He has not

We have been through a lot the last 13 years, but today may have been the most brutal.

Living through hard things together is challenging.  

But getting a phone call at 9 pm saying that the mandatory evacuation required by your mission is being followed by a flight the next morning, and leave the house by 9 am?  Calling all your friends and family and neighbors at 7 am and telling them you are leaving them and your country and your home with four bags for who-knows-how-long in exactly 2 hours?  That was a nightmare.

Talking to Guesica on the phone this mornig, ready to deliver any day, our departure more discouragement than she could take in this most discouraging season, that was brutal. A baby I have been waiting and waiting for, I will miss. The courage I’ve been pouring into her continually, she lost this morning, and I lost it, too.

Wishing Gertha and Maxi and Leme and the Hari’s the best without a moment to process, jamming hastily packed midnight suitcases into the van, trying to help our children rapidly say goodbye and prioritize treasures with minimal suitcase space and weight and time...impossible.

A few dear children throwing up in the van on the way to the airport, tension hanging in the air throughout Cap-Haitien, the president declaring today the impossible last day for markets, buying, leaving your homes, in a country that shops one meal at a time, if they do at all…fear in so many, so much unknown.

Brutal is moments after arriving at the airport, despite all confirmed flights, the Edlers and Pam on a flight well before us even, Bill receiving the call that their family and Pam, British citizens, did not have clearance to land in Florida. Brutal, shaky phone calls to embassies, border patrols, delegates, anyone everyone could think of.  They've been on the list to go for a week.  

THEY were going. We were staying. Then were told we had to go with them. And got on the flight well after them...and suddenly, they can't go?

Truly and literally in the middle of that total chaos, most brutal of all, Nikki received the phone call from her sister that her father, fine yesterday, unexpectedly died this morning, blood sugar levels through the roof. 

If we weren’t pouring tears over terrible, patchy, pathetic goodbyes, if we weren’t already streaming hot tears with the Edlers and Pam, two little ones with respiratory issues and Pam, young but well over 70, we were totally overcome with Nikki and this sudden loss...right now.

After brutal hours of trying and trying and trying, the word was final.  Missionary Flights International fought harder and delayed longer than anyone else would have and then some…but, No. No go. 

The team we said we wouldn’t leave, and never would have even packed a bag yesterday if flights had opened for us but not for them...and suddenly we could either leave Matt with them (and potentially have our family be separated for months) and the rest of us get Nikki to her family in DE, all stay together in Haiti and try to get them out a different way that wouldn't work for our family (through France or the UK) or we could leave them.

“Your mom is crying,” Sofia told Sam quietly. 

“So is yours,” Sam shrugged, returning to their game like all must be right in the world as long as we were undone together. 

We were told to go by our field leader, who beautifully and humbly makes the impossible decisions for us…not allowing us to miss this first—and possibly last—flight from Cap-Haitian during this season...with all the pieces.

We are hoping and praying that something different will open up for British citizens direct, not through the States, in these very next days. We are hoping and praying that Guesica has a beautiful delivery and that Yasha joins this struggling world strong and loud. We are hoping and praying that our many friends and family of Emmaus will be strong and courageous and healthy and strong and beautiful as they are broken...and broken...and broken.

We are hoping and praying much. Continually. Breathing prayers in and out.

In the very darkest hour, we have left every Emmaus brother and sister we have. I will always have to live with that, maybe some other day better than today.

Yet He has not.