BARON: because the lion has no teeth.

One of the VP's (visiting professors) asked me at lunch yesterday if there was anything exciting going on with any of our past or present students.  As I started to share about Enick on the mountain of Coup-a-David, Junior...Belony...Ezechiel...mid-phrase I literally lost my breath.

I caught myself lifting my hand in the steady wave of Haitian praise and trailing off instead.

You can't just sum that answer up.

Thinking about each of these brothers later, I wondered what it IS about them each that has enabled them to work in such back-breaking places under such unrelenting persecution and trials with little to no support or help.  WITH grins.

Of course, it is Him.  But what is it about Him and them that are able to accomplish such impossible and precious things One through the other?

After thinking more, I think it is because they believe.

They believe He is who He says He is.  They believe He has called them to each of His places.  They believe there is nothing man can do to them.

They believe that He is enough, and that the support of man is not needed.  They believe that He will provide for them, and for their families, even when they can't see how.

They believe that to be hungry, to be harmed, to be lonely, to be abandoned, to be crazy for the cause of Christ are all struggles that He is greater than, will meet them in, and that can bring Him glory.

They believe that to love God with their whole hearts means to love others unceasingly, unselfishly, and unbiasedly.

They believe all they need is Christ.  And that He is all that Haiti needs, too.  And that He has asked them to pour Him out on His people.

They believe.

With child-like simplicity and faith.

My day in Baron last Sunday ended in a confirmation that this is TRUE.

As we drove home from Baron, we quite surprisingly stopped at a corner only to see Simeon and his wife waiting for a ride.  They jumped in, and we continued on for Cap-Haitian.  As we got closer to town, Ezechiel asked if we could stop for a moment at his house and meet his new little son, something I've been anxious to do.

From all earthly perspectives, ti-Ezechiel came at a terrible time.

His wife, already struggling greatly with Ezechiel's sacrificial love and dedication to the Lord and Baron was incredibly sick the entire 9 months.  Ezechiel was spending every moment he wasn't in Baron trying to care for a very disgruntled and sick wife and their daughters.

Then, the magistrat's threats started coming, not only to Ezechiel but to the people of Baron, the church and the school.  Part of the school was burned the week before we left Haiti near the end of May.  Then, they were kicked off the property.  As you know, I wasn't sure how we would find Ezechiel when we got back the start of August.

If we would find Ezechiel.

It was during this time that his son came...a gift, yes.  But a serious concern in a family being threatened, struggling to make ends meet, already living one meal at a time, with Ezechiel gone much of the time and his wife not sure if he'd ever come home or if he would be killed on the mountain where God had planted him.

We parked the truck on the main street and wove back through dozens of tiny houses and at least a hundred children, further and further from the main road, until we ducked into a seemingly random door.

Suddenly I stood in the middle of the buzzing city in the middle of their dark and tiny bedroom, looking at the tiny sleeping, curly-headed form of Ezechiel's plump son.  The room felt reverent.

As it always does when you're looking at something new and complete that God has woven together.

"He is beautiful," I said quietly.

Ezechiel smiled, and shrugged his shoulders humbly.

"You know," Ezechiel said, "this past year has felt like I am in the middle of a firey furnace, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  And it has made me wonder if they knew the fire wouldn't burn them when they were being thrown in, or if they thought they were about to roast to death.  I wonder if Daniel knew that God was going to shut the lion's mouth as he was tossed in the pit...or if he assumed he was about to be devoured."

"And I realized, before he was born, not sure if I would ever get to meet him" Zeke nodded towards the bed again and continued softly, "that it didn't matter.  Daniel was just faithful.  The lions, the fire, those God overcame."

"And Daniel and his men didn't get spared them.  Daniel still spent his night with the lions.  They still spent their time in the middle of the flames."

"That's me right now.  I live in the den."

He looked down at his little boy with me.

"And God is there with me.  And the lion?  He has no teeth.  That's why I named him Daniel."

They do it all because they believe, with everything that they are, that the lion has no teeth.

Praise the Lord.