Being a missionary in Haiti.

Being a missionary in Haiti means that when I check in on Mayah this morning and my sister tells me she's jumped from 1 or 2 episodes a day (needing intervention to resume breathing/heart beating) to 16, I can't hop in the car and go.  It means I can't do anything.  It means that there's tears in the dish water, and I pray. I pray from afar to the One Not Far Off.

Being a missionary in Haiti also means that when a team arrived yesterday afternoon from Alberta, Canada, ready for 10 days of service, one of the very first things Albert asks me is, "How is your sister? How is the baby?" It means that I am praying with brothers and sisters around the world who follow and know and ask and pray.  It means I'm not praying from our corner alone.

It means that when visiting professors come and go, come and go, my children come to know them and are known, it means that they have friends from faraway places who bring them badly needed church shoes or butterfly kites or stories from home, and I cherish, cherish the richness of their faraway, returning family.

It means that this morning when our family and our fellow missionaries and the team and the visiting professors all head to church and then to the pool for the day, someone gets the privilege of serving them all dinner when they get home tonight, and today, that gets to be me.  I had planned on joining them for church and then returning home after to start cooking, but this morning being a missionary in Haiti also meant that there was only one vehicle remaining, and in case of emergencies, when there are students and families on campus, one stays. Additionally, we're in the middle of quite the fuel crisis, and a sitting car is a preserved tank.  Today, it means that mom and Ben are having a kitchen day!

This morning it meant that when Bill and his family walked down the road to preach at the local church and a member of the church passed out, Bill became the ambulance driver instead, the only person in all of Saccanville with access to a vehicle.  Today it meant that that emergency vehicle was an emergency vehicle, indeed. Praise the Lord I stayed home!

All Sundays, being a missionary in Haiti means that we have the privilege of worshiping with our Haitian brothers and sisters.  But it also means that many Sundays, like this morning, my family is NOT hearing the Gospel. Reality of a dark and weary land gives way to frustration and discouragement filling our hearts as we gather with many to hear the Good News, and it is NOT being preached. It is often not being preached, and the quick phone call from Matt this morning was one of heavy discouragement...for it is so badly, badly needed.

Being a missionary in Haiti means that the man we had to fire a few months ago for never, ever being at his post came to the house yesterday visibly starving and shaking, his wife having kicked him out the moment he stopped bringing home a paycheck. His frail body was shaking with hunger and it was all he could do to talk with me. Being a missionary in Haiti often means I can think of little else throughout the night, but someone, genuinely hungry, genuinely hurting, genuinely downcast.

Being a missionary in Haiti means that many and heavy are the problems that are not really ours, but become them simply by seeing.

It means that gnawing are the issues far outside our domain, outside our skills, outside our abilities, outside our answers.

It means doing something, so often, that we never thought we'd be doing, or often, that we never wanted to do.  Often it means doing things that need done, but tickle no fancy. It means going places we never thought we'd go on roads you'd never think were roads.

It means being so discouraged some days...and persevering anyway.

It means praying through complicated situations over and over, only to do your best and never being really sure of what the best WAS.

It means holding fast to butterfly kites and to Albert asking about my sister, because those are treasures.

Being a missionary in Haiti means going back to God's Word a hundred times a day, asking Him to transform our perspectives into His, to strengthen our hands, to increase our faith.

It means that narrow and difficult is the way, and that few are those who find it.  What a burden Matthew 7 reminds us of, what a prayer, this morning.

It means that those dishes washed, with tears or songs, those dinners served, beautiful or burnt, it means those pastors taught, once or a hundred times over, it means those prayers prayed, it means those ridiculously hot days, it means those ambulances driven and those ex-employees fed, it means those glorious times of worship and those discouraging ones, too, it means that all of it can be wasted when seeking our glory, or beautiful when poured out for His.

It means that when Philippinas 1 says we've been given the privilege of trusting in Christ and also the privilege of suffering for him, that we are in this struggle together.

Being a missionary in Haiti is rarely hunky-dory and rarely easy and rarely encouraging and rarely feel good. It was never, ever supposed to be.  Our fuel crisis, our precious niece, our heart-wrenching church services, our discouraging days, our piles of dishes or missed pool parties, our continued utter lack of any. real. ice cream.

They are nothing compared to the sufferings of the one we are following.

We're following the very best missionary there ever was, who left home and headed to the entire world as his mission field and had a mostly homeless, mostly hungry, mostly persecuted, mostly lonely, mostly suffering filled life ended by a horrific and entirely undeserved murder, to the cheering of the crowds.

And we.  We have been given the privilege of trusting in Him.

Being a missionary in Haiti or in North America or in the Middle East...being a disciple of Christ wherever in the world we are and through whatever in the world we are doing...being a dishwasher or a prayer warrior or an ambulance driver or a tear wiper or a baby bouncer or a kite bringer...

If we're following hard after Jesus today, precious family, come what may, then we have been given the privilege of trusting in Him.

So let's DO that.

Let's do that.