Fire and Rain

Thunder shakes the building where the Haiti team is prepping for VBS, two lightening strikes lighting the mountain behind us on fire while they watch. It is the hot dry of a summer thunderstorm, and the flames are spreading fast. On their own, they huddle up and decide to do something.

They pray for the fire to go out, and it does. Sheets of water pouring from the sky and flooding across the parking lot. Not ten minutes later, the rain has passed and the sun is back. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes - or ten.

But, if I had the audacity to speak for the Divine, I might begin to say that this was on purpose. On purpose like the way that the dates were changed for our very first VBS trip to Haiti, when, instead of silence, we stepped out of the crowded vans and into a night filled with songs of worship. Because, these dates too, were once different.

The first paperwork we gave them put this back a weekend, seven days ago, with no thunder or lightening or pounding rain. And, I can't help but wonder if this weekend was a gift. A reminder of a God who hears prayer.

We've been praying for this trip for months. My cluster ought to be sick of hearing the word Haiti fall from four sets of lips at every turn, every chance for a prayer request. But, rarely together, rarely as a team. And, this first time, they see an answer so rapid that they can't stop talking about it. 

There is a new confidence in these nervous kids. The God of angel armies has just answered thier call.

If it is a gift, it is one that we will hold to tightly, one that we will continue to weave through their story in the moments when they are anxious or uncertain or afraid. Because, fear is a big deal to these kids, one that we talk about far too infrequently. This is, after, all Eastern Washington, a church full of engineers, doers and fixers and pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps types. But, that makes them no less teenagers growing up in an uncertain world.

Today has spilt some of that wide open, lightening and thunder and fire bringing hidden things straight to the surface, and it is good. Good for them to know that they are not alone. Good for truth to spill out and grace to be given.

TRUTH, for this team, is going to be a powerful tool.