too full

Ever since we left home, Ben, born in Haiti and obsessed with soccer, has been kicking something.

At the airport, it was a tiny bouncy ball I found in the bottom of my purse. At Grandpa's house, it's been a mandarin orange, a pack of fruit snacks, a cat ball the girls found in a bucket in the basement.

He lines up, he focuses, he drills it, always with his left foot.  The only thing better for Ben than a ball to kick is someone to back-and-forth with.

All the young men in Ben's life are soccer players, every spare moment, every imaginable ball.  He misses them.

I packed the little balls he's grown up with, the ones he's been kicking from before he could really walk....into big tubs...that are on my porch...in Haiti...that we'll get someday.

So last night, as I was watching Ben, Nora and Sofia all squealing and splashing in Grandpa's huge bathtub, Matt said someone was here to see us.

I wasn't expecting that. And I didn't recognize the couple.

But when they told me their names, I knew them, for I have written them many thank you letters and updates before. And then they opened their trunk, she simply said, "We know the kids had to leave everything behind, but we wanted them to see and know that God is still with them and watching over them and loves them."

It was full of books and crafts and dolls and toys and trucks and sitting on the very top was a little black soccer ball, brand new in the box.

What better way to show children that God loves them?

I am crying again now because how crazy ridiculous, generous was that? How thoughtful, how practical, how sacrificial? How like our Christ?

Lily, Sofie, Nora and one day Ben will always always remember how God followed them with a van of presents, and how great His love.

I am so incredibly thankful.

I am so incredibly sad.

What in the world is my problem?

How can I be so incredibly and truly grateful, for so so very much--for such a safe and warm place, for unbelievable toys for my children, for a pantry and fridge and bowls of food, for good beds, for so much good family and good friends...how can I be counting my many blessings and still be struggling so much?

I'm so overly full.  

Our hearts have been so heavy with Haiti for so very long, so full of His love for His people and creation there, that I can be thankful as-all-get-out over being in a country where I can take Ben to the hospital if he gets sick, and totally broken over the confidence that if Granny gets sick at home, she will die.

As we wait through this well-fed, well-entertained quarantine, as we all live through this Amazon / online church / deliver my groceries lock-down, Haiti is same-old pumping her water, scrubbing her clothes by hand, buying her one-egg-at-a-time, and waiting...waiting to get sick, waiting, many, to die.  

There will be no fight from this brave country. There will be no tent hospitals in the parking lots.

There are no parking lots. There are no masks. There are no ventilators. And most of the medical professionals, business people, educators, who were there...just left.

This is a hard word, but it is true.

There is no quarantine. There is no Amazon for the large majority of the world.

Social distancing is a privilege. 

Hand washing is a privilege. I can be so genuinely thankful for this Bath and Body Works foaming soap, and utterly aware in the same rinse that 99% of our friends and family in Haiti do not have running water.

The poor of Haiti, and so much of the world, have been on lock-down their entire lives. They are not the ones flying around the globe, spreading the disease that will now kill hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of the poor.

The poor of Haiti are not "the poor of Haiti."

They are our dear friends. They are our sisters and brothers, family. They are the men and women who have loved, continually, on our children, they are the men and women our children love. They are the men and women who have sacrificed, continually, to carry on the Gospel, to live Lights in their communities, to love our family well.

They are the ones who stand barefoot in the grass and shoot the ball, patiently, again and again, and again, with squealing Ben.

Will you be able to sleep now? my utterly and continually kind father asks, with the Edlers and Pam in their safe places, with the Hari's on the very last plane today, with my children tucked safe in his beds, and I don't know what to say.

Around the table we have eaten on, served on, literally thousands of times, our friends eat together tonight and rejoice over how blessed cooking dinner was with running water, refrigeration and a propane stove. They thank us again for a safe place to sleep, they remind us of their constant prayers, for us.  

I am so utterly thankful for this safe space for my children, for lock-down with Target, for a virus with medical care.

I am so thankful for a soccer ball for Ben, thankful to tears.

I am so thankful for our family here, God's people. I am so thankful for our family there, God's people.

I am so thankful for a safe and good place for Leme and Jodenel and their precious wives.


I am so thankful for so very much, I am so burdened by so very much...my heart is too full in too many direction for sleep.

I don't know how God does it.

Except that He doesn't.