Things like riding down the street and seeing a young man settling a piece of crushed cardboard as padding on the top his head, before his friend lifts a flat of 24 glass bottles full of Coca Cola that he'll carry on his head as he walks down the street. The strength in his bearing, but also the grace required for his balance.
Seeing that same strength and grace when Jovenel and Richardson together fill and then carry a 5 gallon bucket of water to their room for bathing, Richardon's free hand resting on Jovenel's shoulder to help balance them both.
More than once, the arms of a feverish little boy clinging to my neck, desperate for an refuge from the fever and the pain, has brought tears to my eyes. Before I came, people asked what I would be doing this trip. I knew that I wanted to have some time with "my" afternoon LB classes before the school year was over, but that was about all I knew for sure and that would only cover a handful of the 20 days I'll be here this time. It turns out that chickengunya virus was about to hit hard with the kids in the children's home - but David has been busy with the fantastically productive teams that have been here, while Tammy has been busy taking over many of the duties of the Haitian staff ladies who have gotten the virus, as well. So this has been perfect timing - perhaps even ordained timing? -for an extra pair of hands around here. Even if God has brought me here at this time solely to care for these kids while they've been sick (and we probably still haven't seen the end of it), then the entire trip will have been worth it for me.
Much of what I have been doing is dosing meds and filling up water bottles to try and keep them hydrated. But there's also been a whole lot of rocking and singing and that gentle back-scratching that was my favorite thing for my mother to do when I was little bitty and didn't feel good. I've had kids of all sizes curl up in my lap over the past week and I've done my best to soothe away the worst of the symptoms.
Headache has hit some of the kids particularly hard, so I offered to massage the temples of one of the teenage boys (who shall remain nameless for the sake of social media!) who was having a hard time finding relief, even with the meds. So, he sat in the yard while I stood behind him and massaged his temples and the sides of his head, because that's what I always do when Scott has a headache. It seemed to help the pain - but had the added beneift of being riotous entertainment for the boys in the neighborhood who could see us through the gate. Apparently, it was quite the spectacle! I have no idea what they were saying about it - I probably don't even want to know - but when I walked next door on Sunday to check on some of the Haitian workers who are sick, I had quite a following of neighborhood boys by the time I got back to the gate. I don't think they quite know what to make of me, which cracks me up. There's one guy who, every time he sees me, calls out, "chiken, chiken!" so I've started replying with, "gunya, gunya!" Even among the teenage boys who live here, there is a great deal of theatrical pantomime of my checking everyone's fever with my hands on their arms and necks and trying to coax them into drinking some water. So it's nice that I can provide some TLC - as well as our own little version of SNL. :)
Another particular blessing was being here with Jovenel on his birthday last Friday! He woke up with a headache & fever, & I thought for sure that he had gotten chikengunya for his birthday. But a single dose of Tylenol seemed to knock out whatever it was. Even though he's a big 12-year-old boy now, on the afternoon before his birthday, Jovenel let me pull him into my lap and rock him for awhile. I explained that I had gotten to rock Will & Mark when they were little, but I had missed the chance to rock him. I asked if he thought I was crazy, and he smiled a little & nodded - but he indulged me anyway. We had a good, long talk and made another sweet memory together.
One other thing that has taken me by surprise is the way God can use an iPhone playlist to capture my attention and remind me of Who He is and why I'm here. I wrote last night about going to church at Port-au-Prince Fellowship and how meaningful the service was on Sunday. I've attended worship there a handul of times now, and it's always been meaningful, in one way or another. They have a great worship band there, and last summer I heard a handful of songs for the first time that would become the basis of my Haiti playlist that I use to more or less curate my feelings about everything that is happening in my heart, my mind and my soul when I'm here - and when I'm not. One of the songs was Oceans by Hillsong United, which I had never heard before they played it at PAPF last June. The lyrics are perfectly powerful for someone like me who has always had the ease of practicing (as Casting Crowns puts it) "deep water faith in the shallow end" but is somehow seeking to trust God, wherever He would call me. That song became kind of a cornerstone for many of us who were serving here last summer, so the first time that our Resonate band at AUMC sang it, I was astonished at the way the Holy Spirit could use corporate worship to speak to me so intimately.
The other song that kind of took my breath away at PAPF last summer was Break Every Chain by Jesus Culture. It's a powerful song on a variety of levels, but one of the primary reasons I was here at that time was to teach the class of restavek children (the Late Bloomer class that I've mentioned in previous posts) who attend school in the afternoons here at Christian Light. So, I had given my heart away to these amazing kids who are literally classified as enslaved by the United Nations - and we start singing a song during worship with the lyrics, "There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain." I was immediately wrecked. Crying (wet neck then, too - not cute!) and praying and crying out in my heart that the power of Jesus will indeed break the physcial, spiritual and emotional chains that have shackled the precious lives of these kids.
In fact, one of the boys in the class had worn this shirt to school the Friday before:
June 21, 2013
Again, I'd never heard the song before that Sunday last summmer, but it's another one that we've sung in Resonate at AUMC. That song is another thread that God has used me to both bind me and draw me back to Haiti. So, music has been a powerful influence on my spiritual development and sustenance in the past year - enough so that I don't know why it still surprises me when the Holy Spirit uses music as a means of either revelation or confirmation.
I mentioned in a previous post that last Tuesday the LB class ended up with a substitute teacher. Because I love them so (and perhaps because they literally chanted my name when I walked in the room!) I told the substitute he could go and that I would be their teacher for the afternoon. I did this without a translator in the room, so I don't even know what I was thinking - other than that I'm always grateful for time with them, so why not? After we worked a little on an English lesson, I decided maybe we could just enjoy some music together. So, I got out my bluetooth speaker, turned my Haiti playlist on shuffle and the one song out of 39 to play is Break Every Chain. [Well, of course it was, Lindsey - try to keep up!]
So, what else could I do but try to teach them to sing it? The initial line is also the chorus and it's very repetitive. So I taught them the sign language for Jesus, and then we pantomimed fists crossed in shackles that we pulled apart with fingers wide when we sang the words "break every chain." They loved it! Did they understand the words and their theological application? Probably not. But it was a reminder to me of how God can use anything at any time to speak to your heart and draw your eye to the things He wants you to see. And if He does it for me, then I can rest assured that He will continue to do it in the lives of these kids, as well - despite their circumstances. It was also a reminder that the chains that bind people come in many forms, and the illusion that these kids are the only people I know in bondage is just that: an illusion. So, that song is always a prompt to pray for those in the "chains" that I can see - and for the ones in chains I can scarely imagine.
It's almost time to go downstairs and start my day. Of course, I have more that I would love to write about, but I'm not going to get very far today if I stay in my pajamas. So, I'll sign off in gratitiude for the ongoing prayers and support from all the people who have made it possible for me to be here. I can't think of a better verse to close with than my favorite verse in all the Bible:
The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight over you. He will quiet you with His love and rejoice over you with singing. - Zephaniah 3:17
Indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment