Red Matters

Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of trying to put words to the unexplainable. Camp. Camp, where the director tells the kids that the week is all about them, and, then, I walk back to my cabin to find the girls talking about people across the world who do not have access to clean water. 

Camp, where the biggest rule is "no purple" (girls are pink, boys are blue...), and where it is legal for middle school boys to cry. 

Camp, where I spend countless hours doing hair wraps on my girls and play clapping games waiting for meals, but I am still, somehow, constantly surrounded by my boys. 

And, camp, where God has the power to work beyond us and despite us. 

(Pictures are random and rarely connect to the text around them.)

He works despite high school counselors who are still reeling from Haiti and don't have the distance to see the burning trail behind them. He works despite homesick kids and despite leader pranks that nearly get the entire "Canada" team disqualified from the camp olympics. He works despite soggy food and too much free time in the dark.

And, when kids are wide eyed with remembered fear, He is present.

And, so, we laugh, and we lavish these kids with more attention then they think they can stand. We wait, when Wednesday comes and they take to pushing every button they think they can find, certain that, by now, we must be sick of them. 

When we aren't, the walls begin to come down. 

And, they decide that they want this. Whatever it is that they have been waiting and watching for, it finally comes to fruition. 

Kids who have loved Jesus but been shy on religion stand up for the first time with a group to say that, "Yes, this church thing is what I want." Kids who have been slowly gathering information over an hour of Sunday school here and two weeks of Sunday school there stand up to say that, "I know enough, now, and this is what I want." Kids who have been at church every week since they were born stand up to say that, "This is still real, and I still want this, even when I make mistakes."

Over the last week, I got to watch them slowly build up trust with counselors. I got to watch eleven-year-old boys, who normally shy away from men, come to the conclusion that these male counselors fully intended to protect them and keep them safe. (Not that I ever fully lost my shadows, but that they became less "mine" and far more "ours.")

I got to watch as they took that tentative trust and applied it to a God that is bigger than any individual counselor.

I got to watch holy moments unfold.

In between, there was all sorts of crazy. Two of my girls drew on mustaches with sharpie. We fed them more sugar than ought to have been legal. Cabin "fairies" came and delivered gifts when they weren't looking. The girls used watercolors to splatter paint me a shirt. We used mode podge and glue sticks and scissors during cabin time.

They stuck to us like glue, down the zip-line, down the slide, into the river, and playing ninja destruction in the grass. We canoed, stuck seaweed in our hair, and swam through dozens of tiny dead fish. They were blobbed. We all fell off of the log roll. And, they laid on their beds in the cabin and giggled.

By the end of the week, our cabin smelled like musty river water and bug spray.

We played (and cheered) in dozens of "Olympic games." And, I took breaks to chill with my 6th grade boys. We filled in mud puddles with gravel, sat and talked about nothing and everything. They used their fingers to pop a paintball on my arm and ended up wearing half of it. I heard about every paintball they got hit with and how badly it hurt. "It was all purple. I almost cried."

They would stand in chapel and give me that look that we have perfected after weeks and weeks of Sunday school, until I came over and hauled them to their feet, clapped their hands for them, or bopped whistling fingers out of their mouths - many thanks to their counselor for the whistling trick.

On the bus ride home, they saved three seats: one, in front of them, for their adult counselor; and two, side by side, behind them - in the perfect position for hands to land on heads and shoulders any time they caused "trouble" - for their high school counselor and myself.

My girls sat directly behind us, and I lost track of the number of times I heard my name from all angles. Jessica has always been able to hear us all at once, right? Why should now be any different?

I take my girls to snack shack and end up engaging with all of them, sixth through eight, guys and girls, because, how do you say no to eyes that light up at the smallest smile of greeting? The older girls come and watch me do hair wraps and then come to the cabin to borrow supplies. The boys watch with undiluted curiosity and laughingly ask if I can get one to stay in their hair.

Sorry. Back in the skater hair days, perhaps. But, not right now.

On the bus home, the sixth grade boys discover the bag of hemp, and I spend the ride making bracelets as transition pieces for four of them.

One of them just wants to match me and my bracelet covered wrists. One of them is collecting everything that he can to prove to himself that camp is real. And, two of them are experimenting, using the new found boldness of camp to verbally ask Jessica for something for the first time, rather than waiting for her to offer.

One of those holds onto his bracelet for the rest of the ride, circling his hand around his own wrist, as if, if he lets go of it, it might disappear.

Because, these are the kids who hover outside of the TAB when everyone else is in line for meals and then "sneak up" through the snack shack, because waiting in such a long line, for such a long time, and listening to your brain tell you that there might not be enough left, is more scary than potentially missing a meal on your own terms. 

These are the kids who tell me about every move their counselors make the first few days of camp, as if my approval means that there are no hidden motives behind words and actions. 

These are my shadows during the Star Wars night game, because there is no space in their mind where it can be safe for adults (camp staff) to be hitting kids - even with pool noodles and plastic lightsabers. 

These are the ones who measure our closeness to home by the prison. 

These are the kids who never stop moving, until a little girl gets up during the talent show to sing the first part of Temporary Home and they freeze under my hands, whose dark eyes look up at me afterwards and beg for a distraction until I wrap my pink bandana over their face and we pretend that it never happened. Because, at eleven years old, there are some things that they don't need words to communicate. 

These are good, good kids that we brought with us.

These are older boys who nudge the younger ones into participating in worship and fly to their sides when they are hurt.

These are kids who catch my eye across the chapel and grin, because they know that I just saw whatever they did and that it was good.

These are the ones who come to a worship station and easily spend an hour with just them and a passage of scripture, and, who do it on purpose, without falling asleep, without talking to their neighbor.

These are kids who can be corrected with a word.

Who see and feel and know the pain of their friends, but who continually dive in deeper. These are the kids who haven't learned yet to put a cap on how much of themselves they give, who can pour everything into their friends and trust that the same will be given in return.

These are the kids who raise their hands in worship and dance like they are trying to wear through the floor, who not only know the right answers but mean them, who pour out their souls in their artwork and write worship songs that are nothing short of beautiful - mature and honest and exquisitely written. These are the kids who earnestly go after everything that they do.

They have drama. What human being doesn't?

They make mistakes. But, they fix them.

They learn like sponges.

They remember everything.

And, once they decide they are yours, heaven forbid anything try to remove them.

("Isn't that one of your boys?" I heard more than once at camp. "You should go talk to him.")

"The boys really like you." My girls would look at me, slightly puzzled, trying to understand the steady stream of smallish males. 

"Well, that's good. 'Cause I'm rather fond of them myself."

"But, why?" Faces would wrinkle up. "They're annoying."

I told one of the girls when she explicitly declared her attempt to "see how far she could push me," there is almost no way that a student could "push me" into being ticked off at them. (Not to say that she didn't give it her best shot. But, forty-five minutes isn't long enough to register on the radar as anything but amusing. Sorry, hon. I have a source of stubborn beyond your imagination.)

They push. We dance. They pull. We dance. Laughing, crying, running, sitting, homesick, or deliriously happy; we dance. 

And, somewhere in the middle, we find God. 

Home

The hardest part of any ministry trip is often the reverse culture shock of coming home. Just in case that wasn't hard enough on its own, we took these kids, with minds and hearts still reeling from Village Cannis, on a three hour jaunt through Times Square.

Been there, done that on the way home from Kenya, all too familiar with the mind boggling contrast.

And, yet. Our God is the same here as He was there; the same in our families as He was in our team; the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is a God who does not change.

"Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; 
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I." Isaiah 58:9a

He is present wherever and whenever we call on Him.

And, so, we woke up the next morning and played Give me Faith as we got ready. We made our way through security and watched as kids scrambled to not lose this new sense of family. And, we watched them continue to glow with the quiet light of hearts satisfied in their God.

Now, they are home with their families. (By the time this publishes, I will be off at camp with several hundred American middle schoolers.) They are telling stories and trying explain the unexplainable. Smells are being washed off, and suitcases will eventually be unpacked. Fundraisers and next steps are being brainstormed.

And, moment by moment, we are learning to see the good plan of a God who is not dependent on geography.

Finishing Well

Our final (full) day in Haiti was a Sunday. Into the two trucks for a service at the church where we had held our second VBS. Communion, once again, with real wine. Singing a medley of songs for the main service and the children's Sunday school class. Good, solid sermon from a Haitian pastor. Team introductions, where the church members laughingly confided in each other afterwards that the only name they remembered was "Jessica." (Whoot for a name that translates easily to so many languages!) The dance that is high school relationship drama.

And, when two of our guys stood up to give testimony, God showed up.


"'and I will cause you to ride in triumph on the heights of the land
    and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.'
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken" Isaiah 58:14b

These high schoolers communicated effectively and efficiently. They communicated non-offensively and wisely. In less than five minutes each, the light that was in them burst forth and captured the hearts of a church full of listening adults with whom they ought to have had very little in common. But, sometimes, an overwhelming love for Christ is common factor enough.

I went to school for a degree in cross cultural communications, and I had classmates who could not have picked up so well on the nuances of Haitian "church culture," let alone confidently delivered them in front of a church. They both did amazing, and both of them managed to feed directly into the sermon that the pastor later preached.

One of the boys, in particular, had every detail, from the greeting to the delivery of his points, down perfectly. This sixteen-year-old is the master of high context communication. (I have my own ideas of where in the world he ought to put those skills to use, but I'll leave that between him and God, and let you know in ten years or so if I turned out to be right.)

The soccer game that afternoon, after several of the kids made a last visit to the Whole Hearted Home, lacked the triumphant sense of winning against all odds. (We lost.) But, it held onto the triumphant sense that we, at least a little bit, knew these kids who were sitting with us and watching. Names were known. Faces were familiar. For one last evening, the light that was in us all could be shared.

Together with new friends, we could finish well.

Whole Hearted Home

After a morning in the village, and some much needed time to debrief, decompress, and wrap an injured foot, we rounded up the crew and made the quick walk over the Whole Hearted Home, a small orphanage connected with HCM. Our kids were tired and shell shocked, in pain and not feeling well, but they gave of themselves. And, then, God showed up.

Emonise walked with us to the orphanage (Okay. He really walked with Lane to the orphanage. The rest of us just happened to be heading in the same direction.) and then waited outside the gate until Lane came back out. Because, something in this one specific teenager drew him like a moth to a flame.

Inside of those gates, an entire team of teenagers played. They played soccer with bigger boys and threw little boys through the air until squeals and giggles burst forth. They coaxed smiles and songs from little girls waiting for the foster mom to do their hair. They took turns holding the babies, slowly soothing one of them to sleep.

As they played, they took note of personalities and mannerisms. "This kid reminds me so much of [high school director's son]!" And, every once in a while, they well and truly relaxed.


"The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land 
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, 
    like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58:11

A moment with a child would catch them off guard, and everything that they were carrying around from the village would just slip off. That pain that was thick enough to feel radiating off of them would dissipate, and you could watch everything about them relax. 

And, their light would shine even brighter. 

Even in this moment, when their flesh should have been at its weakest, when they should have had less than nothing left to give, they were able to glow. 

His strength is perfected in our weakness. And, the streams of His love that can pour forth from us never fail. 

Village Cannis

Saturday, we tested the limits of just how far the team's hearts and minds could go, how far they could stretch, and whether there was a breaking point to their love and their light.

And, God showed up.

There is a village not far from the compound, a fishing village down on the lake, where development is coming, but coming slowly, as if this were a forgotten little corner of the Western Hemisphere. Houses are woven from branches and palm fronds. Hair is red from malnutrition. Babies eat from cups of dirt. And, children run around in only a pair of underwear.

"Is it not to share your food with the hungry 
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter —
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" Isaiah 58:7 

Door to door, and house to house, our kids delivered bags of rice and took in things that they had never seen before. Babies on hips and free hands carefully entertained with those of older children, they found space in their brains for new Creole phrases and used them with  quiet confidence. "Good morning." "How are you?" "This is for your family." "God bless."

Over and over. With great love. With light that poured forth to cover their fear or their discomfort. Over and over. As if they had done this, been here, all of their life.

The entire village lined up, sorted themselves by gender and age, to receive new dresses that women from our church back home had made and sent, or to receive an extra bag of rice to provide for their families. Children were released long enough to get their new dress or shirt, and then they were back. Little arms wrapped around necks. Tiny hands curled into skirts.

Piles of perfect stones were pulled out to play jacks, and a jump rope began to spin.

And, then we had to go.

Quietly, with great love pouring from their eyes, our team loaded back into the trucks, and bounced away from the lake, away from village Cannis.

And, then came the grief, the grief that their brothers and sisters were naked and hungry, the grief that this was their family that they had left behind, the raw open grief and love that meant that they had allowed themselves to truly see, to not hide from it, any of it.

Even in the hard things, we had not found the limits of their love. Because, their love was Christ's. 

Beach Day

Friday, we loaded back into the vans for a day trip to the beach, to see the tourist side of Haiti and remember the straight up natural beauty that there is in this place. For three hours, we drove through the Haiti that we knew - and past the turn pike for Fonds Chaval - to a Haiti filled with warm beaches, clear water, and an all you can eat buffet.

And, even though they didn't have to, even though it was their day "off," the kids watched the world outside of their windows, took note when huge houses and resorts stood opposite tiny ones covered in tarps, saw that fenced in wealth can exist alongside poverty without changing it.

The thought ate at them a little. They swam, invented pool games, collected shells, swam some more, ate as much food as they could fit in their stomachs, played volleyball on an injured foot, took pictures, and swam still more. But, their eyes still rang with a Haiti that was not here, with little hands and eyes that had never seen this part of their own country.

And, bits of that stress began to slip out in behaviors, words and actions that were harsher than intended or less filled with patience and love. Like any family, they vented on each other.

Unlike most families, they realized that they didn't have to.

 “If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk," Isaiah 58:9b

Debrief that night had all sorts of business to attend to - prep for the village we would be at the next day, choosing and practicing a song to sing on Sunday, getting volunteers to give testimony in church - but the high schoolers had one piece of business pressing on their hearts and minds. They wanted to get right with each other. 

So, at their request, we ended the evening in separate corners, to give each person time to deal with God in their own way. 

No pointing of fingers, no rehashing of events, no requests for the improvement of whatever behaviors were grating on each of them, just eighteen hearts open and ready for healing and correction. Because, we serve a God who delights in making Himself known through right relationships. 

Painting

Wednesday afternoon, most of the crew donned "paint clothes" - white t-shirts and shorts/capris - and headed off to sand down concrete walls. ("Wax on. Wax off. Wax on. Wax off.") Fun times in construction land. We did, however, get super spiffy blue masks that prevented the breathing in of the dust.

And, not one kid complained.

They blinked a load and a half of concrete dust out of their eyes and pulled off the masks dozens of times to wipe down sweaty faces. They made snarky comments and stood on things that probably should not have been stood on had we been in America. But, when they were asked to go back and go over it all again, when you could feel their exhaustion radiating like a heat wave, they bit their tongues, nodded, and worked until it was fixed.

Then they laughed at newly grey hair, downed some energy drink, and got ready to paint. Because, these kids don't stop until they are flat out instructed to do so.

"Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins 
    and will raise up the age-old foundations; 
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, 
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings." Isaiah 58:12

Thursday, we piled all but two of us into the backs of the pick-ups and bounced further up the mountain than we had been, up stretches of road that were nothing but hard packed dirt and mathenge trees, past villages where houses were made of woven poles and mud bricks, through a new level of rural poverty from what we had previously seen in Haiti, poverty that existed largely untouched by the earthquake. 

And,  we landed at a concrete house that belonged to one of the interpreters. Three simple rooms, but beautifully crafted and fitted with carefully carved doors from the wood shop on the compound. 

Within moments, it was clear that their was neither space nor tools for the entire team to work. They wanted to give, but there was nothing to give themselves to. And, then, God showed up. 

A little girl from VBS came and searched the house until she found "her" blanc, and her eyes lit up with a hundred watt smile. For an hour and a half, as we traded off painting jobs, the house rang with laughter and choruses of "Jezi Remen'm" ("Jesus Loves Me" - but not the version that we know in the States). 

"Allelujiah! ah! ah! ah! Jezi remen'm!" They would jump onto a back, show off a trick on the bed, let themselves be tickled until they collapsed in fits of giggles, or pull a lap onto the floor and settle in for the world's briefest nap. 

Exactly one week after taking off from Tri-town, eighteen people were here, a team that trusted that they wouldn't let one another fall out of the truck, no matter what size of bump we hit; that knew the contents of each other's backpacks; that could identify water bottles instantly; and could read each other like family. They were here, painting and sanding and playing with kids - and leaving the leaders to wonder at the light that was in them and drew people like moths to a flame. 

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self Control. 

Earlier in the week, one of our kids asked me how to "prove" God to an atheist friend. This. This light is how you demonstrate God. Because, if you live this way, God will prove Himself. This light is what we mean when we say that you should look "different." This is what it means to look like Jesus. 

"We should pray."

Our second VBS seemed like it was going to be 180 degrees from the first. It was close - less than a thirty minute ride in the backs of two pick-up trucks - dry, brown, and poundingly hot. The kids were hungry, tired, thirsty, hot, and more than slightly over us. Playing games was like pulling teeth. Even communicating with each other - in English! - was harder than it should have been.

And, no one could think clearly enough to figure out why.

Until Witty stopped, looked over his small group of drooping children, and prayed. And, they suddenly came to life.

 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice 
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?" Isaiah58:6

As we bumped along through villages on the way up, the constant stream of children waving and yelling, "Blanc! Blanc!" had distracted us from the constant stream of voodoo crosses. And, the more rural poverty had eclipsed other observations.

Here, in the mountains - just like in Washington, or in Kenya, or in Mexico - the enemy would do anything to blind eyes to the light that is carried by those who are in Christ.

That night, our teenagers hashed out the problem and came to the solution without second thought. This wasn't a Sunday school answer or a mumbled attempt at proving themselves holy. They simply knew that we needed to pray. So, we did.

The next morning, we gathered at the front of the church to pray. The next morning, the cameras largely returned to bags and pockets, as our kids remained present and prayerful. The next morning, we had half the number of children when we arrived. The next morning, God showed up.

The apathy from the day before was broken. Dark eyes finally connected with the blanc ones that wanted nothing more than to pour out the love and the trust that seemed to be highlighted every time that they opened their Bibles. Hands slipped in to be held. Clapping games were played. Little girls scooted shyly along benches until they found the blanc they were looking for. Bracelets were tied tightly around wrists. Smiles and laughter finally ruled. 

The next morning, they knew they were loved.

Because, when we pray, the plans of the enemy shatter.

Carrefour

7:30 Monday morning found everyone up, dressed, and having eaten breakfast and gotten in some time with God. We packed the VBS supplies, and the team - Bethel team, intern, drivers, and interpreters - into two vans for a 2.5 hour drive across the country to a town on the coast called Carrefour (Car-foo). One of the vans had AC. The other didn't.

Not a single person tried to beg, wheedle, or manipulate their way into the "better" van. Instead, I watched teenagers glow with the light of Christ as they voluntarily rotated themselves through the "worst" seat in the "bad" van. Because, it is more painful for these kids to watch someone else drip with sweat then it is to feel their own t-shirt soak through.

So, they sat, and sweated, opened the windows as wide as they would go, and inhaled putrid scents that American noses would never think to imagine. And, they watched.

We drove through a city still marked by an earthquake that shook the country, and they didn't look away. They looked past the trash to see kittens on doorsteps and vulgar graffiti. They watched closely enough to pick up on individuals. And, they asked about what they saw. "Why does that woman not have any clothes on?" "Are they getting that water for drinking?" "What are all those men doing there?" They saw, and they remembered - and they compared to the way that things were last year.

For kids who take on every pain as if it was their own, this watching, this mentally and emotionally joining in, was the greatest form of sacrifice.

They could have closed off, could have stayed safe in the world within their van, could have waited to look until we were safe within the walls of a church. But, they came to Haiti ready and willing to be spent. And, so, they took it in.

"and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, 
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday." Isaiah 58:10

And, eventually, we arrived. To a church on the coast surrounded by green. To children who had never been to a VBS. To smiling faces ready and eager to great us. To a place where fresh grief - ours - mixed with all encompassing joy that belonged to us all.

And, our kids lit up.

For two days, they burned like flames within the walls of this compound. It wasn't always easy or what an American would consider smooth. But, they rocked it. (And, got an additional crash course in high context cultures along the way.) Arrive. Wait for the second van. Wait until everyone in the church is "ready." Start music. Generator runs out of gas. Stop music. Wait while someone goes to buy gas and refill the generator. Restart music. Continue with VBS. Never stop grinning.

And, God showed up.

God showed up in kids who felt so loved that their church the next Sunday was fuller than it had ever been. God showed up in smiles and quiet conversations. God showed up in laughter and spontaneous games of tag. God showed up in teenagers who realized that their comfort zone somehow included being hot, sweaty, and covered in children who spoke a language that they didn't.

Because, here, in a country still held tight by poverty, voodoo, and a history of oppression, they practiced what it is to pour heart and soul into relationships, to spend themselves completely.

And, I think you can see for yourself the brilliance of their light.

Sabbath Joy

Sunday morning, the team woke up early, and we got the leader joy of seeing them voluntarily pull out their Bibles and search out God in the morning light. There was breakfast eating, and a continued practice of the often lost art of just being together. Nowhere to go or be. Nothing to do. No phones to pull out and fiddle with. Just a porch, some wooden chairs, and a team that was going to become family. (Fighting like family included at a later date.)

Across to the next building at 9:30 for church, where minds were blown constantly on three separate occasions. Because, God showed up.

He showed up in kids who played quietly with our teens through the long, hard to understand parts of the service and kept a careful eye out to make sure that the blanc yo were keeping well fanned off to dry out the dripping sweat.

He showed up in communion, to give our kids the beginning of a team narrative, a part of the story that they were all involved in. Oh, the faces and quiet choking sounds when they swallowed a cupful of something that was most emphatically not grape juice. I am pretty sure that He was laughing with us.

And, He gave them ears (and an interpreter) to hear that, even in Haiti, there was a sermon being given on materialism. Because, how much you have is often not as much of a heart issue as how much you want and what you are willing to do with what you have been given.

Lunch, and then plotting and planning for Monday's VBS, and more hanging on the porch.

A wander around the compound and, eventually, down to the soccer field, to let some of our guys begin the process of running themselves ragged. When these kids say that they are going to give everything on a trip, they quite literally do not stop - ever. And, then, God showed up.

“If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath 
    and from doing as you please on my holy day,
if you call the Sabbath a delight 
    and the Lord’s holy day honorable,
and if you honor it by not going your own way
    and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 
then you will find your joy in the Lord..." Isaiah 58:13:14a  

He wandered in in the form of a little boy named Emonise.

Emonise latched himself onto one of our guys and stayed there for the remainder of the trip. They talked, played clapping games, took pictures, and hung out for hours, as if they were irresistibly connected by something stronger than either of them. And, Lane's face melted into a smile, a radiant peace beyond anything I have seen in him in the States, because this was a God light shining through two young men who were in love with Him.

And, that light spread. Within an hour, every team member outside was engaged: playing basket ball; dancing; singing; making silly faces for kids who had our cameras; learning names, faces, and culture; and reveling in the joy that came at the end of a day where we didn't "do" anything but spend a day set apart as a Sabbath.

(Actually, it was such a pure joy, that the rest of the night seemed to be failed attempt after failed attempt by the enemy to destroy it, as if he were scrambling for the right tools to get through an impenetrable wall.

Because, joy from the Lord lasts through a broken toe, a gecko under a mattress, an awkward encounter with a group of males not-dressed-for-groups-of-female-visitors, a spider in a bed, a rat scurrying between mattresses, a cockroach, and a team of eighteen people in a country that is not their own - even all shoved into the space of about five hours.

God is good all the time, and, all the time, God is good.)

Healing

After a slow, quiet Saturday evening, we sent the kids towards bed, with instructions to wake up ready for church the next morning.

These being our ready-to-jump-into-anything kids, though, many of the girls spent the next several hours talking to new friends on the compound and huddled up on their mattresses, going over and over the language they were learning. Who needs to sleep when you can pour yourself into a new people and culture?

All of the teenagers had spent the day asking question, after question, after question, trying to process and to understand and to prepare themselves for the next week. And then, God showed up in a direct answer to prayer, somewhere during all of the question asking, last year's team began the slow process of going over events that happened 11.5 months ago and putting the pieces back together in a way that made sense.

The 2011 trip was rough in a lot of ways - although still very, very good - and, yet, these precious, amazing, resilient kids came back. They came back with old wounds still hanging out in the open and old triggers dancing just under the surface. But, they came trusting that God was good, and that whatever He sent them into would be for His glory.

This year, before, and as, He allowed them to be gently broken in new ways, He glorified Himself through their healing.

"Then your light will break forth like the dawn, 
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard." Isaiah 58:8

God showed up as they tentatively voiced their hurts and worked together to sort the beautiful from the messy, the holy from the human. He showed up as they promised each other that this year would be different. He was present as they concluded that different would not mean easy.

And, the team that was left at the end of the conversations was healthier, more confident in their ability to do whatever needed to be done, more determined to be fully submitted to their God, and more in tune to the people around them. What had started as their our weakness became His strength.

One of the other leaders simply shook her head in wonder near the end of the trip and declared, "These kids are almost Haitian in their resilience."

I think that they would take that as the highest form of a compliment!

Home Again

Haiti.

How do I begin telling you about what happened in Haiti?

How do I explain teenagers lit up from the inside, glowing, brilliant with the light of Christ? How do I explain places and people that make my heart homesick for Kenya, so similar, and yet so very, very different? Mostly, how do I explain what it is to watch God work through human lives to make Himself glorified?

None of it was easy, and, yet, all of it was amazingly simple. God was in control, and, if we were available, He would bring glory to Himself.

(The kids that we took have an amazing depth to their spiritual vocabulary, that allows them to acknowledge that things may seem "good" or "bad" to us, but look entirely different from the perspective of eternity. I have heard people five times their chronological age struggle with concepts that just spill forth from these teenagers.)

Baggage allowances had changed between the time of ticket purchase and departure. Okay.

Not one flight into the trip, we found out that our diabetic had left his testing supplies at home. Oh well, we'll get something from the clinic there.

Two of the kids get pulled aside for filling out their customs forms wrong. Our porters are waiting for us to show up on a different flight. No problem. We'll get there eventually.

Rats, geckos, spiders, and cockroaches at night. Meh. That's what sheets are for, right?

Broken toe, missing asthma medication, waking up in the middle of the night to being rained on, upset stomaches, heart murmurs, fever, relational drama, no power, constantly morphing schedule, "first day of VBS" syndrome twice, marriage proposals, long hours together, and the list goes on: God is in control. No freaking out necessary.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding,will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil 4:4-7


The response to everything was to find the God in it, to rejoice, to laugh, to carry burdens and wait out quiet fears, to pray, and to remind one another of the goodness of God. And, there was peace because of it.

There were "issues;" there were times when sensitive spirits would chafe under the sense that they were not right with each other and with God, but, as a team, they would spread out to their individual corners and pray. They would speak it out and then pray it out, and we would move forward stronger than before.

Whenever they were "working," whenever they were with kids or interpreters, they would explode with this internal light, as if they were the happiest and most present they could ever imagine being - deeply, gut level, untouchably, content. But, never in a way that was oblivious or ill-informed. Instead, they were on fire with a love that was so far beyond them.

They stayed up late the first night learning new words and names and practicing language skills. They were peed on by kids who they loved desperately. They were adored by kids who borrowed cameras and took picture after picture of these blanc yo, trying to capture something indefinable in eyes and smiles, some magic that passed when bigger hands connected with small ones.

And, the more that they let their hearts be broken, the more that Christ shone out through the cracks.

(As, a result, every story that I can, and will write about the trip somehow ends with the phrase, "and, then God showed up.")

Focus

Two more days of Focus Group have occurred, largely consisting of prepping bracelets, etc for a well fundraiser that they have been plugging away at with amazing determination for the last year. It might take the next five years, but, by golly, they will raise enough money to drill a deep well.

And, of course, all manner of conversations in between - personality types, details of other "non-Focus" fundraisers, race relations, theology, human nature, Haiti, and anything else we might happen to stumble across in a group of brains that function much like a box full of loose ping pong balls.

(The bracelets this year are adjustable...and a thousand times easier to make then last year's - it takes about ten minutes to finish one of these, compared to forty-five minutes to complete one of the others. We should have thought of this last summer!)

Haiti Prep

Last Saturday, we got together for a VBS prep blitz. The theme for this year is going to be "trusting God," so we'll be going over the stories of Noah, Joshua and the battle of Jericho, Peter walking on water, and a salvation message. 

Each story has a craft that we planned, purchased and assembled on Saturday. Twelve hundred individually prepared craft kits and six hours later, we were (mostly) physically prepared for the VBS. The thing about having a team of otters and golden retrievers is that last minute kind of becomes the way we roll. Time, for a large part, is not really a "thing." Which, actually, going to a world where time is something to be spent, not conserved, is a benefit. We're going to a country that is loud and largely watch-less, with a team that is loud and largely watch-less. 

Perfect. (:

And, yes, we have an amazing enough team that they were willing to spray paint 600 popsicle sticks "Jesus skin colored"and bag piece after piece after piece of each craft kit so that each kid gets their own set of supplies.

And, tomorrow, we get to take off on what is a repeat trip for six of them - as if anything in life can ever actually be a repeat of something that has gone on before - and brand new for the other eight. We're praying that God is glorified through our presence, and that we are able to be culturally aware and willing to serve. 

(Let's be honest; we're also all hoping that it will all be easier than we know it will be. Still human, even if we are taking an incredible team of teenagers who are willing to do hard things when they know that God is asking it of them.)

27 hours!