a precious moment

I rarely blog "in the moment", but this particular experience is too sweet to pass alone. I am sitting in my office, working feverishly to finish planning tomorrow's lesson before I get Lily from Gertha. Everyone else is in chapel, the last Friday Praise Service of the year. The chapel is 50 yards in front of me, and the community of Saccanville, 50 yards behind.

With all the loudness 50 called men and women could possibly produce, the students are singing praises to their King, OUR King, sounds of worship echoing all throughout this dark world.

I sit alone, in the middle, between radiant light and stifling darkness, listening joyfully to the one spilling into the other.

"Even the darkness isn't dark to you, O Lord" David says, and I testify today that this bold claim is true.

The school-year is finishing, a year that should have been defined by sadness, darkness and death. We moved to one of the most voodoo entrenched communities in Haiti this year and lost over 200,000 of our countrymen, friends and family this year. Instead, the praise of Emmaus this morning is that "He is still on the throne", and I can't help but think through just the past 6 months and be floored by what beauty and light has defined the year instead...

a beautiful new mission field....followers of Satan turning around completely to follow the Lord...10 new passionate and godly students...a dead man walking and praising the Lord...hundreds of community members living in hellish circumstances now completing dry and strong homes...

As the praises of His children call out to a dark and weary world, I KNOW that things will never be the same. Haiti will never be the same, Saccanville, never the same. Emmaus will never be the same...I, never the same, because He is on the throne, still. The God who knows the flight of each sparrow, the growl of each stomach and the gnaw of each heart is ACTIVE on His throne and in the mud and dirt of OUR hearts and lives TODAY, despite ALL circumstances.

AH, how I wish you were sitting here with me, speechless with praise and astounded by His gracious hand, deeply aware of His every-moment, every-place, every-circumstance presence.

Tout bagay deja bien
Tout bagay deja bien
paske Jezu shita sou trwon-nan
Tout bagay deja bien, tout bagay deja bien, tout bagay deja bien.

Saton perdu batay
Saton perdu batay
paske Jezu shita sou trwon-nan
Saton perdu batay, Saton perdu batay, Saton perdu batay.

(Everything is already good, because it is Jesus who sits on the throne.
Satan has lost the battle, because it is Jesus who sits on the throne.)