Sidyevle

One of the first things we had to learn when we moved to Haiti was si 'Dye vle.  

If God wants.

Anytime a believer talks about the future, anytime there is a reference to tomorrow. Anytime there is a plan put in place, it is quickly and consistently followed by sidyevle.

Always.

There is no misunderstanding...we are not in control. We are not calling the shots. We have no control over tomorrow, we have no power to make this plan happen.

If the Lord allows, if He wills, if He wants, then what we have planned will be. And if He doesn't, then it shall not, for God is God and He is on the throne. He knows the future and what is best and what will be.  

and we are just us.

Making plans. 

But without any power to bring them to pass.

It's a mindset that helps everyone hold things lightly in their hands. It's a perspective of powerlessness that comes from terribly challenging living conditions and continual disappointment, corruption, sickness...from survival. 

It's a mindset that can come by choice, too. It is not a mindset dependent on physical poverty...but it sure is dependent upon our spiritual poverty.  Over the years, besides taking sidyevle on culturally (and being corrected a million times), I have found it to be a Biblical perspective to shape my own.  

It is this continual perspective that has Haiti in the middle of a global crisis (and in quite the continued political crisis herself) well at ease.  While no cases of coronavirus have yet been confirmed in Haiti, no one is sitting around waiting for it, though it will come.

With no medical care, grave sickness comes often to Haiti.  Schools often close, most of the past six months, in fact. Businesses often close, and sometimes a few even open again.  Many people usually don't have work. It is expected that there will not be enough food...Haiti knows how to be hungry. All attempts at tourism were shot six months ago with renewed violence and instability.  

You couldn't count on tomorrow before (and I think His Word's been saying that for a good while.) The fact that you can't count on it now isn't keeping anyone up at night.

When our friends go to market, it is for the food for TODAY.  One egg, two cups of rice, two chicken legs and a shot glass of oil, please. 

When our students start a semester, it is with the idea of today, today there is class, today I will learn what I may, Gras a Dye, by the grace of God.

When 200,000 died in the earthquake in 30 seconds, the next morning mamas were buying one egg, two cups of rice. Children were sweeping the dirt they had slept on. Schools were gone, not closed. And the sun comes up, Sidyevle.

When the UN brought cholera to Haiti in 2011, over ten thousand people died on this tiny island...fine today and literally dead tomorrow, our hands cracked with bleach, bought one thimble-full at a time, spirits heavy and totally dependent upon the Lord for every breath....just like before.

Everyone very much so believes that what we have promised is today...and being immersed in that accurate perspective has taught me much, though my American freezer is full, still.

There is no fear for tomorrow, for tomorrow is too much for the burdens of today. It comes, sidyevle, and God will be there.

There is no brokenness in busted up people plans. Disappointment, for sure. But trust. 

Sidyevle means that He is on the throne, not me. That He is in control, neither sickness nor health, neither kings nor princes.

It means that in the horrific and in the beautiful, we can trust He is at work.

It's a mindset I'm still working on, here a lifetime of following Jesus.  

I am powerless and small and my days are numbered by the God who lovingly knows the hairs on my head and calls me His beloved child.

I can trust Him with what is. I can trust Him with what will be. 

Dear Haiti. Her heartbreaking reality continues to grow seeds of faith in her people that far outweigh my own. Her crushing days have led her people to live humbly and dependent, on their knees. 

It is the only way to live.

There is peace in His Word and in no others.

The God who made the world and everything in it,

being the Lord of Heaven and Earth,

does not live in quarters made by man,

nor is he served by human hands,

as though He needs anything,

since it is he Himself gave us life and breath and everything.

He decided before who should rise and fall,

He determines the boundaries.

And God's purpose was for the nations to seek after Him

and perhaps feel their way toward him...

and find Him.

He is not far from ANY one of us.

In Him we live and move and exist. 
Acts 17

amen.