Haiti 2013. Where we have finally found our rhythm. Or the right group of kids. Or, perhaps, where God has simply chosen to lavish on us the gift of his unity and presence.
"How He Loves Us" rings through the night air, arms wrapped around each other in a huddle that ought to have been ridiculous but somehow makes perfect sense. Small groups of kids stay up to watch each night turn into morning, having real talk on the roof or sprawled out on mattresses. The darkness pulls truth from their lips, and I rarely call curfew until after 1:00am.
They wake up in the morning to birds and roosters, the hum of air conditioning, or the pounce of a teammate, and it takes days before the sleepless nights begin to catch up to them, a Tuesday morning wall that we break through by blasting music on the bus, Matisy*hu to Justin B*iber to Hillsong and back again. And, the smiles never stop.
They are all in like we've never seen before, vibrant and full of life, connecting and giving without inhibition.
Logan is blistered and peeling with sunburn but gives piggy back rides until his shoulder is raw and bleeding. Eva asks for the first aid kit and patches him up on the bus, both of them laughing when she signs the bandaids with a sharpie and hands out a Lifesaver for being a good patient. Joel comes to tease her when the Bandaid on his knee starts peeling off, and she slaps it without ceremony, giving the team another story, another layer to the unity that they are allowing to be built within them.
They stretch three or four phrases of Creole to explain games and hang out for hours without translators. "Jessica, how do you say...?" "What is...?" "Do you know what s/he is saying?" fall often from their lips, and they have somehow learned to release the control of the VBS groups. Three groups some days. Two groups others. "Actual" games and times where there is nothing more than hanging out with kids. Which, in the end, is everything.
There are dance parties and soccer games, circle games and clapping rhythms. Drip, Drip, Drop; Ninjas; and Ring Around the Rosie until everyone is breathless and laughing. Old friends found and new one made. Teenagers that are climbed on like jungle gyms and blancs that are claimed as nearly personal property.
Names drip from American lips like a talisman, as if we are sealing this into reality.
We find out that Becca sounds like the Creole word for "devil," and she slips uncomplainingly into using a name from last year's French class. A tarantula crawls out of the ceiling at a crowded VBS, and Woodson kills it with a branch. Figgins jumps out of the bus and starts directing traffic until we are moving again on a two hour ride that stretches out into five. DP and Alfons go out time after time to get more snacks for churches overflowing with children.
There are hard times, moments where we wonder what on earth the next step is to move forwards from here, but, mostly, it is beautiful. Answered prayer in action. The kind of beauty that takes your breath away and whispers the truth of eternity.
"...all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
and, I realize just how beautiful you are and how great your affections are for me..."
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