But tonight I'm going to stick with proud.
Ou pa ka viv an Ayiti si ou pa gen kè Noel told me a few weeks ago.
You can't live in Haiti if you don't have heart.
She didn't mean it about herself. Or about Shayla, or Belo. Or about any of our beautiful, Haitian brothers and sisters, actually.
But she was right, and I am sticking with proud because I am surrounded by utterly courageous people every day.
It takes great courage. It takes great courage to skimp and sacrifice and save for months to send these precious children to school, to pay your bills and get their uniforms and battle town and buy their books with food money, and then each morning they play in the dirt at home, instead. It takes great courage to even think about educating your children, when school administrators are receiving death threats against opening and days like today are being dubbed Black Monday, as in take your kid to school today and there will be funerals.
It takes great courage to go to the market. It shouldn't. It shouldn't. But to stand in the sun for hours trying to get drastically diminished public transportation, and when a tap-tap comes, bravely dealing with frustrated and angry crowds to get a seat...getting to the market only to shell out the same amount of money but carrying home half the food, and the whole time having to ask, "Is this road home good? Have you heard anything about going that way?" to make sure you get home without getting blocked by men with covered faces throwing rocks and bottles at you, carrying your precious sack of expensive food on your head.
It takes great courage to help one another when what you have is NOT ENOUGH, but what they have is less. It takes great courage to try to start a business or start a degree or start a little cooking stand or start a little ANYTHING, because hard work and a good plan does NOT mean success, not at all. It takes courage to hear daily threats on the radio and phone and hear nothing from leadership, and to grip hope. It takes great courage to hear and see and experience this, all. of. this, and to get up in the morning, all the same.
It takes great courage not to lose it when you see fuel truck after fuel truck drive by, great courage to sit at crowded stations for hours upon hours, and come home with NONE. Here we are, still unable to get one drop, and you have to start asking what is actually going on. So the prices continue to rise and the motorcycles come fewer and fewer and your husband's bike and family income sits empty next to your children at home, doing NOTHING.
And it's not even any of that.
It takes courage to do all that WITH JOY.
Gertha, she braves it ALL, as the future for her daughter grows bleaker and bleaker, dancing with Nora and shooting soccer balls with Ben, making it possible for Matt and I to teach, making it possible for Emmaus to be OPEN today when everywhere else is LOCKED, spending harrowing hours trying to get us eggs and sharing the stories with a spirit of prayer instead of complaint. She braves it all with enduring peace and unmistakable joy and grace.
Leme has the courage to send his pregnant wife to her internship, to find one gallon of gas and pay 4 times for it, to spend his weekend getting it, to brave insecure roads to come to work, and then worship with his whole heart next to me, and grin at me as he asks about how we're each doing without Matt, and is there anything he can do?
Our co-workers have the courage to BRAVE all of this, everyday, and then to show up and teach with HEART, with passion, with love, only to brave it all again and try to care for their families and churches and communities.
Jerry has the courage to lead the students in taking the Gospel throughout our village, yes even now, again and again and again, being often mocked and ridiculed, and then to BEAM tonight as he tells me about two of the young men he's seeing growth in.
OUR, yours and mine, brothers and sisters have the courage to push and push and push and push for the Gospel going forward, for faith lived in the flesh, for a kingdom not yet seen, to be broken bread and poured out wine, for HIS glory, for trust in Him, in an IMPOSSIBLE day that has turned into an impossible month that shows no human glimmer of hope or change.
As I want to despair and huddle, around me shines the deliberately chosen, courageous JOY of these men and women.
People cannot live like this, I have thought and prayed, over and over as the dark skies darken still. People cannot LIVE like this.
With heart, these Christ-followers show me again and again that I am wrong. For clearly, clearly, no one can stop them.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed.
Perplexed, but not in despair.
Persecuted, but not abandoned.
Struck down, but not destroyed.
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