giving, pants and what burning charcoal might look like...

Ah.

Every time I think the dust has settled on my "burden balance"...that I "get it"...that I've found that place between this culture, my culture, and HIS culture to dwell... that I understand or have seen it enough or thought it all through...I have a today.

Matt watched Lil so Belony and I could go out right after lunch. We stopped in to see Pehpay first today, and he is doing SO well. We talked about where he is in the Bible, how he's feeling, what his days are like, and when he's going to be a guest speaker in chapel (next week! should be AWESOME).

The almost toothless smile and his beautiful spirit...ah, just bring me such joy! His crumbling little shack has become a little hut of hope, and the dirt and holes and smells and clutter and poverty that were so heart-wrenching the first week have truly faded in light of his new walk with the Lord!

However, I was greatly humbled by Belony. A few days ago, I noticed that he clearly had a burden on his mind. I probed gently at the source, but he continually hesitated, finally just asking that I pray for his family. I promised that I would, but after a few days, still felt burdened about it. The Hubele's had left us some money, and when I came across the envelope, I felt strongly that some should go to Belony's family for whatever this problem was.

After giving him the envelope, he was deeply touched, because his family is struggling greatly right now financially. Yet as we started to leave Pehpay's little hut today, Belony pressed a wad of crumpled bills into Pehpay's hand, knowing that he needed it desperately too, though Pehpay has never asked.

I have so much and yet so often give so stingily of my finances, my time, my money, my gifts, my friendship, my love. My giving here has never set us back...we have so much more than everyone we live with, it would be almost impossible NOT to give. If you had 25 bags of McDonald's in your car, and saw a homeless man on the street, it would be nothing to give him a burger.

But to see one brother sacrificially (in a way I don't even begin to understand or know) give to another brother, to see a man with just one french fry to live on give it joyfully to his brother...

Tears stung my eyes as we continued on and I tried to process this act of selfless pure love.

No time. We talked to each person we passed, one woman telling us that she would "become a Christian one day when she finally quit smoking" (???) and another that didn't want to follow Christ, but did want us to ask Christ to give her more money and food and to solve their problems.

In a moment we had arrived in the little yard, surrounded by cacti, where Belo meets with new believers to study the Bible. Only Frandlee was there today, and has been faithfully there since becoming a Christian (she was the first one) several weeks ago. After several weeks of setting good foundation, today Belony began to talk with her about living "set apart" and about what "repentance" looks like..."turning a different direction."

As he began to share with her from Romans, a rather rough looking group of men, one woman and several children began making a lot of noise from another house in the yard. In a few moments, something I couldn't see happened, and the tallest and angriest man began beating a small boy that seemed to be his son.

The boy was screaming, the man kept beating him in the side of his face, and the mother and neighbors didn't blink. No interest, no involvement, no emotion, no change. I felt instantly sick and anxious, and looked at Belony. He met my eyes, and pointed me back to the Bible on Frandlee's lap. Focus on what we CAN do, he seemed to be saying.

He continued to try to speak to her over the noise, and I tried to focus, but found it impossible, praying for wisdom and courage about how I could intervene. I couldn't even breathe, while everyone around me, buses charging by, men playing dominoes, children laughing at the withering boy, continued. An instant before I could stand it no longer and jumped between the livid man and crouching boy, the man threw down his fists in disgust and walked away, flopping down on the porch and glaring hatefully at me? belony? life?

In this atmosphere Belony persevered, and I realized really for the first time what Frandlee was facing. No mother (left them when she was 3), no father (he lives an hour away and does not provide nor is involved with her.) NO Christians in the house or in this yard community of houses. No Christian friends. No Christian family. Almost no safe or moral ways to provide for her existence. No one looking out for her.

I looked again at Hateful Man, and then at Frandlee, and shuttered. The men and women that sneer and jest and slur at Belony and I are the men and women living with Frandlee. And she has chosen to follow Christ. What a HUGE commitment. Even to sit for an hour and study the Bible in the middle of such tension, such darkness, such sadness. To be SEEN with "Pastor and the Missionary".

"We have to be in the world, Frandlee, but not OF it!" Belony encouraged her, while my mind whirred. "You might live here, but you must be set apart. This might be a very dark place, but you must be a light! The things you did before? The things you are seeing everyone do? You must not do them..you must be set apart. The Scripture will tell you how to live! Let's look here...and here...."

As he spoke to her about Biblical standards, I heard them applied to a set of cultural norms that varied greatly from those in mine.

"Frandlee, you cannot prostitute yourself for some money, for some food. You must live differently than the rest of the world. You must trust the Lord for your food. He will provide for you!"

"Frandlee, you cannot wear pants any longer!" (now before you say, "WHAT?" let me continue.) Belony explained to me on the way home, "It is NOT because the act of wearing pants is a sin. Of course not. It is no sin to wear pants. But here, in this culture, women have been wearing pants for years as a sign that they are available for pay. Now, more women wear them, and they are NOT all necessarily prostituting, but they ARE still synonymous with trying to attract men sexually. Frandlee cannot be set apart, be a light in her community, be holy as He is holy, in this culture, while representing to all that she is trying to sexually attract men." (For the first time, I really got why I'm in a skirt everyday.)

"Frandlee, you can't have a boyfriend who is not a believer! You cannot seek the Lord and hold these standards for yourself, and yet spend all your time and conversation and money and love with someone that does not love your Lord. He will pull you away. Just as a pile of burning charcoal will burn for hours, but if one is pulled out, it sputters and dies. You must date burning charcoal! Your boyfriend must be one who helps you burn for Christ, not one who pulls you away from Him."

"Frandlee, do you know what one of the hardest things is? You must forgive. The Bible says clearly that if we do NOT forgive our brother, our Father in Heaven cannot forgive us. No matter what anyone has done to you, we have to forgive, because He has forgiven us. Can you forgive?"

"All but one," she said firmly. "Not this one."

"Ah, Frandlee, but you must," Belony said, love brimming over in each admonishment. "We will pray for that."

As Belony went through several other things, I asked myself the same questions. I thought about my culture. I thought about MY standards. I thought about Belony, and if he saw me in the States, if he would think I looked or lived any differently than anyone else. Sure, my heart might be radically different for Christ, but what about my LIFE. What about my dress? What about my hobbies? Habits? Speech? Friends? Schedule? Job? Spending?

I realized today that I spent most of my life in the States trying very hard NOT to look much different. My HEART was for Christ, wasn't that enough? He knew I loved Him! Couldn't I blend?

What would a totally set apart person even LOOK like in the States? What should I even look like? If I'm representing HIM -- not "Christian Stacey" or "Good" or "Traditional" -- everywhere I go, Haiti, US, wherever, what should that look like?

THIS was the peace I found, the peace I overjoyingly shared with Frandlee as I was almost beginning to despair for her almost seemingly impossible situation...HE WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE.

If His strength is made great in our weakness, if He calls us to be Holy as He is Holy, if He is faithful even when we are not, if He promises to draw near to us if we will only draw near to Him...Then HE will help Frandlee be human-impossibly set apart. Then He will help her be light and find other lights and rely on Him for her food and to stand firm under persecution.

Not a thing has He asked us to do or be that He cannot do or be in us...that He will not help us to do. I'm still working all this through, but tonight, this is truly abandoned and trusting prayer:

Search me, O God, and know my heart

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

See if there is any hurtful way in me,

and Lead me instead in your everlasting Way.

psalm 139