling so thankful and so blessed,
Anna

to call this bittersweet

So thankful, sweet friends, for your extra prayers and words of encouragement this week, 

for your love that bridges oceans and countries, for the way you have supported me these past 6 months, for the love and grace you've shown my underserving self, for the way you've been the body of Christ to me, for so many things I will never be able to express. My heart is breaking at the goodbyes that are to take place tomorrow, but even in the midst of such heartbreak, I am also so thankful.

See you soon, Chicago.. see you soon.

"And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen." -1 Peter 5:10-11