Grace for today

    I don’t remember if I mentioned it, but for the last few weeks I have been the only American in our house. Ed has been in the States and I have been managing more on my own than I have before. This has been one of those things that I  think I will look back on as having been a wise decision, but in the moment it is hard. I have never lived in a situation where there is no one to talk to, because I can’t talk to them, or where I am in any way responsible for teenagers. Both of those things are a large part of my life right now.  

     I am also right in the middle of what I what I am thinking of as the calm before the storm. Starting the end of this month we will have back to back teams for something like six weeks straight. Maybe longer. I have lost track at this point. Things will be busy and crazy and hot, so I am taking the time to enjoy this period where things are just hot.

    There are so many moments to savor in this new life I have been given. Learning to cook Haitian food and laughing with the girls who live here over how I get food on my clothes. Every. Single. Time.  Or how I am too short to see what’s cooking on the stove without a stool. The little tiny girl who is not afraid to climb up in my arms and the mama who loves her.   My favorite cherries, a gift from that same mama.  Bandaging wounds while five kids look over my shoulder and hang on my arm. Having simple conversations in Kreyol and following them (I think). The boy who comes to our house almost every day and the kindness with which he treats his little sister. Sitting on the floor of the girls’ room talking about what we are going to wear tomorrow. I wouldn't trade these moments for anything. They fill my heart.

    I look forward to when Ed gets back and I am no longer the only American here, to easily understood conversations and not being in charge of teenagers in any significant, but in my anticipation for that time I pray I don’t miss the grace that is in front of me.

Ofisye

      Yesterday we went to one of my very favorite places, a neighborhood I have visited off and on since my first trip to Haiti almost twelve years ago. This is the neighborhood I always hoped we would go to when visiting Haiti on college spring breaks and it is one of two places that began to solidify for me the hope of one day making a life in this country, meeting healthcare needs.

   Visiting in Ofisye is so many things. It is the familiar heartache of learning about another mama-less little girl. It is mango-sticky fingers slipped in mine and “Blan!” shouted down the beach. It is pebbles in my shoes as I jump streams, stubbornly insisting I can do it. It is blood pressure checks on dear older adults and desperate prayers for wisdom when those numbers read too high. It is ibuprofen when a tooth really needs to be pulled. It is pulling sticks out of feet, for once grateful for tough skin, while hoping infection does not set in. It is gifts of mangoes and hands running through my hair. It is words and questions repeated because I don’t understand the first time. It is laughter all around when I sing children’s songs. It is falling on my butt because we thought it would be a good idea to let one of the girls carry me piggyback down the path. It is tiny twins jumping around, laughing one minute and angrily throwing sand at each other the next. It is little ones in my lap, held tight, with prayers whispered over them.  It is the tension between wanting to health care needs met and being terrified of reinforcing dependency. It is beautiful and precious and hard.

    Friends, will you join with me in prayers for Ofisye. Pray for Wancheez who got the stick in her foot yesterday, and that she heals without infection setting in. Pray for justice for these people, that physical and spiritual needs would be answered in ways that do not steal their dignity. Pray for me as I learn to navigate these relationships. Thank you.

Pride and Mangoes

                Delightfully, it is mango season around here. Mangoes of many kinds are everywhere and it is wonderful. I have been watching the fruit on the tree in our backyard grow since I got here in January, so I was pretty excited when they started ripening enough for us to eat them. They have been every bit as delicious as I was anticipating, although I have yet to eat one without getting at least some of it on my clothes. We joke that I eat mangoes like a baby. People in the neighborhoods we visit have been giving us bags and bags of mangoes as well. There is something humbling about receiving a bag of mangoes so heavy it takes two people to carry it from someone who, to my American thinking has so little.

I heard a number of negative opinions of the Haitian people when I was getting ready to come down here. Some perceptions came from the media, some from people who have only been down here long enough not to realize how much they do not know about this culture. I am not so naïve as to say something ridiculous like “all Haitians are generous and giving” or some such nonsense. I have no right to characterize all Haitian people as anything (other than Haitian). At the same time I want you all to see how the people I am coming to know, who I hope to be truly friends with one day, can be generous and giving, can share what they have with others.

                I am chastened a bit every time we are handed another bag of fruit from our friends. I catch myself falling into the trap of characterizing poverty as a physical lack, of thinking that the want of material things I see around me means that the people here have less to give me than I to give them. And I know better. I KNOW better. The people I am getting to know take resilience to a level I cannot fathom. Without making them seem overly simple, they know how to smile and survive in a way that I simply do not. Every time they share their mangoes, or coconuts or their homes with me a bit of my pride and sinful thinking can be chipped away, as I seek to appreciate what they can give in this relationship.

                So, will you join me in prayers of gratitude for mangoes? I’m kidding. Sort of. Seriously though, will you join me in praying against my own pride getting in the way of relationships with the people I am getting to know, and for blessings over them as they seek to give to us? Thank you.

Language Learning

   I spent the first twenty-five years of my life taking for granted the ability to just chat with the people around me. It was not as though my introverted self walked around striking up conversations with strangers, but I could have. If I wanted to. In this new life of mine almost every conversation is a mental effort. Day in and day out I wrestle to understand what’s being said around me, confused over meaning, sentence structure, pronunciation. On Friday I tried to ask one of the girls who lives here if her sore throat had improved. What I actually said, while stroking my neck, was “is your cup better?” Thankfully her father understood the context clues and answered my actual question (after a few surprised looks).

  I have learned a lot since January, but I think the thing about living in another country, another culture is that the more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know. Does that make sense? Before I came down here I thought I knew in the abstract how important language learning would be. I saw it as one of my first tasks, after all how can I love well people I cannot talk to? Now that I am here, the need to talk, to communicate, is both tangible and acute.

   The people I live with are so wonderful to me as I learn. Their grace as I string together grammatically incorrect sentences, their kindness as they parse what I am trying to say and their patience as they repeat vocabulary words to me (again) are precious. There is something beautiful about the kingdom of God and learning to love your neighbor in all of this, but it can be hard for me to see it when I just want to know how far away the market we are walking to is.

  Rationally, I know it is ridiculous to be expecting myself to speak Kreyol like a native when I have only been here since January. I keep reminding myself of that fact, but there are SO many things I just want to be able to ask people. I want to talk to the women in the neighborhoods we visit about their children, their daily schedules, what they think about life and health. I want to ask kids how school was, what their day was like, what songs and foods they like or do not like. I am learning to string some of those sentences together, but I am impatient, dreaming of the day the words flow off of my tongue intelligibly.

   Will you join me in praying for grace in language learning? That I would work hard, while giving myself grace, and for grace for those are wrestling to understand me as well. Thanks friends.

Pictures from Wancheez

 
  This afternoon I went to one of my favorite neighborhoods and actually remembered to use my camera instead of just lugging it around everywhere.A girl from the neighborhood we were in took most of these pictures. I was not expecting great results, since the kids were running around all over the place, but I was really pleased with how most of them came out. I was excited about that, plus the fact that I figured out how to share pictures in this space, (for a technology-challenged girl like me, it’s a big deal) so I decided to post some of my favorites from the day.

Disclaimer: I am pretty certain I have not spelled any of these names correctly. I am working off of what I heard phonetically, and still getting the hang of spelling in this new language. Sorry!

The little girl in the middle, and the little one on the right are twins. Valencia and Evancia. We had two sets of twins on the beach with us today. 

Betsaida! Looking so happy and healthy! It was actually her older sister who took these pictures.

Betsaida's other sister, Jusnyka. Love her pose!

It was a pretty great afternoon. 

Wancheez, our photographer. (Actually, I took this pic.)

   Will you join me in praying for these precious kids? They matter. They matter to me, but more importantly they are so precious in the sight of my God. Will you join me in praying that they come to know how beloved they are to him, and that their lives would reflect that knowledge? Thank friends!

Tarantulas!

 Apparently these can be found in the area behind our house.

It's probably better I didn't know that before I moved here.

First day back

    I returned to Haiti Monday after being gone just over three weeks. I am so very happy to be back. I wrestle with how to accurately describe life here in a way that is not disrespectful to those who live it. I can be tempted for the sake of the story, and for drama to focus on the most dramatic suffering or poverty. That part of the story can have the greatest emotional impact, and I believe it is important to share the difficult parts of how these people live. At the same time, it can be easy for those of us who are used to North American standards of living to be so overwhelmed by the harshness and otherness (if that’s a word?) of life here that that is all we see, missing the other parts of the story. Does that make sense?

   Okay, all of that being said, I want to tell you a little bit about Nan Banan, the neighborhood we visited yesterday afternoon. The area was new to me, although I had met some of the kids at our house before.   The road we take to get to the neighborhood fills with trash when it rains. Not just a few pieces here or there, but trash piles up and down the road. The public health nurse in me cringes to see it. Moreover, the people of the neighborhood were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy last fall. Their neighborhood was flooded and people lost homes and belongings. They are still recovering.

   Now comes the fun part. Kids were lining up to greet us even before we parked the car. When we got out we were welcomed with kisses, hugs and exuberance. It was so lovely to be back, surrounded by precious babies, sweating, laughing and wrestling to understand what’s going on around me. I know enough to Creole to make a few jokes with the kids now. Ed brought a recorder and interviewed a few people for his radio program last night. The kids sang a song and shared their names. A couple of adults talked about how the listen to the radio program. I made faces with the kids, we laughed. It was such a precious first visit back, a reminder of why I love it here.

    Will you join with me in thanking God for a smooth return back to Haiti, and in praying for the people of this neighborhood? Pray for them as they rebuild homes and lives after the hurricane, for hope in the midst of their struggles. Thanks friends!