the kitchens in heaven

Yesterday Matt and I were able to experience something that the hundreds of people who have prayed for, supported, worked on, and visited the new seminary campus have never experienced...We feel so blessed! Yesterday was the last day of school (oh my heavens, how can that be!?) and to celebrate, we piled almost ALL of the students and all of the staff in two big trucks and took them to see the new seminary for their very first time.

The combination of last day excitement, the very rare opportunity of a 'field trip', and anticipation of seeing the new site transformed our 50 theologically trained pastors into little boys :) They were SO excited! The sheer volume of their chatter, joking and cheers turned something quite normal, walking around the new campus, into something electric.

I wish that ALL of you who have played any kind of role in the fabrication of this vision for a beautiful and set-apart Emmaus Biblical Seminary could have been there. Everyone quickly divided into two groups and 'toured' each building.

More exciting than the men's dorm was the men's bathroom.

"What ARE those?" a forty-year old student asked me, tapping on a bathroom stall door.

"That's a toilet," I told him, and opened the door, and showed him how the toilet had it's own little room, and how there were FOUR such rooms in that bigger room....He shook his head in disbelief.

With joy I watched twenty students stand in the shower room, marveling at the beautiful tiling and the "huge" room.

"Is this what Seminarys are like in America?" one of the cooks asked me half-way through, in almost a whisper.

"This is even better," I told her, with my whole heart. "This is the most beautiful seminary I have ever seen."

"ME TOO!" she whispered back, wide-eyed.

Room after room we toured, and I saw it all for the very first time all over again with them: with THEIR eyes. In some rooms they chattered excitedly, pointing and exclaiming. In others, they were silent, running worn hands over glossy cream tiles and gazing at each detail. For one sacred hour we walked and talked and looked and laughed, and I could tell that everyone felt so blessed to be a part of this campus, of EBS, of Bible training in Haiti.

We all joined back together in the cafeteria, where many students (and the cooks), touched the burners of a propane stove for the first time, marveling at how different it would be than cooking over coals and fire. We drank Cokes and continued to gaze and share, until one student spoke above the rest.

"This MUST be like the kitchens in heaven, right?"

I laughed out loud at his joke, only to realize that he was entirely serious, and was silenced by the sincere and solemn "Amen's!" of the students. "It must be!

We loaded up again and began the trip home, stopping here and there beside road-side shanties, muddy naked children and dirt roads to drop off a student.

I felt every emotion possible churning in my heart.

Pride in these men, these women, who have taught me so very much about faith, about service, about the LORD. Sorrow that the year has ended, and that my precious hours with the first year class are finished forever. Joy at their excitement over the new seminary. Love, true love, for my brothers, my sisters. Deep gratitude that the Lord has clearly called us to such a place, such a people, for such a purpose. Heaviness for each and every person we passed who met my eyes with empty, dark, hopeless stares. Hope for this place, GOD's land, because these men and women have such a burden to see it transformed.

But most? Bumping down that dusty pot-holed road crammed into the cab of a truck with 3 other adults and Lily? Most I felt very very small...A tiny fraction of a slice of God's creation, so undeserving, so loved and so blessed...NOT with a home, a husband, a baby, family, friends, a job...NO, this afternoon I felt blessed because I am His. And HE, great God of the universe, All-Powerful Planner and Creator, so Merciful and so loving ..He is mine.

If I flee from the greenest pastures

Would you leave to look for me?

Forfeit glory to come after
Till I only dwell in Thee?

If my heart has one ambition

If my soul has one goal to see

It's my solitary vision

That I only dwell in Thee.