Give to Him.

Getting ready to send Sofie off to school on Monday has been a big challenge for me.

Yes, it's because she is my sweet baby girl and it forces the reality that she is growing up all the time.

But it is also because sending her to school in Haiti also offers its challenges.  It took months for the other kids to stop pulling on Lily all the time and to leave her silky pigtails alone.  Every command, lesson and rule is in another language.  They have to be to school at 7:10, hair braided, and all their homework is in Creole and French.  

And yet, she has been begging to go since last year, because Mommy and Daddy and Lily all get to go to school, and we believe strongly in and have seen great things come from living life along those we have come to minister to.  

For us, right now, that includes sending our kids to school the same places everyone else does.

But man alive, is it by faith, and with the full assurance that Sofie is HIS.  Every day we are just to be giving ornery her to Him.

It's why Blaise and his wife named their little son Donneali (Don-eh-lee).  

It means, "Give to Him".

Ever since Blaise was a student, which was about three years ago, now, they have been praying and waiting for a baby.  Countless months passed with no good news, then a miscarriage, then months again, and another loss.  Last year they lost a little girl at 5 months, but when we left Haiti the end of May, she was another 6 months along and things were looking GOOD.

When we got back, one of the first things we heard was that she had lost the baby, our friend thought.

Last week, a much smaller version of our dear friend Blaise came in to translate for Chris's Systematic Theology class.

Chris didn't arrive as early as expected, so Blaise had the first day off, and made it down to my office and sank into a chair.

We chatted a bit, and finally I breeched it...I heard bad news.  

It was so much worse than I had realized, and as he shared and as I bawled, I felt strongly convicted that we must take a group and go pray with them.

The group turned out to just be Matt and I yesterday afternoon, neither of us in a good mood and neither of us with the time.  Praise the Lord that God can still use us (and speak to us) when we OBEY even when we do NOT feel like it.

In the blazing sun we finally found their home right outside of inner-city Cap-Haitian, and all the hustle and bustle and heat subsided as we ducked into their dark room and our eyes adjusted.

We kissed and chatted a bit, and I didn't think they would want to talk about it.  

But they did.  Desperately.

She was 35 weeks pregnant, just back from her appointment, and everything was PERFECT.  Their little boy was perfect, her health seemed perfect, the doctor was thrilled, the baby was all but in their arms.  He sent them home to wait one more week, then wanted to do a C-section due to past issues with high blood pressure.

A few days later, she wasn't feeling well, they went back to the doctor, and little Donnali was dead.  

This was the same day we returned to Haiti, just a few weeks ago.

They cut him out, a perfect and beautiful little boy.

"Show them the things," she said from the couch, and Blaise ducked through a sheeted doorway only to emerge again and again with armloads of all things baby.  A bathtub, a pack of diapers.  A little basket bed, a pillow case full of clothes.

They started to cry.  I was already crying.  One by one we fingered through their treasurers...tiny old-man polo shirts, an adorable little basketball jersey, hats and socks and onsies pink and blue alike.

Nobody understands.

There is nothing to say to each other, so we pray, and as Matt begins Blaise sinks to the floor and buries his head in his arms.   We clutch hands, she and I, and cry as we pray.

Matt prayers for strength and great presence of the Lord...for God to reinforce them, for every dark and sad and bitter corner to be surrendered and inhabited by Him.

Darn it, it's so hard to pray brokenness in your own language, much less in anothers.

I realize as I pray that while we may not understand much in this life, it is HE who understands EVERYTHING.   HE who understands deeply and intimately their hurt, their brokenness, their hopes dashed, their dreams smashed, their pain.  It is HE who understands how and why, He who understands what and when, He who understands redemption.  We don't have to have any answers, because He is.

And while we may not understand ANY of those things...the one who DOES is OURS.

Is the Aly-Donnson family's.

"Give to Him."

So they did.  And they are.  

And we are.

And as soon as I get her name on that bib,

Sofie is off to school.