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.)