nou ansanm

Today was a GOOD DAY.

Sure...it had it's issues.  There are still a lot of scheduling issues to be worked out, it was 8 million degrees today, Matt had to hold one of those "we really dropped the ball here, friends" meetings, and it'll be REALLY good to have Giselaine back Monday.  Counting bloody chicken legs and having five people ask me how many rolls we need for breakfast?  Yeah...I don't...know.

But, there was this moment.  This sweet moment in the middle of the chaos.  I'd been at the office all morning, in and out of retreat (which was great, by the way), in the seminary kitchen, preparing visiting professor orientation packets and trying to explain by email to one VP in Northern Ireland how he is supposed to get from Port-au-Prince to here without speaking Creole on Saturday...basically trying to do way too much in way too little time.

Got home carrying a 50 lb bag of laundry soap with Gertha for the incoming neighbors, played with the girls, made sure the Heckman house was ready to go, started in with the girls making supper, catching up with Gertha, sweating like crazy, and thinking a bit about the day WE moved to Haiti...August 17th in 2007.

We were all making banana cake (which means there was banana cake everywhere :), the Heckmans and Matt pull in, Gertha's making salad, it's lunch time, we're all eating, I'm trying to get the girls down for naps, Matt's back to retreat, the neighbors are getting settled in, Edlin keeps coming asking questions for the kitchen, a great friend/past-visiting professor (Larry!) is here in Haiti for 3 days and knocked at the door unexpectedly to visit, the flatbed truck had to be pushed down the driveway to get it started, the coordinator for Every Community for Christ came to the door wanting to enroll a student (2 weeks late!)...and Boone tried to bite his butt and scared the man to death...I mean, just total sweaty swirling chaos.

And there was this moment (yeah, I'm just now getting there) that the girls were sleeping, Gertha and I were working like crazy in the kitchen making bread, meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, salad dressing--and Gertha looked at me, and started laughing.

All of what I just described was written all over her her face, and in an apron with a knife and potato in her hand, she was cracking up at how CRAZY it all was.

I wiped the pouring sweat from my face and started laughing too, and she bent her head towards mine and said, "Nou ansanm."

And I realized that all the success I had ever hoped for that huge leap-of-faith-week during an insanely hot August day in 2007 has been given.

We're together.

the day we moved to Haiti, August 17th, 2007

One of the women I came to live Christ for, who has seen inside every drawer and cabinet of my house and life and heart, who has shared her daily life alongside of mine, been there in my best and very worst moments--she tells me that she thanks God everyday for the initial work that now means that we live life together.  With laughter.

I think of her very worst moment, the decision that almost cost her her life, the harrowing trip the girls and I took unknowing of a major riot in town to sit with her in that dark hospital, and of her very best, holding her precious new baby and standing by her when she took a major stand for holiness over happiness.

I wanted to live our lives here being poured out like drink offerings, so that even when we messed up and made mistakes, Christ would show, that our love for Him and for others would show.  Even when we were hot or frustrated, sick or angry, that it would be through RELATIONSHIP that others would come to know Him and see Him and know His love.

That relationship thing is sticky and complicated and vulnerable and painful--all the things Gertha's and mine has been--but it is where He's at...when we're together in life.  Serving Him, giving Him, sharing Him, together.

And knowing the last few days have been rough, we got all kinds of emails today.   Knowing last night was rough, our neighbors came over to make sure we were ok and made me laugh.  Reminding me nou ansanm.

And knowing the VP's (visiting professors) are hitting the ground Saturday, allowing for an awesome but often exhausting and time consuming opportunity to minister to them through His hospitality, two of our best from Sabetha quite impossibly sent us a few of THESE today in the mail!

I mean, it's like someone ELSE made dinner with foods you can't get in Haiti for ME to serve to large groups of people without doing ANY work...here in Haiti.  Nou ansanm.

And tonight, as we sat around the dinner table with Phil, Emily, Ethan and Haylie...I mean, they left their jobs and their homes and their friends and their families in New Jersey to move in NEXT DOOR today.  And they're not LEAVING in 5 days (hopefully :).  And they're excited to join the craziness of life here in Haiti.  Nou ansanm.

And our quiet, empty campus is full and loud, bells and laughter ringing once again, the sermon from the chapel echoing off the walls, students at the door again, looking for a soccerball, and then the sound of the ball smacking off bare-feet.  Nou ansanm.

And I got a real letter from a friend in the mail today, and my dad sent us some new movies, because he knows how much FUN that is, and I know it's hard for a lot of you for us to be here, and that you worry about our babies, and really wish we were someplace close, or at least someplace different...but all the ways you all find to let us know that we're in this together allthesame make beyond-what-we-can-handle weeks...like this one...sweet moments. 

The whole body,
being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,
according to the proper working of each individual part,
causes the growth of the body 
for the building up of itself in love
Eph 4:15-16