Missions-y Day

So, the thing about not blogging for a while, is that it suddenly becomes a billion times harder to pick out which stories ought to be shared:

Last Sunday we got to share about Haiti and missions with the 4th and 5th graders and then help them to write letters to the Play it Forward soccer teams at HCM. (Yep. We've talked about missions a lot with them this year, but there are a few that eat. it. up. every single time.) You can tell them that you went on your first missions trip when you were twelve, and their eyes light up, already counting the months until ten-years-old becomes twelve.

You give them a list of five things that they can do now to get ready for a future trip and they all watch, trying to second guess what comes next, but one or two of them perk up in their seats, gaze glued to you, keeping track on their fingers so that they don't forget.

One of whom happens to have been one of my kids since he was in Kindergarten, which kind of makes my insides do a little happy dance!

Over the last year they've heard about justice and missions and miracles and the love that only the Holy Spirit can bring, and each time I get a chance to talk to them (each time the crew of not-normal-presenters gets to talk to them) they listen with a few fewer walls up, because, when we say that we serve an awesome God, they are starting to believe us.

*On a funny side note: One of my boys from last year flat out refuses to verbally communicate with me in the hallways, but, almost every week, I will find him standing just behind my elbow, waiting for me to grab the back of his head and bop my hand through his hair. His eyes dance and he smirks up at me like I just gave him a free I*pad... and he runs away before I have a chance to get any farther than, "Hey, you!" He just wants to make sure that I still know he exists.*

And...that evening, we spent the entire night of youth group hearing about ministry trips that people went on and camps that they served at.

It was just a missions-y kind of a day.

Chalking

Thursday we spent time researching some facts on hunger and then took our well used, stubby, little pieces of chalk to some concrete to share what we had learned. (And, somewhere in there, we sang songs from Fiddler on the Roof, missed an exit, dropped one person off to do some yard work for her parents and kidnapped another one - with parental permission.)

Because, well, every other thing that we do seems to involve chalk. And, seeing as it was the hottest day this year, it made perfect sense to be out in the sun...oh, wait. Maybe not. Haha. This is why it is good that I have a group of crazy teenagers!

 

And... the Focus Month group is back in business, trying to take advantage of the last few days (weeks for the girls) of summer break.

Monday we worked to revamp the purchasing system on the Well:Being site so that it has shopping cart functionality. Wednesday we designed business cards for the site and brainstormed some fundraising strategies for that and the care package for human trafficking victims that is still in the works.

Today, only God knows, but I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

Finding God

"You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. " Psalm 16:11

It's so easy to get caught up in what still needs to be done, what isn't happening, the places where there is need upon need. Like Job (One Year Bible anyone??) it's so easy to start asking God, "Why?" "How could you let this be?" "Do you not see what is happening here?"

It's always amazed me, though, how God finally chooses to answer Job. Rather than focusing on wealth or poverty, He stays with Job and explains to Him the wonder of His creation.

This is the God who paints the sky such a bright blue that you want to jump in it, who blows and sends clouds of dust billowing across the desert. This is the God who smudges His finger across the horizon to blend a sunset that dances and changes every minute and who sprinkles rain until grass and trees glow green.

Look around you.

Do you see God?

(Challenge: Write a list of ten ways that you saw God today. Do it for a week. See how your perspective changes.)

Vet! Wouj!

I wish that it had not been too windy for my phone to pick up sound, because this was a very fun moment. If you could suddenly jump inside of one of these pictures, you would see one of the kids who came to Haiti bringing back something that she learned.

In this case, she is teaching a group of Sunday school kids to play Red Light Green Light the way that we played it in Fond Chaval, with Creole words rather than English ones.

Super simple thing to bring back, but this is how you do reentry in a church the size of Bethel. You teach little things in little moments, and then, as you run across your teammates, you tell them about it. Because, Haiti is a part of these kids now, and it does them good to be allowed happy, simple moments that remind them of that.  :)

Small Things

It’s been just about a year since I moved back “home” to the town where I grew up and my family still lives, and the questions are starting to get a little more insistent. “Where are you going next?” “When are you planning to move?” “What are you waiting for?”

They all come (I hope!) from a place of love and curiosity and the funny thrill that we all get from watching someone else do “big things” with their life. And, oh, how I would love to be able to hand them a packet with dates and details. But, the truth is, every time that I ask those same questions of God, I hear His quiet whisper to, “Wait. Stay. Love where I have you.”

And, so, I’m here.

I’m here, letting my breath catch in wonder at the God who is present in all things. He is present in the highschoolers who dump buckets of water on my head and the fourth and fifth graders who glow with pride when I compliment them. He is present when my cluster girls cry and when the Focus Month kids laugh about something that was said weeks before. He is present in Portland and in Haiti and as we draw hundreds of stick figures in the park.

I’m here, falling in love with kids that I didn’t know a year ago, but who I now count as “mine.”

I’m here, watching in awe as the fruit of what I did in middle school and high school stands before my eyes, growing up and growing into the men and women that God designed them to become.

I’m here, looking back and looking forwards and remembering the Mother Theresa quote that says, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

I may not know the answers to the “big things,” or even the medium things, but I can strive to do small things with great love. Because, if there is one thing that I do know, it is that I love these people, and that I love the God who loves them. And…I figure that He’s pretty much got the big things covered.

A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Jesus With Skin On

Monday through Friday, we spent our “mornings” (7:30-3:00, Haitian time) riding in our friend the bus to get the hour and a half/two hours to Fond Chaval, partnering with translators and Sunday school teachers to run a VBS, and then riding back. Some days we got there at 9:00. Some days we got there at 11:00. Every single day there was a crowd of kids waiting for us.

Monday morning, with some of our team still reeling from the wet run VBS on Saturday, was one of those 11:00 days. We pulled into the church to hear the kids already inside, singing away, even singing an English song just for us.

We were a relatively loud team, in a relatively loud country, but Monday morning was one of the calmest, most peaceful, settings that I have ever seen for a VBS. There was a bloody knee and a ripped skirt, but the difference between our leaving moments in Thoman and our leaving moments in Fond Chaval were night and day.
In Fond Chaval, we had the awesome privilege of working with the pastor of the church to figure out how to best make our VBS plans fit into his goals for his church and his children’s discipleship ministry. It wasn’t always perfect. There were moments of miscommunication and times when the high school “small group” leads would turn around and realize that only three of their forty children had actually followed them around the corner. But there were also moments that were very, very good.  

Being the “coach” (the person overall in charge of rotation timing and making sure that things run as smoothly as possible) meant that I got to wander around constantly and see a lot of moments as they happened. And, let me tell you, these high schoolers made a lot of moments happen.
*Rotations were completely dependent on the length of the craft, so the length differed drastically from day to day. We also were operating without watches, which meant that “three minutes” from Jessica could mean just about anything. The teams did an AMAZING job, despite all of that. And, the craft team were heroes, working every day inside of a hot – some days very musically loud – building. They rocked it.*
On Tuesday (?), I walked around the corner of the church to the front games station. Last time I had been there, they had been finished with their planned game and trying to come up with something to fill the rest of the time (common occurrence). This time, though, one of the teenagers stops me before I can tell them to rotate with, “Wait! You have to see this! This is brilliant!”

He squats down on a rocky, dusty field, across from a line of squatting children, and, at his call of, “Ale!” (“go!”), they all start bouncing towards him like an oversized frog race. Within seconds, he is on the ground, eyes sparkling, covered in children who are grinning at him like their favorite uncle has come to town.

This is Jesus with skin on.
Early in the week, one of the teenagers told me he was “frustrated”  with not being able to understand the kids or be understood by them. (Jessica’s favorite question for the week was, “How are you doing?” The great thing about teenagers is that they’re fairly likely to give you an honest answer.) Literally, he was oozing with the longing to just communicate.

The next thing I knew, he had learned the words for “red” and “green” and had forty laughing kids running at him, playing Red Light Green Light.

By Friday, just about every kid there knew his name.

This is Jesus with skin on.
Every time that I would turn around, there was a blanc bent down, listening as hard as they could while a kid whispered in their ear. When I would come up and ask, they would point to individual faces and tell me names that twisted up their tongues just trying to repeat, and each kid would look up and grin.

In the bus, on the way home, they would talk about who was and wasn’t there that day. Because, even though the small groups were different every morning, they paid attention and kept track of “their kids.”

This is Jesus with skin on.
By half way through the week, our team was drooping with exhaustion, but they walked into that church every day already smiling, clapping, dancing and “singing” along with whatever songs our amazing music translators decided to use. They slid into rows with kids or into their place in front to lead songs and poured every bit of energy that they shouldn’t have had into words and motions (that, for the large part, we still don’t understand!).

They kept it up for hours and then melted onto the edge of the stage when the last of the kids had filed out the door, suddenly remembering that they were tired and sick and emotionally wrung out.

This is Jesus with skin on.

One of the girls stayed back with a lady leader on Monday morning, because she had been our throwing up child the night before. Instead of moping about staying behind or doing what she might have wanted to do, she (they) spent the morning repairing eighty gallon bags of too-soft pay dough and then met us at the bus, ready and eager to hear all of our stories.

They smiled and laughed and didn’t complain about missing it. They let their eyes light up with our excitement and let themselves be infused with our desire to have them meet these amazing kids.

They served us without expecting thanks.

This is Jesus with skin on.
   
200 kids smiled at us and laughed with (and at) us as we attempted to speak Creole. They held our hands and sat on our laps. They crowed around us to see the pictures that we had taken, and they made sure that all of the little ones and the shy ones got pictures too. They waved and shouted and ran after the bus as we left every day. They tugged on our arms and called our names. They taught us new words and they greeted us with hugs and music.

Because, every single one of these kids was Jesus with skin on to us.

Sunday “Rest”

After a more than slightly special evening (Did I mention triggers out the wazoo?!?) we woke up on Sunday morning ready to roll out for church in the village where we would be VBSing for the rest of the week. And, by morning, I literally mean between the hours of 4:30 and 5:30am. Sunlight, roosters, and early morning worship music will do wonders to a teenager’s sleep cycle.

The good thing about mornings is that, if you’ve dealt with God before you fall asleep, they’re brand spanking new, and it’s a total chance to start again.

For our team, this was a new morning.

*Please note that, on the second night, we literally were re-arranging mattresses like tetris blocks to get everyone into the space. Slightly hilarious, especially after so many ministry trips where even seeing the opposite gender in their sleep clothes would have been just this side of an abomination.*

We piled onto the bus that was soon to become a very familiar acquaintance and drove a hot, windy, bumpy, excited, two hours to the service. And then, we got to play the ‘stand up, sit down, bow your head, clap your hands, open your eyes, say halleluiah/amen, shake hands with your neighbor’ game while only vaguely understanding every sixth word that was being said. …Kind of like playing Simon Says in Creole, “Simon says, ‘clap for the visitors.’ Oh. You weren’t supposed to clap for yourself! You’re out.”

Our youth pastor gave the message, so we did understand part of it. :) And, it didn’t stop us from trying to translate for each other when we did (sort of) understand what was going on!

Service was awesome, though, slightly Kenyan in format, but very different in feel from anything in G-town. Lighter? Less desperate? Less combative? More…joyful? I don’t really know how to put it onto words. I would love to have some of these kids come to G-town someday and see what kind of words they put to it.


I won’t try to speak for every Haitian church, but this one is alive and well and on a mission to the people around them. (Medical outreaches from the church to surrounding mountain villages, Sunday school teachers who know and love the kids, people who are willing and ready to serve, etc)

Late that afternoon, after several hours of sorting through VBS supplies and more donations than it seems like we could have possibly carried with us, prepping play dough and lion puppet crafts, and taking a side trip out to see the houses that Bethel teams/funds are helping to build, we took the chance to go swim in the lake. (Any excuse for the girls to not have to wear skirts! Lol.)

It is one of the world’s few salt water lakes and has, apparently, been rising steadily since the earthquake for reasons that no one can quite figure out. Consequently, there are palm trees in the water and even more palm stumps waiting just below the surface. 

It turned out to be the only chance we got in a packed schedule, so we were glad we took it!
Had we jumped from Saturday to Monday, the trip might have been a nightmare, but God is good, and He knew just the kind of “rest” we needed.

Sunday evening included more trips to the clinic for allergies, asthma, and one throwing up child, all of which had zero to do with travelers’ illnesses and everything to do with pre-existing conditions. (We love cleaning up vomit! Oh. Wait. Nope. We’re just good at it.)

Two homesick, crying girls, (both of whom were the sort to be fairly sensitive to the remaining tension in the group) but, if every night were the same, we might start to get complacent.

And, as I reminded them that night during debrief, after a few moments where the air was tight with the knowledge that ‘we are lying through our teeth about the dynamic of team relationships right now, but we don’t know how to fix it,’ everything that they had done up to that point was HARD WORK, even just being in a new culture or in a new team of people is HARD WORK.

Being triggered and reacting in fight-flight-freeze was/is normal. It’s not a sin unless you never let go and let God deal with it. It’s only a problem when you let yourself believe the lies that the Enemy tries to tell you because of it. 

No matter what stories I may type, I was/am ridiculously, incredibly, unbelievably proud of these kids and the entire team. They have no idea how amazing they are.

To My Sunday School Kids: Part Five

K: You came in this spring, absolutely terrified of getting lost in such a big church with so many people. We kept you close and slowly drew you out of your shell. (Okay. We also might have thrown a few chunks of donuts at you, but, hey, we got a smile.) Watch out, or you're going to have an awful lot of girls chasing after that sweet smile of yours. You shook like a leaf when I first brought you into middle school group, couldn't even remember your parents' names past the stress. But, I've been in your shoes, kiddo, and, believe me, you have the power to change the world.

JN: Not to use the same adjective for so many very different kids, but, you, ma'am, are determined. It rushes off of you in waves, the sense that you are not going to stop until you've got it right - even if right is something that only you can see. You pop in and out like a natural, but, unlike some of the other kids in our group, you're not here because you need us. You're simply here because you can be. We're glad, though, that you've decided to grace us with the gift of your presence, and we wouldn't trade you for anything.

SH: You and JN are my little peas in a pod. Every time I turn around, you're there, holding onto the tail of my shirt and just bopping along like it is the most natural thing in the world. You're just like that, always smiling, always happy on the outside - and almost always happy on the inside too. You don't need us either. But, we need your sunshine just like we need JN's determination. Without even realizing it, you fill in some of the gaps and the hurt places that the other kids have, and you make us better. 

J: This hasn't been an easy year for you, but, ever so s.l.o.w.l.y, we are starting to see the ghost of a smile touch your lips, and your eyes slip up more often to meet mine, like you're no longer afraid of the connection. Even though they rarely hear your voice or catch your gaze, there is something about you that makes the other kids pay attention. When you're gone, it's like we reversed gravity and forgot to tell them. Someday, J, you are going to do things so big that you surprise even yourself.

Orphanage

Late Saturday afternoon (after culture classes, compound tours, last minute VBS, and soccer and crafts with kids on the compound) we went to visit an orphanage connected with HCM. There are nine children living with one amazingly loving mama, two bio kids and seven that have come to live there since the earthquake.




They were sweet and happy and, not unexpectedly, far too willing to cling to new people and soak up all the non-mama attention they could get. (And, I was impressed with how many of our kids cued into that as not a healthy thing.)
 
The baby in particular, Gigi, who everyone back at the compound is love with as well, registered on everyone’s cute-o-meter, and even the sweaty from soccer boys wanted a chance to hold her and, of course, get a picture.

She was sweet. They like babies. Their moms like pictures of them holding babies. There is nothing different or culturally confusing about a baby. Logical course of action at the end of a long day. (And, I love the
 smiles on their faces that come through in the pictures. Can you not tell that they adore her?)

 

[blunt honesty]

Happy moment for the rest of the team. Trigger moment for Jessica, who is suddenly back in South Africa in a “cultural village” (Dinseyland, but with “natives” on display instead of Minnie Mouse), watching as a white (non-English speaking) tourist, who has taken pictures with every prop she can get her hands on, bends down and scoops up a black baby, nearly as old as the ones I have been living and working with in Kenya, posing for a photo as if it were a tourist attraction and not a child, old enough that it ought to have an opinion, with a mother who is sitting mere feet away watching mutely, helpless to do anything if she wants to keep her job.

*Our kids were thinking NOTHING of the sort, but the human brain doesn't register that sort of thing in fight or flight mode, so I spent much of our time at the orphanage trying to smile at our kids, encourage them, and bite back the familiar feeling of mute, helpless, horror.*

From the ‘what was going on inside of me’ perspective…not my favorite moment of the trip.

But, it was a good, hands on reminder that we were putting twenty-three people through trauma, and there were going to be a heck a lot of triggers before we got done with this.

10 days worth of possible triggers * 23 people = much potential drama and re-entry shock.

[/blunt honesty]
 

Test Run

Saturday afternoon we put all of those last minute planning skills that we have perfected in Eastern Washington to good use, running a one day VBS that we had learned about the night before.

“It will just be a dry run for you.” The American lady who was our boss for the first two days assured us. “Bring enough stuff for 30-50 kids.”

So, after a brief powwow and some prayer, we yanked open the suitcases (that the boys had more or less separated into “VBS supplies” and “non-VBS supplies” while the girls were having a brief cultural orientation from an experienced short termer who happened to be on the compound), grabbed enough snack and craft for 100 kids – just in case – built pharaoh’s beard out of duct tape and construction paper, picked out a few props, and made a poster of the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross.

15 minutes active prep time, tops. 

We piled back into the vans from the day before and bounced up a dirt and rock road for 45 minutes to a mountain village called Thoman (Toe-ma) where HCM has recently started working.

With approximately 0.5 seconds to orient themselves, the song team jumped right in, and…experienced the ever popular phenomena known as “watch, slightly puzzled, while the Americans attempt to sing in Creole.” Which, was not quite the reception they were hoping for.

But, they pulled it off valiantly and segued into the story team (who got their first ever experience of working with a translator…we like active learning around here, apparently!). The Israelites escaped. The Red Sea swallowed the Egyptians. And, all of the children stood on tip toes, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of Pharaoh’s dead army laying on the ground. 

As we went, the children continued to trickle into the church and trickle into the church, until we hit a head count of well over the hundred we had prepared for.

Half of the many children stayed inside to work on a coloring sheet and the other half went to games. Somehow, two of our kids managed to convey Sharks and Minnows with very few words (and, occasionally without a translator!), another set explained relay races, and we managed to not permanently injure anyone . And, we learned some of our first non-greeting Creole words: copy, go, quickly, and sit.

Largely, it became a game of ‘watch the blanc (white person) and do what they do.’

There is, however, no way of magically turning 100 coloring sheets into 150 (200?), so, at the rotation, we found ourselves on the concrete floor of the church, using a pocket knife to cut the Red Sea into enough pieces for everyone to draw on something. Okay. Not what we were expecting. But we can handle that. We’ll just have to be a little more creative on Monday, when we run this same story in a different village, seeing as we no longer have any blue butcher paper. No big deal.

Then, snack passing out time hit, and all of our plans for an orderly line out the door dissipated as a torrential downpour broke loose and the inside of the church turned to twilight.

Nearly two hundred children + a snack team that is beyond jet lagged and on emotional, sensory, and cultural overload = a complete inability to recall which children have or have not gotten a peanut butter cracker.

Over the roar of rain on a tin roof, the children were standing up, trying to get our attention, “Blanc! Blanc!” The mamas were doing their level best to make sure that all of their children got a snack, and the most commonly heard word from the Americans and translators was, “Chita!” (she-tah). “Sit!”

Most of our team did exactly what their survival instincts were telling them to do in a situation where what looks like a mob of people (even if they are smaller than you) are in an enclosed space, yelling things at you that you don’t understand, and pinching and biting you; they huddled in the back of the church, slightly out of the press, trying, without realizing it, to be invisible.

Had I been fifteen, never out of America before, and in the same situation, I would have done the same thing.

Our “dry run” ended with a very abrupt wet run through the downpour (and out through a very dysregulated crowd of children) when our leader abruptly realized that this rain might be the sort to wash the road away.
Meh. We got the “run” part right.