It’s always fun to have good friends and family here because it gives us a whole different perspective on our lives. So much has become our normal, and you don’t really realize it’s NOT until you see that it’s very abnormal for someone you are very similar too…like Dad!
Yesterday, he went with Sofie and I to pick up Lily at school. Yes, there are always a million people at the gate, selling and buying and waiting and talking, coming and going, making shaved ice and frying hot peppers, dodging motorcycles and gathering children. Yes, a lot of that includes a lot of loudness and drama. And yes, all of it is happening under the blazing sun while you drip, drip, drip and dodge, chat and scan, distract Sofie and listen. That’s what it IS to pick your kid up at school!
That is NOT what it was to pick me up at school as a kid. Dad was less than amused. Finally, he said, “uh, Sofie and I are going to wait in the car.”
And it wasn’t until he headed for the truck that realized that pick-up IS kind of intense! Especially when you can’t understand a word anyone is saying. When you don’t recognize a face. And you just want to see your four-year old blondie, who is one blondie in a sea of 600 children all speaking and crying and laughing and playing in that same language you don’t understand.
Hiking Sunday to church over the mountains was brilliant. I thought. And don’t get me wrong, Dad didn’t say one negative word, climbed it all and carried a kid to boot, and only said at the end that maybe next time, he won’t do it in the extreme heat of October.
But I’ve been to church my whole life with my dad, and we went a lot of different places, and it didn’t EVER look ANYTHING like that. As far as normal goes? Yeah, hiking on a mountain ridge in the blazing sun on an almost non-existent path around the little homes of a hundred strangers probably isn’t it.
Then Monday morning things picked up to full-speed life, braiding and lunch boxes and off to school, office and teaching and Gertha and food and money and people and kids coming and going and going and coming, hungry friends who tend to show up right at meal times, all the craziness of a 2 and 4 year old, past graduates coming for help or prayer orto share a story, students, grading, cooking, people coming to visit BECAUSE my dad is here….all again in a language and a culture he doesn’t understand…
He has lovingly suggested that our life looks INSANE. And when I think about the pace and the revolving door and the 24/7 and the millions of reasons for each thing…I realize it does.
He has said at least 5 times in situations I thought nothing about, “Um, don’t you think maybe it’s time to learn to say NO?” making me realize that I continue to not do nearly as well at that as I should.
At least three times, “How in the world do you manage to cook everything from scratch like this every night?” I remember that it is a lot, and I could give myself a big more grace from time to time.
At least 6 times, “How are you supposed to get everything done without internet?” Yes. Yes.
10 times, “There is just so much you could DO…so much to do! So much that needs done. But still, you can’t do it all, babe” and while I didn’t need reminded how much there is to do…the reminder that it doesn’t all fall on me? Sometimes I forget…
Today as Dad sat with Ezechiel on our couch, talking about the bold move of reopening the road project, claiming that internal church ministry without community outreach is impossible, Dad knew what to say when I didn’t…”Brother, the lion has no teeth. May God be with you.”
And he talks to every single person he meets, and holds their shoulders and thanks them for being our family. Some of them understand. Most of them don’t. But everyone understands he is happy to meet them, and people high and low have come to find me and tell me my dad is here…just because they’re happy to have met him. I’m proud of all of them.
But as bizarre, crazy, intense and chaotic as life in Haiti with toddlers must appear, even through the eyes of a man who has been here some 14 times, the things that matter the most, he gets.
“Your family has grown, Stace” he noted tonight over dinner, not talking about the little ones around us. “I see that it brings a lot more responsibility, and that the burdens have grown, too, but far more overwhelming than that is the love you all share and the size of your family.”
And while we feel those gifts that he speaks of frequently, I hadn’t really realized until he said it how right he is.
Sometimes it takes family to remind us how unconditionally loved and supported we are, where we can keep striving to do better, and what a gift family truly is.
love them.
love you.
love my dad.
And we’re blessed with the burden.
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