I've so beautifully had all kinds of people asking me how we incorporate what we learned in Haiti into every day life here in America, and I've got to say, we're still trying to figure this thing out.
But without a doubt, the thing the Lord most engrained in our family through Haiti was boldness.
The needs were SO great and SO obvious. Everywhere you turned there were 12 clear things that were needed, and we were young and eager and passionate when we hit the ground. What we saw, WE DID. Those who followed Satan, we told about Jesus, those who were hungry, we tried to feed. Those who needed help, we tried to help. Those who needed homes...clothes...help with school...we found people, got help, gathered up bags.
It was all so obvious that being Jesus often felt simple. Feed the poor, clothe the naked, orphans, widows, the sick, point to Jesus.
We were foreigners, and so there were no cultural expectations...maybe what we did NO one else was doing, maybe it was crazy, maybe no one else would have done it that way...but is was expected that we would do the unexpected, and that we would never really fit in.
It's harder here. It's harder here.
The needs are a lot harder to see, and people fight to hide them instead of calling them to your attention. People are far less receptive, far more wary. People are NOT curious about us or largely interested in us and NOT anxious to become friends. People are FAR more busy, and coming from a culture where money was never time, we're still struggling to find our missionary place. We are expected to fit in, to follow suit this time. There is a lot more pressure here, and I'm finding that when we are rejected or frowned upon or treated rudely, it smarts far more than it ever did at home. Feeling like foreigners in America feels a lot more unsettling than it did at home.
But you know what? I've been trying so hard to figure out the American way to be a Christian that I've been frustrated with my spiritual gut instead of following it.
Thankfully, this time God gave us kids who are young and eager and passionate, and they keep reminding me that it need not be complicated.
I spent months trying to figure out what sports and classes and activities the children should be a part of. Everyone is doing so much...dance and music and sports and clubs and evenings and weekends and ....what should we be doing now that we can? Meanwhile, everywhere we went, Lily was consumed with the large number of homeless people we are driving past, at every street light. She wants to get out of the car and go sit with them...at traffic lights. She wants to empty the car of all it's fruit snacks and goldfish crackers. She wants to empty our wallets, she is scooting over to make a place for them in our van and instead of begging to play ball, she is begging to volunteer at a homeless shelter in inner-city Jackson.
We might not be able to do all that. But man, these weathered men and women sitting on the street-corners with lost eyes, she is reading every sign and staring at them, wondering about them, wanting to be their friend, instead of looking away like I want to do. The cause of the homeless has Lily's heart right now. She never saw that in Haiti, our community culture where every child was your child and every granny was your granny.
She wants to do SOMETHING, and as I helped her pack socks and granola bars and chapstick and Bibles into gallon bags with our Amazon points, she wrote again and again, His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches you and loves you, love Lily.
She sees men and women who are not seen, and she knows that God does, too, and so she wants to do something about it, and won't stop until she does.
And I'm done telling her we can't, and all the reasons I think of...that God didn't give me.
Here's a few little things we can do...
1) Invite. I KNOW the hospitality thing is hard...I hear this more than ANYTHING. I was blessed-cursed to hit Haiti at 22 not knowing how to cook at all, and suddenly there were pastors and visitors and teams and missionaries and new students and fellow teachers coming to our house for dinner. We didn't have a choice, there was no room for excuses or refusal, everyone took turns, it was part of being a missionary. I have served some disastrous meals. I have served them with babies crying and kids talking with their mouths full and 10,000 spills. I have served them with dirty floors and I have served them not on time. But we had so many people around that beautiful wooden table that eventually, I grew to CHERISH it. I grew to let go of the Martha and when I sat down last, and to Mary...to SEE the people around our table, and to see them being there as such a GIFT. I learned all the tricks of the trade, and I promise that IS my next post. Just DO IT, it will bless you and your family so richly...and maybe even your guests, too.
2) Go. I KNOW you know some hurting people. GO SEE THEM. Co-workers. Neighbors. Church people. Not church people. People you love. People you don't really. People like you. People not at all like you. Go do something. Drop off a meal or cookies or a plant or chocolate or a book you just finished that touched your life. Have your kids make cards. Listen. Encourage. Listen some more. Tell them you are praying and ready to do what you can. Ask them how you can help. Offer a few suggestions for how you could help that you might appreciate in a similar situation. I have NEVER been as blessed in my life as the times that people have seen we were hurting and CAME. Came to Haiti. Came over with cookies. Came to wherever we were, from however close or far, just to come and BE with us.
3) Sit. Since we moved to Mississippi, two different women showed up in the middle of the day, with lunch, just to sit and chat and eat lunch with the kids and I. I can't tell you what a huge thing that was. I was in my sweatpants. I had to move all the school books off the table, I didn't do one thing to serve. But having someone join us, in our lives, just to join us? To not be microwaving leftovers at 12:30 while trying to help one kiddo with long-division and one with understanding WWII strategies...to sit and talk about life, her life, our lives...Both times it was a HUGE breath of fresh air in our week, and we all felt SO encouraged when they left, just because they came to sit with us.
Maybe it's the person obviously not rushing out of church and you join them on the back pew, maybe it's the neighbor on your walk you haven't ever connected with, maybe it's the mom dropping off her kid and the park bench, maybe it's committing to taking ONE person lunch every month and eating it with them...SIT down, STOP for a few minutes, just for the point of joining them in the middle of their lives...and reminding them that's RIGHT where Jesus is.
4) Pray, really. Put their names on your family's prayer list and DO pray for them. I try...try to never tell someone I am going to pray for them without first stopping and actually praying WITH them first. Go bold and simply ask them, "Could I pray with you for a minute?" Worst case they think you're a freak or say no. Best case, you talked to God...the ONE who can actually intervene, the One who actually knows, the One who loves them best...WITH them.
I SO often didn't know what to do in Haiti, I so often don't know what to do now, but I know Someone Who Does, and praying and going, going and praying shows them...and the Lord...that you really love them. It shows our kids that we believe God can do what He says, that we believe prayer is the greatest work.
5) DO it. If it comes to your mind or heart, if they come to your mind or heart, if you're pinched over someone broken, if you're righteously anger over some injustice, if you wish you hadn't seen it but you did, if you hear someone's hurting, get in the habit of doing something. Leave space in your week, schedule that space in, to be ABLE to do something. To be ABLE to go. To be ABLE to sit.
I've come back to peace with that fact that we were foreigners in Haiti, and we ARE foreigners here. I can expect to be seen as foreign, and I can stop trying to fit in. This world is not our home, it's ways are not our ways, our children are NOT it's children, it's word is NOT our Word.
Create some space for His still small voice...and may we be BOLD when it comes. Pray for us in this...we are praying for you.
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