Every few days, my phone buzzes to remind me of another team that was canceled during the unrest in early July, and I am reminded that the way we choose narratives, the way that we tell stories, matters.
"God called me to go to Haiti this summer."
Is it that simple? Or, could it have been, perhaps, that God called you to be a part of a Haiti team? That God called you to be faithful to say yes? That God called you to tie your life together with these other people who bought the same plane tickets but has intentions for you somewhere closer to home? Could this be a part of a long plan and a bigger story?
The nuances in our narratives matter.
It matters that we listen to the "stay" just as much as to the "go." It matters that we do more than simply take these things that we want to do and slap a layer of Christianese over the top. It matters that we are careful in the words that we use and the expectations that we set up for ourselves and others.
It matters that we look for the Grace in all of it.
Grace, that, maybe, when we sat down with the interns at the beginning of the summer and put all of those adventures on the calendar, the One Who Sees knew that our kids needed a quiet month of water fights and morning walks and movie nights instead.
Grace for spending the rest of the year bringing in visitors in intentional groups of twos and threes and fours, rather than the floods of teams that were supposed to define our August. Grace when doing so changes the way that funding comes in, because teams and donors are often one and the same. Grace when teams that had been scheduled find themselves caught in that movie cliche.
"We'll go anywhere you ask. We'll do anything you need."
"We need you not to come."
Grace for a team of teenagers in the Tri-Cities who are using this week to join in as part of a larger family instead, to serve closer to home, to honor the voices that asked them to help by staying. It's disappointing, and it is hard, and it hurts when the thing that you were so excited about get pulled out from under you. This isn't how they thought their summer was going to play out. But, they are choosing to Love enough to listen.
And, really, perhaps, in the layers and nuances of all of this, in the waiting and the watching, in the tug of war between Justice and Order, the best thing that we can do is listen.
Watch. Read. Learn.
Put the time into understanding more than the shallow headlines, into studying history and learning the patterns that are bubbling back up to the surface again. Into understanding debt and occupation and coups and embargoes and revolution. Into coming to grips with this place in the Caribbean where Che Guevara and NBA players occupy the same wall, where other countries have hurt and helped and hurt again, where NGOs have had free reign to do as they please.
Because, in the midst of Grace, as a result of Grace, as those compelled by Grace, we have a sacred duty to be generous with our time, to be generous with our heart space and our head space, to "grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man."
Because, in the midst of all of the mess and the hard and the confusing, in the midst of individuals and international entities, here, in the middle of our humanity, we find the same God who stepped into the heat and the mess and the politics of 1st century Palestine.
Coups. Debt. Occupation. Revolution. A history of slavery and freedom. A small nation surrounded by a bigger and more powerful world. A mixing of languages and cultures. This is the world in which the Bible was written. This was Jesus' world. This is Jesus' world.
This is where we find Beauty and Light and Healing, right in the middle of everything that is hard.
Right in the moments where we can most see the need for a Christ who reconciles all things. Right where our brokennesses least fit together. Right where we are the most tired or the most disappointed or the most hurt. Right when it seems like it been too long since we heard the voice of God. Right where it seems the most difficult to see the Holy in anything, let alone everything.
When we come in without knowing the stories and the history, we all too easily miss our chance to see where God is at work in the middle. In the family that is getting a chicken coop for the first time. In the little one who gets to go for a summer visit with her auntie and mama. In the countless people across a beautiful country who are working to balance justice and order, liberation and calm.
The story isn't simple. It never will be. But, that doesn't mean that it isn't worth it.
Let's be careful with our narratives. Let's be humble. Let's learn. And, let's stay flexible.
After all, nothing is certain until it's history -- and, even then, it can be re-written. :)
