drums, Moses and the miracle of soccer

For the first night since the earthquake, we fell asleep to drums pounding, pounding right behind our heads. Chanting, loud singing and aggressive, steady drumming began around 7 pm and continued long into the red moon night.

"Those whom the earthquake scared," a neighbor-friend told me today, "Are not scared anymore. Enough time has passed. They think that the demons have grown hungry. It is time, they think, to return to what they like."

But as I closed down the house last night, locking up the doors, putting out even more rat poison, turning off all the fans, the Lord quite clearly brought an image to my mind. Through pounding so loud that Matt and I had trouble speaking to each other, I saw the scene Moses once did...coming down the mountain after fantastic time with God, carrying stones that His finger had engraved, only to hear the sound of chanting and singing in the distance.

"There is a sound of war in the camp!" his companion Joshua said.

"No," said Moses. "It is not the sound of the cry of triumph, nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat; It is the sound of singing that I hear."

They round the corner at night, I pictured, and in the glowing firelight under a red moon see God's people, their brothers and sisters, dancing wildly and singing praises and 'pounding drums', giving thanks to...an idol. A gold cow. One they made themselves by Aaron's hand from their rings and earrings.

"This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt" Aaron told them.

Moses, who had just finished begging God to "turn from Your burning anger and to change Your mind about doing harm to Your people", loses it himself...shatters the commandments still warm from God's hands, grinds the calf into dust and makes the people drink it, chews out Aaron, sees "that the people were out of control", and stands at the gate and yells, "Whoever is for the Lord come with me!"

He then enlists these God-fearers to take up their swords and to charge from gate to gate, killing every brother, friend and neighbor. "And about three thousand men fell that day."

Moses returns to the Lord: "This people has committed a great sin, making a god of gold for themselves. But please forgive their sins, and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written."

"Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out. But you, go now, and lead the people where I told you." (Check it out: Exodus 32)

"It is the same today as it was in the beginning of time," one of my students said this past Saturday as we talked about Noah and the flood and why God had decided to destroy His beloved creation.

"What do you mean?" I had asked.

"I mean, God had a plan for good for people back then, but they did what they wanted and did what was evil. And when Adam sinned, he had death. And when Cain sinned, the punishment was death. And when the people sinned, they had death. It is the same today."

And THAT is what broke my heart with each piercing cry last night and with each pounding beat. Each slap on each animal-skin drum was done by a hand...a hand I have shook, another hand among trillions of others He has made. Each chanting praise sung to Satan, to demons, just another bowing to an idol. A gold cow, money, Satan, whatever. If it's not God...if our focus, if our desires, if our sacrifices are not for God, they might as well be to a earring cow or a waving flag (flags waving signify here that a demon is present.)

The same God that was rightfully infuriated, broken and enraged over His people worshipping an idol thousands of years ago was just as pierced last night over His people worshipping an idol. As a cow was killed last night, prepared and sacrificed to demons literally one block from our pillows, God's holy anger burned, and THAT was what was disturbing.

I LOVE that He wants us enough to want us COMPLETELY for Himself. I love that He loves us enough to be enraged when we give ourselves to another. I love that we are His children deemed worthy of nothing less than all of HIM.

Today was such a ridiculously incredible day at Emmaus Biblical Seminary that I KNOW He has yet to give up on His people.

"But go now," He calmed my heart this morning, "and lead the people where I have told you." I am reminded, in the midst of all the beauty of the last days, that Haiti, that the church, that our friends, that our family....that the world is still a mission field.

On a happier note...THREE more students from Port-au-Prince began with us today, and one of them is a woman! (Our first female student to live on campus for...years.) My English class now holds more new students than old, and as Matt began to teach Old Testament to the first year class today, we had to get more desks and chairs out of storage because there weren't enough for all the students. Two weeks after we start classes at Emmaus Biblical Seminary, and we're already having to get more furniture!

Then this evening, when I came home from visiting a few friends down the road, I heard shouting and cheering coming from the campus. EBS has been a rather quiet place since the earthquake, but as I rounded the corner of the drive with Lily, we found the soccer field teeming (for the first time ever) with guys, all playing their hearts out in a pick-up soccer game, all barefoot, all laughing their heads off.

This might not seem like much: guys playing soccer. But it is. For years now, that field has waited. Waited for the day when it could be a beautiful lush place of rest and joy for men and women suffering and struggling and sacrificing to serve in Haiti. And then when the goals trembled 6 weeks ago with the shifting earth, it felt as if there would never be soccer again...seemed like the new lines of concern, hardship and heartache etching the students faces would never soften for "GOAL!" cheers again.

But it was my great joy this evening as the sun dipped behind the mountain for the hundred thousandth time, to stand back and SEE that the Lord is good in a bunch of burdened-pastors-turned-carefree-boys.

Because He has forgiven and continues to forgive my idols...

Because He died to have me, and rose again...

Because of His never-shifting faithfulness...

I'm gonna go and lead His people where He told me...to Himself.