Nothing in this World

***If your children read our blog, this may be a life experience you want them to miss. Please read in advance***

Yesterday was the second time I have seen a dead person. Not an “open casket” dead person, but a killed person. Years ago, whenever I was 18 and working in Port-au-Prince, I was in the back of a truck with a team, pointing out the sights downtown, when a man asked me, “What is that guy doing?”

I followed his point, and instantly responded, “That man is dead.”

Later, I was shocked by how quick and certain I was to respond. And yet the moment I saw the middle-aged man, wearing black, lying in the middle of the market with an obvious void of people around him, I knew he was dead. He looked entirely different than sleeping. He looked void, entirely empty…dead.

A 2x4 lay next to him, and thousands of people thronged past him, barely glancing at the reminder of the “law.” He had stolen. He had paid. Now, he was displaying for others the price of theft.

Yesterday was a very long day of travel. We drove to the airport at 8:30 am, waited for a plane part, flew to the Bahamas for fuel (get off, security, wait, board), flew to the Dominican Republic for mail drop-off (get off, walk through the entire airport, go through customs, leave the airport, re-enter the airport, go through security, stamp passports, wait, board) finally arriving in Cap-Haitien at 5:00 (4:00 Haiti time). We were hungry and exhausted, but happy to be home, and happy to see that our ride had somehow followed all our detours and shown up!

Lily was fantastic, all our stuff arrived in one piece, the customs lady was too enamored with Lily to dig through our bags, and a deep breath of damp hot air and the happy sound of Haitian Creole filled our hearts with a great sense of hope. A new year, new opportunities for ministry, old friends…we were home!

But we hadn’t been on the road home for 5 minutes before we came to a huge gathering of people, so thick we could barely pass through the road. Inching our way along, Sam and Matt wondered aloud at the crowd, hoping that perhaps there was a soccer match on a gas station TV or an overturned wheel-barrow of Cokes or T-shirts.

However, we quickly realized something far more grave was happening, as literally hundreds of people pressed around two trucks, craning and shouting and pushing to see something on the road. A UN tank had already arrived, and three or four soldiers, fully armed, were trying to get the crowd to press back. We continued to push forward, unsure of what else to do and not wanting to stop in the midst of such a large and tense crowd.

One young soldier, dressed in light blue, a helmet and clutching a gun, passed by my window. For a brief moment our eyes met. He couldn’t have been more than 18 or 19 years old, and all I saw in his dark eyes was fear.

Holding Lily’s sleeping, sweaty head to keep it from dropping over, I looked past the young soldier, only to see an image I’ll never forget.

A motorcycle lay on the ground, crammed between the two trucks, and hung over the body of the twisted bike were two bright white and blue tennis shoes, perfectly laced, perfectly bleached, toes pointed perfectly up, legs held perfectly angled.

Again, I immediately knew he was dead. I quickly looked away, not wanting to see any more, but knowing from the heaviness and, I don’t know how to explain it, void-ness of his legs and feet that he was dead.

A moment later we were through and zipping down the road.

We were all quiet. “That’s the first time I’ve seen someone killed,” Sam said. “I thought it would hit me harder.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

Questions, then a flash of horror, then flying past vendors and a kid selling gum, two women laughing fondly at a bare-butt child, wondering what in the world I was going to fix Matt and Lily for supper and wishing I had some Advil and hoping Tennis Shoes was a Christian and knowing from statistics that he probably wasn’t.

And maybe we don’t normally see such things. But wherever we live, such things are happening, and suddenly I heard quite clearly in my mind, “Welcome Home.”

Not with a cynical tone, but with one of urgency. If home is where the heart is, and we are after His heart, then our home is where His heart is for us. And that, unmistakably, is here. And the urgent need for Christ? What an urgent reminder.

We reunited with dear friends today, four, in particular, who are IT… The men and women God is clearly using to build His kingdom here in Haiti…the ones we are pouring, pouring into…the ones we see living, breathing, preaching, sharing, serving, joyfully suffering the Godly life.

And as we kissed and hugged and held hands and shared stories and Lily and laughter, Matt and I felt simultaneously and overwhelmingly that there is Nothing in this World but Knowing Him.

We have to make Him known.

We have to make Him known.