GreenGate

Resistance

Across the street is a little boy trying to learn how to skateboard. He gets on it, flips the back end and when he can't master the trick, kicks the skateboard across the driveway, every time. That skateboard won't do what he envisions it should. I think words might fail me in the same way for this post. Let me explain.

I want to talk about Jesus. But I know that even saying the name means venturing out into the cumbersome baggage-laden world of religion.  But I have to talk about him.  Last night John, Luke and some great old friends went out to hear Josh Garrels sing and play his guitar.  I thought it would be good - we drove an hour to hear him - but I had no idea that it would reacquaint me with some things I had almost forgotten.

The depth, the beauty, the mindblowing creativity, the impacting every nook and crevice of your life-ness of Jesus and following Him is what we are all secretly looking for. Pretty much everything we are obsessing about is not very important, and what we are called to live for is grand and glorious. (I'm kickin' that skateboard to the edge of the grass about now.)  Josh Garrels giving away his album isn't that radical unless you realize he did it purely because God told him to.  What are we doing that cuts across the grain of the expected simply because God told us to?  Today.

Because of the world John and I tend to live in, we are surrounded by people dedicated to social justice issues, responsibly taking care of the planet and helping the poor, etc. We love all of those things too, but last night listening to someone cut a whole right into his heart and pour Jesus out onto the audience, I am once again full of the knowledge that He is the point of life, the juice of it, the joy of it, LIFE itself.

OK, so I'm ranting.

        Hold fast my people and sing

        Through peace and through suffering

        All for the joy that it brings to be free

        Its gonna cost us everything

        To follow one Lord and King

        True love endures everything

        To be free

                                    --The Resistance by Josh Garrels

        Here's to being a part of the resistance,

        Tina

     

 

Home

So, after my last post, perhaps some of you are worried about us.  I tend to pretty fully inhabit my current emotion and a blog is just a snapshot, so I'd better update.

After what seemed like a plethora of ceremony, we left Haiti and arrived in Tucker GA June 10th.  The World Relief office staff had a closing ceremony for John involving singing, speeches (including his), a plaque and a standing ovation.  It made me cry which is pretty predictable, actually.  The school where I taught, QCS, had a closing banquet and I was one of three teachers leaving, so made a farewell speech and had pictures taken with friends. It was very sweet and sad as those things are.  Our church prayed for us and my students wrote me good-bye notes (some on the end of their final exams which might have been a desperate play for points), and we packed. 

I realize now what I should have realized many years ago in this Hey-Lets-Move-Internationally-Life. Most of what I keep in the attic for when I come home is 

a. plastic

b. sentimental and made by one of my children involving feathers and a hot glue gun

c. too weird for repurposing

So, right now we are sorting through various layers and resetting up our house. It is like an archeological dig.  There are the artifacts from the Clarkston Community Center, Niger, early teaching, and pre-marriage.  My sister told me in a fit of frustration while helping me pack up years ago, "You save EVERYTHING!  Do you have little ziplock bags with the puffs of air you breathed in the 80s???"  Its really not that bad, but I have found Tuareg sandels made from goat skin with the hair still on them covered in green mold. Ummm. Would anyone buy those in a yard sale?? 

People have asked how we're doing, how it is being home, etc.  Can they help?  (in my attic?? You might get lost up there.)

We're all approaching it differently. I can only speak for me.  I am grateful for the chance to be with the boys. I am also grateful to already have a job which won't mean starting completely over - I'm teaching  where I taught before we left.  And of course, I miss Haiti.  Strangers in Target don't want to hear me talk about that. I tried.

 I tend to idealize where I just lived, so gone are the memories of terrible roads, expensive food and radio announcements about the lastest shooting.  Vivid are  memories of brilliant blue skies, gorgeous beaches, engaging Haitians, our adopted  "family" who lived with us, and the kids I taught last year. It will take time to sort through all of this and come out with a sort of balance.  Keeping the richness, losing the whininess about what I don't get to keep.  I read this morning that God is faithful and true. That despite our circumstances, we cannot be separated from His love. These things are nourishing to the soul.

So, as we reconnect and replant roots and see what's next, we'll welcome old friends back into our lives.  If you come by, you may be given door prizes - art projects, a blender with the lid missing, Tuareg sandals . . .

 

 

Back to the USA

We are leaving Haiti. Three weeks ago, John found out that World Relief is taking a new direction which does not include him. He found out on a Friday afternoon and left the next day for an already planned trip to Atlanta. AR and I spent the next week trying to bypass the enormous big hole that had just blown through our hearts and continue business as usual. It was a lame and pitiful excercise in futility. Yes, there are things to be thankful for and yes, we know we need to trust God, and even yes, there have been days where someone showing us the magic door to America was our fondest wish, but the reality of leaving Haiti after two years of ploughing up ground, sowing seeds and putting down roots felt like somebody in charge wasn't paying attention.

We have had some very good days about this and some very bad days:  

Five days a week,  we take 3 little Haitian girls who live in the small house in our yard to school. The first two get out of the car holding hands, ribbons bobbing and say "Tank yew!"  and then the third, her school being farther, sits next to AR and they hold hands in the back seat. Every day. It just about kills me watching this; it is so sweet.  This week it hit me that they wouldn't hold hands anymore. 

I teach English to 9th grade and 12th.  The seniors are leaving, but the ninth graders often talk about when they will have me again in three years. I realize that this has changed, and they will have someone else. The plans I've written and saved in my computer aren't necessary anymore, and my discipleship group will move onto some other teacher. 

Fougere, Maxo, Natasha, Janvier, Jolene, Naderge, Alexa, Krystel, and a packed room full of other people - Haitians and "blans" we love will now be loved from afar and hopefully, we'll get to see them again someday.

All of the million things that drive us crazy -  bugs in our cereal, cold showers, mean people, driving in Haiti, bad internet, power outages, terrible roads, expensive food, limited supplies, customs fees, etc. will obviously be part of the past as we zip over to Target with a Chic-filet bag in the car.  But I am sure there will be days when I wish I could just go outside and buy dinner off a street vendor's grill, watch my chickens peck around by the back door or wake up to a blue, Caribbean sky every day.

Please pray as we work through packing and moving, settling in and figuring out the future. There are moments when thinking about this turns my brain to fried mush.  Those of you who know us, don't laugh, but I really don't like change.

Someone said recently that the Christian life includes a series of little deaths. It is certainly something I want to understand:

“I used to be looking for a series of experiences … of dying with the Lord, hoping that I would have done with that lesson and pass on to the next, that I would be able to appreciate I had risen with Christ and then pass on to know what it is to reign with the Lord. These are true together, they are always true and they are only true as they are held together in one complete identification of the sinner with the Saviour. Only as we die daily do we reign. We are never more reigning on the throne than we are dying on the cross. Daily we, too, are invited to save ourselves and come down. Whenever we do, we cease to reign and we cease to bless. Some small trial of daily routine, a crossing of personal preference in a very little thing, an accumulation of duties, unexpected interruptions, unwelcome distractions. Yesterday these things merely fretted you, and internally at least, ‘upset’ you. Today on the contrary, you take them up, and stretch your hands out upon them, and let them be the occasion of new disgrace and deeper death for that old self-spirit. You take them up in loving, worshipping acceptance. You carry them to their Calvary in thankful submission. And tomorrow you will do the same. These things naturally fret us and upset us. Let them be a call to deeper death. The cross never grows easier, but is inseparably linked with spiritual power.”—Fred Mitchel, a former Director of the China Inland Mission

See you later, alligator.

 

 

OK, I'll hang in there a little longer

Ha.  It is almost time for bed, but I am in the frame of mind to write something in this space. 

We had visitors last week, Anslee and Chris Delastic,  and it was great to think about Haiti through their eyes.  Much happened.

One of my students had a flashback from when he was trapped under rubble for one hour. He had to leave class and when I prayed for him, he was clammy and shaking.  His arm has been through surgery, and his main goal in life is to be an NFL football player. Our friends saw World Relief sites, and we ate at a fancy restaurant - sushi and tuna tartar. We caught Maxo dancing in the kitchen with his earbuds in his ears.  I had to announce to my senior boys to stop hugging me as I was starting to get embarassed.  :) Anna went with the 10th graders to Village Espoir and had a blast with disabled Haitian kids.  Anslee spoke to my discipleship group and Chris traveled 3 hours to Hinche where Paul Farmer has his Zami Lasante hospital.  We stayed up talking more than usual and visited the place that Maxo is trying to buy and put up a house. After buying souvenirs, they left Saturday.   It was super encouraging to have someone come visit! 

This morning, I stayed home from church. If you knew how much I love our church, you would find that odd.  But I needed to have time with the Lord, just us.  It was good to have that uninterrupted time and think through some decisions/ideas/goals, etc.  I don't yet have the clarity I will surely eventually get, but it was refreshing. 

Tomorrow is another week. A water truck will come deliver water as our reservoir is empty, and I have a pile of papers yet to grade.  But it is a sweet and peaceful Sunday night.  Sweet dreams!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking with the Lord

It is likely that I will close out this little blog space. It has been a great friend during my first two years in Haiti, connected me to people I love and helped me to process day-to-day life here. In any kind of leavetaking, I want to check up on where I am with the Lord. That is the bottom line of all things good and worthwhile. What am I learning, how is He revealing Himself to me?

I read the verse recently, "Our hope is in a living God."  That is such a fundamental idea that God is alive and working, moving, otherwise all we do is pointless.  This semester I have had a series of days where I could see that the point to my life is God's purposes and His glory and all the rest of it is white noise distraction.  That even if my little wants and supposed needs were met, my soul will not find its satisfaction in that, but only in God's purposes being fulfilled, actually in God Himself. 

When my eyes are on that, it doesn't matter who likes/appreciates me (in fact, concern over that appears to be my sin that so easily entangles), but it matters that I am less and He is greater. 

I have also been thinking about the way that we fill up certain areas of our lives with certain of God's truths.  Like those old popsicle makers with 6 holes, you put juice in each compartment and freeze them.  We have a hole where we know that we should love, so we pick certain people to be objects of our "godly love" and feel we are good in that area. Then, we know we should become compassionate, so we choose another compartment in our lives and fill that up with compassion.  Then, we're good on that. But His love must penetrate every compartment, every hole and our most bland relationship must have that love poured over it, pouring out of us.

I also think that choosing useful, productive busy-ness might be necessary for a season, but if we are pushing to fill up our time with too much due to our pride and need to feel important, we are likely missing out on something God wants to do in/through us.

Finally, I see that I used to think by age 50 or so, my godliness would be so second nature, that I would hardly need to turn to the Lord, it would just kind of flow effortlessly.  But I realize that in growing older, there are new ways to harden in sinful, selfish attitudes and tougher battles to fight than ever before. That I am sorely in need of a Savior and forgiveness every blessed day.  But also that the well of Jesus' love is fathomless, profound and sufficient.  He can always turn it around and pull us back to Himself.

I hope I live a long time. I hope I grow in understanding myself. I hope I can do wonderful things in Christ.  But really, the bottom line is that I, like many people I know, am drawn like a magnet by the unceasing wonder of a relationship with Jesus. 

Love,

Tina 

 

 

Demolir

Today was the day that John and I went over with Natasha and Maxo to the "terrain" or bit of property they are purchasing month by month.  Today, the second payment was scheduled, and we had some questions before handing over such a big chunk of money.  First on the list was whether or not the owner had registered the transaction with the government, something he promised to do before we made the second payment.  Much to our dismay, we wound through alleyways, past doorways, interrupted some kids playing and finally got to Maxo's plot where we saw BIG red letters on the house next door.  The writing said, "Demolir!" 

"What???"  I said to Maxo. 

"Uh, it looks like the mayor is demolishing this whole row of houses."  Maxo said, obviously dismayed.  Sure enough, we looked down the line of pitiful looking cement hovels and they all said "demolir."

When we got to the owner of Maxo's property, he was sitting on on a broken board balanced on the old metal frame of a chair.  We pointed to the letters.  He grinned and bobbed his head. "Oh, yes, that is something the mayor is doing.  It's a project." 

When we patiently explained that we didn't want to pay for a bit of property, put a house on it and then have it torn down, he said, "But we don't know for SURE that this is going to happen to YOUR house." 

"Well, yes, but it would be kind of a pain if it did, right?" 

Anyway, he hadn't gone to register the sale with the government, didn't know anything about the demolition of all of the houses leading up to the one Maxo and Natasha were purchasing, but felt sure that if we paid him the money we had brought, it would all work out just fine.  After great gesticulating, disagreement and arguing and more Creole than my brain could hold, John left to go get AR and we walked away. On the way out, we stopped to talk to neighbors who said that this was a new thing, the demolition. No, the man hadn't known when he sold us the land most likely. No, they didn't know if and when this demolition would take place. BUT, they said, ALL of the houses in the area were no good anyway, as when it rains, they all come crashing down. 

"Isn't that kind of difficult for so many families?"  I asked.

"Oh, yes, very difficult," they said, smiling.

Crud.

So, Maxo, Natasha and I walked home together and talked it all through. It actually was the longest conversation we've ever had.  We talked about honesty, about how discouraged Natasha is, about people who drink alchohol vs. those who don't, and laughed about funny things that have happened. Then, we sat on the stairs together and prayed about it.  

Watching the sky grow darker, sitting with Maxo and Natasha, there was a sweet sense that God knows about their situation and how to help them.  After all, they are no longer in a tent, after all, they all have enough to eat, after all their kids are in school, after all . . .  

Of Love

In my British Lit. class, we recently talked about Francis Bacon. I imagine Francis Bacon had an enormously well-developed self-esteem.  He wrote all of those essays like "Of Studies" or "Of Truth," "Of Death" and "Of Goodness."  He tackled the big things and felt he was the man to do it.

Not to be too smarmy, but it is near Valentine's Day and I am thinking about love and how freely it is given to me pretty much every day.  Today, a little friend in 2nd grade told me when I asked if she had finished her V-Day cards, "Yes!  I made you the biggest and prettiest one with the best hearts on it!"  Wow. And then she told me she made one for Hannah (her name for AR) and was going to make one for Ella, our cat.  Her love is boundless.  Every day she gives me GREAT hugs and sometimes eats the food off of my plate.  See, I like that because it feels like we're kind of like family.  She even has a friend who now comes and gives me big hugs in a sort of Jumping-on-the-Bandwagon way.  Its wonderful.

I now have two seniors who hug me regularly.  I wasn't too sure that was quite professional of me to let them do that, but they do it with such sweetness and kind of when I'm not looking, so I've succumbed to the sheer pleasure of being loved by them. The other day I asked one of them if he wanted to memorize some extra lines in Shakespeare and he said, "If you want me to."  

Next week we are having some Valentine's activities at school.  Kids can buy flowers and serenades for each other.  One of my ninth graders asked if I would like it if she bought me a serenade.  I said, "Sure!"  She asked me after school for my favorite song so she could make sure I liked the song.  What I failed to explain in that rushed moment is that she could have someone sing me the theme song from Popeye and I'd feel honored. :)  Its the love behind it that is so sweet.

All of the daily self-sacrificing John does is truly love articulated.  I came around the corner in our house tonight and caught him learning the sweet song from the movie Babe.  I had said that someday I wanted him to sing that song. So, he is in there learning it. Wow, again.  He doesn't know I caught him, so don't tell him I know.

Francis Bacon writes, "[Love] doth much mischief, sometimes like a siren; sometimes like a fury."

And also,  "There is in man's nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars."

But really, what does he know?  I bet no one ever made him the biggest Valentine or learned the Babe song for him.

Happy Valentine's Day, friars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Singin'

Right now there is some really great music going on outside of the window by my head.  It has some fast clapping along with it. One person is singing a line and a whole herd of people are echoing.  It makes me want to go over and join in.  But I think I'm going to write here instead.

Living in Haiti has so many distinct contradictions.  We are learning more of them lately, and I find that the more I learn, the trickier it is to write on this blog. The first year it was easy as pie. Everything was new and strange and just going to the bank was an adventure. Now, we know more.  

Recently, we've heard some stories that are truly stop-you-in-your-tracks kind of accounts.  Today, I had a conversation with a woman who, along with her husband, is trying to adopt two girls. They have been working on this for two years.  She tells me the orphanage director has raised a great deal of money from churches in the states, but rather than use it for the kids in the orphanage, he has built a home in the Dominican, one in Florida, and is slowly amassing his fortune.  He keeps the kids in good enough shape to avoid trouble for himself, yet bad enough to attract more donors.  This woman sees boxes of donated shoes and orphans with bare feet; money raised for orphanage workers who do not really work at the orphanage; children who should have enough to eat, hungry and mis-treated.

The danger of sharing stories like this is that they make us want to dismiss all of Haiti and never try to help so we won't be fooled. But we are called to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves."  We can't just send money and not follow-up to see how it is spent.  We also can't look for simplistic, feel-good solutions that let us walk away scot free with no complications and no responsiblity.  

John and I were talking today in the car about Haiti (pretty much a common topic 'round here), and about how even in the established churches there are pastors leveraging their jobs for the money they can bring in from donors.  Gross.  Then, we started giving examples of people we know who aren't like that. Their common denominator is that they are poor.  The outliers. The marginal and vulnerable.  Not to sweepingly generalize about the poor in Haiti, but it seems that they are the ones most authentically faithful, excited about the gospel.  Their quest for power and wealth isn't going very well.  So, they are singing, outside of my window. Still.  Still clapping.  Still singing.  Let's join 'em.

 

On a roll

It feels like God is on a roll. 

Sometimes we can't share World Relief business as it is too sensitive, and sometimes we can't share personal victories if it involves others' personal lives, but I have to say, I am amazed at how real God's presence in our lives feels lately.

Last night, John was wrestling with a certain decision related to World Relief. He had no peace about moving forward with a certain plan, but there was no logical reason not to according to those around him.  Finally, we prayed sitting in the kitchen for God to show him, "Yes, move forward" or " No, stop."  John said, "Tina, I don't know how God can show me if its a "no."  I shrugged my shoulders. 

Today, he wrote a quick email explaining the way God brought it all to a screeching halt without him having to do a thing.  The "No" was clear.  What a relief. 

God also answered a specific prayer of mine through the most unlikely solution imaginable.  I wish I could give details but maybe over coffee later.

How does He do that?  How is He so big and strong, yet so amazingly smart and detail oriented?

I visited the World Relief office today as Monday, I only teach one class at school.  It was so good to be with the staff and check in.  In about one hour, I heard of three communities that had bad cholera, no clean water or latrines; now they have water and sanitation covered.  There is the dedication of a new church building WR built, I get to go in a few weeks.  Small scale farmers were lined up in the lobby signing up for the agro-business, micro-finance program. I talked to several who are excited to be raising their own chickens and goats. A team is visiting from a church - self proclaimed advocates for Haiti. Its wonderful. It was like God saying, "Cool, right?" 

Life isn't always this amazing, but today it sure feels pretty dang amazing, like God is on a roll. 

Pastor pumping water from a WR well.

 

Its so wierd

I am home sick today and I wrote a post, just deleted. What is so weird is that I think I knew it wasn't the right post to send out all along.

Instead I want to send this out.

God is a bedrock of faithfulness. As the song "Pass me Not O Gentle Savior" says, our trust in Him is, "not based on our own merits."  As AR has quoted lately, "We do not depend on our own faith, but on His faithfulness."  -A. W. Tozer

He absolutely has things in hand.

We cannot see it or control it.  We must not forget that every day, every day, we are going to get up, have solid confidence in His power and ability to change us and those around us for the better.  Then, we're going to drive a stake into the bottom line fact of His goodness for us and hold on tight.

OK, that's the post for today. Write back and tell me about your good declarations of God and His goodness toward you.  Love.