Beautiful

It might be the sixth grader who waves hesitantly in the hallway and then doubles back for a hug. Because, some things are more important than the five seconds he might be late to his next class.

It might be the eighth grader who initiates a greeting in the cafeteria, confident that I remember his fifth grade self working so hard to charm his way through life.

Or, the half way hesitant "Miss," that calls me over in PE to talk with a kid who is so much happier here than he was with his last year's teacher.

The smiles when they don't know that anyone is looking.

The spark of recognition that there is something familiar in this big, new school.

My assigned kiddo, determined to donate more and more rice.

Or, the cluster of closely cropped heads bent around an i p*d as they discuss the best move in their newest game, totally oblivious to the fact that they should be driving each other absolutely insane.

It might be sixth grade girls who forget for a moment that they are learning how to create pre-teen drama or the kids who hold doors for each other without having to be asked.

Because, we are in a series of concrete and pre-fab boxes within boxes. So many middle school feels all trapped together that whoever came up with this idea must not have spent much time with children.

But, they are first-week-of-school calm, content to be safe and well fed and given the fresh slate of a new year. Not easy, perhaps, but easier.

And, in the small things, they are beautiful.

Salt Waves

Haiti comes just before the school year, just before summer ends. Breaking up three months into these discrete chunks.

Royal Family. SOLD. Middle school camp. Sister's wedding. Haiti. School.

And, I've poured out hundreds of words, but, somehow, haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what I intended to say, the beauty and the holiness and the Grace that washed over us like salt waves. The murky cool of wind whipped water on the lake. The crystal warmth of an ocean pulled by a waning moon.

Cleansing. Uplifting. Reflecting and absorbing fractured shards of light.

Because, it wasn't perfect, this thing that we were part of. Mistakes were made. Hearts were hurt. And, healing was invited to make her slow and silent way through our souls.

It was on me, for forgetting that every tomorrow is an "if the Lord wills." For being so certain of my own presence that I failed to set other leaders up for success. For ignoring the prodding checks in my own spirit and moving ahead "as things have always been."

It was on another leader, for allowing stress to overpower Grace.

On the kids, in some strange way, even when every cell in my body wants to insist that it is never on the kids, that it is always, always on the adults. Always on the ones who stepped up and asked them to come with us. Always on the ones who promised to lead.

Their own reactions were on them. But, the situation was on us. And, I found myself scrambling to try to fix it. Reminded by physical distance and intermittent cell service that I will never have the power to make everything right in their worlds. I am not God.

But, I have the power to pray.

And, when we pray, Grace washes over us.

Grace that brings them fresh from the lake, covered in salt brine, flustered and uncertain, but satisfied.

Grace for after dinner hours on the soccer court, the ball scraping along worn concrete until dusk has fallen and sound is the only thing that they are playing by. For long conversations in English and Spanish and Creole. For explaining where my sister is and promising to tell her hello. For Gael's questions and Neal's antics and Roberto laying quietly beside me when he gets tired.

It comes in syncopated waves that take my breath away. Burn my eyes with their salt sting. Cleanse and purify these shallow wounds.

And, slowly, my fickle heart begins to hear the theme that rises from our falseness and our chaos. "Deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came."

I watch our kids play and coach and take their turns sitting along the sidelines. Watch their hearts melt from more than the sweat that soaks their bodies. Watch injustice take up residence in their eyes as we drive through Pétionville and they see the contrast, not only in houses, but in trees. As they catch a glimpse of Haiti as it might have been. As it could be.

I watch our PIF kids in Fond Cheval practice over and over again to try to learn these American names. Watch them pray and sing and play soccer. Watch their respect and their patience and their gentle service. Watch them pour into these relationships that would be nothing if it was not a two way street.

Deep and wide and beautiful.

A coach with a guitar under the shade of fruit trees, making up silly songs to get a laugh out of four and five year olds. A pastor watching and praying and serving his people well. Clapping games and soccer drills and water bottles shared with half a dozen littles.

But, slow.

Four years in the making. A steady return that is orchestrated by not-us but makes our hearts sing at the very idea. Littles who are less little and smiles from faces that once held suspicion. Quiet conversations in halting Creole.

And, blended with an immeasurable sorrow.

Because, this is our world. Our broken, beautiful, only in one place at a time world. Because, our hearts hurt with the idea of leaving long before we have even arrived. Because, these eleven days will form the framework for our year.

Because, Grace comes like salt waves. And, it burns your nose a little every time you jump in.

Four (Slightly Selfish) Youth Leader Reasons for Taking Kids on Ministry Trips

THE CHURCH BECOMES THEIR CHURCH:

When we are on a high school trip, they forget the relative smallness of their voice, forget what it means to be a minority age bracket or the "someday" church, and instead find themselves face to face with a powerhouse of a woman who expects them to be fully capable of ministry right here and right now.

And, because Ms. Betty believes that the is is their church, they believe it too.

They will gladly clean out the nastiest, hottest, most spider infested corners for Ms. Betty, because they know that when they come running down the stairs to announce a shooting star, Ms. Betty will send them right back up again with cups and a pitcher of ice water for everyone. Because, every moment deserves a celebration.

We bring them on high school trips so that we can join in with people like Ms. Betty in celebrating the wonder of who they are right now, because, when they claim this Church as their own, something amazing happens...

WE BECOME PARTNERS:

Yes, they learn what it looks like to become partners in development by working together with a community to meet felt needs in a sustainable way. Yes, they build relationships and respect that spans the global Church. But, more selfishly, we become partners as a youth group.

You can't spoon feed kids on a ministry trip, can't do everything for them, can't provide all the answers before they think to ask the questions. There is no way to learn a language or a culture for a person. No way to pre-build a relationship and hand it to them wrapped up with a careful bow.

But, it is also the perfect chance to *not* fall into the trap of thinking that "giving students ownership means getting them to do *all of the things.*"

Because, being between the ages of 11 and 18, and able to pass a background check, means serving in children's ministry. We so often expect greater service and consistency from our kids than we do from 80% of the adults in the church.

It's not necessarily healthy probably not healthy at all, but it is deeply engrained in the culture of our local church and has been for as long as I can remember.

Until we hit a ministry trip. And, then, for a few magical days, we are doing this thing as partners.

On a ministry trip we are allowed, expected, to work towards the same goals as our kids, expected to function as a community. We each take our turns leading and following, have our moments to step up and our times to stand down.

On a short term trip, we know what we're doing, and the differences start to matter less, because...

THEY ARE SIMULTANEOUSLY SHELTERED AND PUSHED:

Sheltered in that we build up walls around them that their normal life would never allow.

When they stay up late talking, we stay up with them, watching for that magical moment when they are finally ready for sleep. We let them nap whenever the opportunity presents itself and encourage playfulness and obnoxious songs. Provide food and Band-Aids and aloe. Check up on bug bites and scratches and monitor how much they eat and how much they drink.

We debrief anything and everything all the time and wrap them in layers of conversation and hours of quietly doing nothing.

Guard like bull dogs against relational drama, stay responsive to fears and anxieties, look for the reason behind the reaction, and set them up for success in every possible way that we know how.

But, we also push them.

We take the one who won't stick her hand into a bucket of clean water and let her wash slimy dishes in the semi dark. Bring the one who has fallen in love with this place, even though we know that the reentry will break his heart.

We take along kids with every form of anxiety under the sun, and we expect them to function as a dream team because of it and despite it.

On ministry trips we expect them to be grown up enough to handle their own passport and tickets in an international airport; to keep moving forwards when everything that they think they know gets thrown up into the air. Expect them to respond with grace and love and mercy to things that would tip most adults past their breaking point, because...

THEY ARE GOOD AT THIS:

Somehow, by virtue of being teenagers, by virtue of this Love that has taken up residence in every sinew of their bodies, they are incredibly good at this relationship thing.

Not that it comes easy, but that they go at it with an intensity that has everything to do with an open and willing heart. That our kids are willing to absorb pain and injustice and joy and hope and let it all wash over them in the moments that it comes, without filter and without complaint.

Wait for two days in a city full of strangers just to get a new passport. Ride for bumpy hours on a bag full of soccer cleats or hover over the gap between two seats. Give piggy back rides that rip open blistered sun burns. Clean infected wounds or dance and play on a broken foot.

Our kids love well.

"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences...to arrive at its destination full of hope." - Maya Angelou

Holy Clutter

Haiti is sprawled out on my bedroom floor. Half empty suitcases and folded laundry. Wedding remains and a few stray pieces of art from middle school camp. Piles for the Union Gospel Mission; unmailed letters and unfinished books. Binders for SOLD waiting to be cleaned and organized and redone for the dozenth time.

And, my eyes catch on the holiness in the middle of this mess.

The first aid kit that I packed for one of the girls, knowing that she would hone in on injuries like a beacon, little heads clustered around while she cleans and bandages fresh scrapes and crusted wounds with a gentle efficiency.

This seventeen year old who finds joy when she bends down low, who props the countless foot up against the black edge of her basketball shorts and quietly gives one of the American boys the courage to offer up gravel torn hands.

We watch as infection gives way to raw pink flesh, as dirt gives way to healing, and it is holy.

Holy to meet each other here, in this place where we are all broken. Where healing comes from antibiotic ointment and decongestant, but mainly from the fact that we are in this together. From this Grace that sits like a salve over the deepest hurts of our souls.

Silver and red. Battered. Marked with last year's wood stain and this year's dirt.

Holy.

Holy, like the Toms that have stood to bear witness to my sister's wedding and stood to bear witness to communion at a church in Fond Cheval.

Not yet broken in or stretched to the unique contours of my feet, they carry the dust of two places, two celebrations, two ceremonies that whisper of the eternal promise that is this Love.

I think of the pinch of a bridesmaid's dress, the faint but bitter burn of communion wine, and I am reminded that there is no joy without some sorrow. Of the orange tint to little girl braids that bury themselves in my shoulder for a hug. The painted over poverty of Jalousie. The protests and the dead teenager that we left behind in the States.

Reminded that this space, this right now, in the middle of this mess, is Holy.

Reminded by the stark blue and gold of my passport, by five quiet hours in the US consulate office to get a new one for one of the girls on our team, while passport-less children face vitriol in the same city for daring to flee violence in the only home that they have ever known.

Holy is the well worn backpack that has carried high school text books but also bounced along the floor of Kenyan busses. The intermittent whir of zippers as the kids learn to trust for simple provision: sunscreen, aloe, pens, toilet paper.

Holy is when we learn who has the hand sanitizer and who carries the Tylenol, when we move forward without second thought, trusting to the giftings and strengths of others to fill in the places where we are weak. When Mercy seasons Justice.

And, on and on the stories could go.

Because, for now, this mess is holy.

Transition Jitters

First Sunday back. Last Sunday before school starts. And, we dance with this transition like it is a tangible thing.

Haiti fills conversations and lessons and leaders' meetings. Atlanta the most common question I hear all day. I am captured by the idea that there were this many people aware of us. This many people praying.

A small team from a large congregation. But, we had warriors on our side.

My cluster girls want to talk and talk. The Haiti kids get together for coffee before youth group. Intersect is alive with bodies and words.

As if we could possibly sit close enough to transport back to where we were last Sunday. Tell enough stories, fill the night with enough words, to stretch these last hours of Summer into extra time.

Ultimate Spoons and music, Haiti and breakout groups.

And, I am reminded once again of the physicality of the way that we do uncertain emotion. This need to throw beanbags and frisbees, jump over chairs, blocks paths, and fight through barricades of pillows.

"This is how you know it's almost school."

The explanation comes easily to this new eight grader who has been brought over for introduction eyes wide at the running bodies and flying objects that fill the room between where she started and where we are now standing.

"It's always crazy in here, but this is just a little extra crazy."

The other girls nod, and we duck and dodge whenever necessary, the boys laughing as I manage to stand in just the right place to catch a gaga ball with my face. Twice, before they finish a single game. Skills, I tell you. Skills.

My eighth grade boys are wild and unpredictably predictable. Throwing thing. Chasing each other. Wrestling on the floor.

The girls are a little off kilter. Or, maybe I am. Horrifically bad this week at keeping more than one conversation in the air at a time. But, sixth and eighth graders have elementary Sunday school in common, so we talk about that. Talk about how Jessica's groups always climb the tree. Give brief lessons on survival at Ignite.

"If you hear someone yell my name, get out of the way. It means that bodies are coming through."

Because, some things are tentatively the same, even for kids trying to figure out what eighth grade really means.

This one will barrel past with a, "Jessica!!" when he is being chased, fully expecting that I will somehow provide protection from whatever game it is he's started. That one will forgive my absence in time to hide behind me from a dodge ball. No words, no eye contact, just a human shield, a dance around what will be and what has always been. 

Later, he'll bump into me, and I'll chase him for a very familiar moment or two. But, in the meantime, he will choose to sit with one of the male leaders. Choose to play the game with one of the male leaders.

Because, oh-my-goodness, they may have finally decided that these men (and high school guys) are to be trusted!

If you asked them this week who their leader was, they would point to Mike, to Matt, to Christopher or to Jonathan. And, I don't know if I can fully explain how awesome that is.

There isn't anything simple about it, nuances and details that could go on for pages. Disclaimers and caveats and overly explanatory explanations. Specificity that spices joy with sorrow, confidence with anxiety.

But, we'll deal with the details another time.

For now, there are nets of leaders surrounding my kids. Dozens of people praying for them the way that dozens of people were praying for us. And, that, in itself, is beautiful, incredible, awesome.

We'll take it.

Always Learning

It's simpler here, with this smaller crew, and we find ourselves starting to daydream different ways of doing things, authentic ways of doing things.

We talk about Kenya more than I have talked about it in years. Answer questions about mid-term missions and long term commitments. Language learning. Culture learning. Water filters. Trash disposal. Do you boil water before you cook with it? How long before you stop using filtered water to brush your teeth? What do you do about parasites?

What kinds of bugs? What do you wear? Was it safe? Was it hot?

Stories come out, and I find myself bragging on the incredible Kenyan missionary that I worked for and with. See them mentally pasting her against an image of Ms. Betty. Grace. Betty Prophet. These women of God who have the faith to change the world.

These ones who live up to their names.

Together, we take in their stories, God's stories through them, and the team begins to sink into this idea of actually living here. Slowly at first, but gradually with greater confidence.

Ms. Betty passes plantain chips around the van, and they weigh the travel nurse's dire warnings against the casual way that we offer them food from the side of the road. Break open thin plastic bags and bite into crisp saltiness.

They are learning not to be afraid of this place, and it is good.

Learning to show up at soccer games and greet the children around them, but quietly, without chase or tickle or silly games. Without detracting from what this community is here to accomplish. Finding the familiar in dust and heat and wind, and remembering that these things are bred into their bones.

Desert rats. Tri-Cities kids. Better acquainted with with dust clouds than snowstorms.

This is home.

My soul unfurls a little with the normality of it all, and they are at peace.

Friends offer a fruit that looks like a tiny lime, and we are shown how to split the delicate but leathery skin. How to fold it back to reveal a J*lly Rancher flavored fruit. Pale, yellow-orange. Round and vaguely slimy around a solid pit. Kenép.

Pop it in your mouth. Suck it clean. Toss the pit and peel into a nearby mathenge patch.

As easy as peanuts at a baseball game.

They add it to the list of things to be googled when we hit an airport, and "eat first; ask questions later" takes on a 2014 spin. Eat first; google in a few days.

Google it while you sit and talk. While you pass around decongestants for drippy nosed kids waiting to board a flight. While you post to a group faceb**k page, blurry phone pics full of fingers and little kid camera angles.

Because, we don't need a thousand perfect pictures to know that this happened.

It happened. And, that is enough.

This is Home

"I can't come tomorrow." Little arms wrap themselves around me like pipe cleaners, as if we are trying to melt into one body, one heart. "My mom says that I have to do chores."

So, I let her lead me outside to the shaded corner where we sat for so long last year. Pull her to her feet and spin, again and again, until she is dizzy and laughing. 

"Can you stand up?" I raise my eyebrows at this wobbly, giggling child, and she simply steps closer.

"Spin me!"

Spin her. Let her sit on my lap. Play with my camera. Chew a piece of gum. Cling like a tiny on my hip when she refuses to let her feet touch the ground.

Because, she is six now, only two when we first met, and we both know that this might be the only day until next summer. Another year before she is once again whispering my name into my ear.

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

"Jessica."

"Loveli."

She spins under my hand, dancing to the rhythm of a soccer game. Falls into my arms when I tickle her, teeth flashing in a bright smile, gum just poking out of the side of her mouth as she tries to convince me to give her another piece.

Because she is six. And, you can never have too much gum in your mouth when you are six.

***

Lovena comes the next day, eight years old and too big to sit on my lap, but just the right size to lean up against the stone wall, elbows using my knees as arm rests.

It's hot, and we're mostly quiet. Watching the boys run through drills and play scrimmage games. Taking a few selfies when she gets ahold of the camera. Pretending not to see the littles or the Play it Forward boys who point phones in our direction, documenting this pile of onlookers to their practice.

But, we still walk hand in hand like we have always done.

Still grin and smile and ask the occasional question when it feels like the conversation needs words.

Have I seen Loveli yet? Am I coming tomorrow?

Does she like school? Does she still like to play soccer?

We make for pretty minimal conversation between the pair of us, but there is something precious about just being introverted together. About sitting on our stone perch and laughing as the world does as it pleases around us.

Because, today isn't a memory yet, not yet a story we tell, or a moment we hold in our hearts.

Today is where our sweat muddles together. Where we match up brown hair and brown eyes and call it family.

Today, we are going to take a few hours to lean in close and make this time count.

***

Ewens Simon is the first one to spot me when I settle down on a familiar bench before practice, the first one to whisper my name to Jason and nudge the other boys into looking behind them.

"Jessica. Jessica, do you have your camera?"

So normal, so casual, that it erases any doubts about the two day layover in Atlanta.

Because, this isn't coming in late or cold turkey to someone else's gig. This is slipping into an old familiar pair of shoes, re-becoming part of a story that has been four years in the making.

Here, in this place, we already know each other's names.

Here, they know that my camera is their tool to capture their world, to keep record, even when something goes wrong and the pictures disappear before anyone has a chance to see them.

Because, my phone is full. Full of kung fu videos and soccer clips and silly poses. Full of little fingers half in the frame and unintended panos that have dismembered legs flying over the deep brown of the soccer field.

And, it doesn't matter that I don't keep track of any of it, that my most common answer is, yes, they can use my phone, but, no, I don't know where it is. 

They'll pass it off when it is their turn to play, or scold one another with a, "Jessica said to give it to me now." 

Just the way that my kids in the States do. My Haitian kids will put it in the hands of another blanc before they leave, the same way that my Sunday school kids will pass it off to another leader.

This is easy. This is normal. 

This is visiting and playing and loving, not because we are saviors, but because we are friends.

This is home.

Kingdom Come

Our team is so much smaller this year that the first few meeting felt a little like a toddler clomping around in Dad's oversized shoes. What do we do with all of this space? How do we function as a small-ish team of eleven, rather than an army of twenty-two?

What do we do in a world where counting heads requires a glance, not a calculator and a roster?

We use long layovers for scavenger hunts. Pull in close to tell stories and give instructions. And, then we make the team even smaller.

Pro tip: don't wash your passport and then try to travel with it. Very sweet consulate officials in Atlanta will smile and laugh at you and then walk away to solve your silly problem.

Because, there is nothing that will tear down any misplaced assumptions of knowing what a trip will hold faster than standing at the boarding gate of a third and final flight with a seventeen-year-old who is being told that trying to get through customs on that passport will get her deported.

Yeah. No, thanks. That is not the kind of story that we want to go home and tell.

So, the two of us spark a flurry of phone calls early Sunday morning. Is it fixable? Where is it fixable? What do we do in meantime?

And, then we take a deep breath. Because, the only thing that we can do is wait and pray.

Pray for the team that we sent ahead of us. Pray for grace from passport officers. Pray our way through last minute but amazingly gracious Southern Hospitality, while we label bags for a craft show, and through countless rounds of HGTV.

Somehow, our story becomes their story, this mostly obscure high school trip a thing that all sorts of people are talking about, praying about, invested in. All because we got stuck in Atlanta.

But, we make it.

We step around that final corner into heat and bright sunlight, and something in our souls unfurls. Uncurls a little more when we catch glimpses of blonde heads over the compound wall and find ourselves wrapped in the warmth and welcome of a team.

And, I hold on to this moment, because this is a little of what eternity will feel like, this joy that will fold over us like a blanket. This sense of completeness. Of having all the time in the world.

The Kingdom of God will be a little bit like Haiti. 

(Because, Haiti already is a little bit of the Kingdom of God. Already; not yet. Tension in the middle. This theology of a coming reality that is already real.)

The stories we have built up inside us will come bubbling forth, good, bad, and beautiful; until we can see the Glory that is painted across it all.

We will eat. We will talk. We will play and watch and laugh, and our hearts will ache with the beauty of this thing.

We will grow quiet, sometimes. Pull up a circle of chairs and murmur about the things that we have seen God do, not just now, but in moments that stretch back to the beginning of Creation. We will glance around in awe and wonder, and we will know that this God, our God, is so very, very Good.

And, then, we'll wake up the next morning - if we ever need to sleep - and we will get to work.

I don't know exactly what work will look like in eternity. But, I know what work looks like now. I know the messy, sweaty, joyful, painful reality that is building relationships. The Shalom that we create one heart, one moment, one plate of food, one whisper of truth at a time.

I know the Divinity that shines through when we reach out a hand, figuratively and physically, to pull each other over obstacles. When fears are faced together. When names are known and stories are internalized. When nothing tangible is too precious to be shared and everything intangible is too precious not to be.

And, that's the sort of work that we get to in Fond Cheval.

My kingdom would have gotten us here faster, would have smoothed over the bumps in the road, would have greedily snatched up every moment that I could eke out of these eleven days. But, this isn't my kingdom. This is His.

This is His Kingdom come.

Simple (Complicated) Answers

"Should I get a car or go to Haiti?"

One of the seventh graders has my phone curled in his hand as we wait for parents to pick them up from a middle school event, fingers still scrolling through the unedited mass of photos and videos that the kids in Fond Cheval added over the past eleven days, examining the miniature kung fu movie and selfies squinting into too bright sun.

I've been home for eight and a half hours, and the answer comes easily to my lips.

"Go to Haiti."

Wait until that arbitrary but magical summer after freshman year, and then go to Haiti.

Let the car wait for another year when you will be old enough to actually drive it. Let the "things" sit until they become less important than the people. Let your horizons open up before you've absorbed enough cynicism to close them.

Let me plant this seed now, while you're still young enough to think that I know everything.

Because, if there are two things woven deeply into the DNA of our church, two things that the youth groups pick up on, it is this: children's ministry and missions.

The high schoolers sit around on darkened roof tops, watching for shooting stars and asking each other questions. "If you could do long term missions anywhere but here [Haiti], where would you go and what would you do?"

Medical missions, teaching, annual trips. They all have a plan, a concept, a dream. A sense that life in suburban America is not the end all be all of Christianity, that the best job that brains and charisma could earn them aren't really the highest goal.

And, I am reminded of this conversation with kids who will, next year, be old enough to join us. Reminded of the answers that we heard at winter retreat to the question, "If you knew you could not fail..." Reminded of seventeen year olds who will wait for as many silent hours as it takes to get a new passport and get on that plane.

Of a 4.0 GPA football player who drives an old, beat up, barely working car, but spends months raising the funds to go to Haiti.

Because I just spent eleven days with the answer to Al*xz's question.

I've sat with them while they wrestled through ideas of financial accountability. "If just one of us hadn't come, what could HCM have done with that money?" Listened as they began to scheme up fundraisers and better ways of doing things. Heard the gears in their brains turning a hundred miles an hour.

But, I have never once heard them say that it wasn't worth it.

Hurt, tired, sick, frustrated, giddy, numb, happy, or deliriously excited. Coming around that final corner in the airport means coming home.

It means that their friends and their family are waiting for them, and it doesn't matter how sweaty or cramped or uncomfortable the journey is to get there. It doesn't matter that they will spend the next eleven months missing these smells and these sensations and these faces.

Because, they are home.

And, family is so much more important than a car.