I'm not going to lie...we're starting to get a bit concerned we don't have Nora's passport yet. I've called all the calls and paid all the fees and extras and expedites and all I can get is a "it's being processed" and a "the offices were closed in March due to coronavirus."
As I work through worst case scenarios and plans, as the girls pray again and again their sweet and urgent and child-like prayers, "Lord, please bring us Nora's passport so we can go home", it hadn't occurred to me that they thought if we DIDN'T get Nora's passport, that we'd never be going home. Tears at bedtime tonight helped us put it all in perspective.
If it doesn't come, we won't be going next week. And when it does come, we'll be going then.
Yes, the timing of this trip has all been worked out...yes, it also works just right for Aunt Sharon, for Matt's work and travel and speaking schedule, for the dog-sitter, for Missionary Flights...yes, for Emmaus and their schedule and we've already got the days assignments and all for the Friday program. The thought of not going the 15th sinks my heart and disappoints us all greatly...and telling Gertha today and Leme yesterday that all the plans they've been setting up might not be next week was not fun.
"But not going on the 15th doesn't mean we're not going," I told shaky girlies tonight. "Not going now or next week or next month or even next year doesn't mean Haiti is any less. Haiti isn't where we used to live and now don't. Haiti is part of each of you, part of us, and we are who we are because Haiti is in here. Our family in Haiti is not our family any less because we don't live with them or if we can't go next week. It's our family, it's our food, it's our friends, it's our home, it's our language...it's all in us and always will be."
It all made me realize how important us all going is...to us, to our children, to our friends and family and students in Haiti. Reminding us, all of us, that while the access is different, the heart is the same. The love we all have. The seeds we've all planted. The prayers we've all prayed. The faithfulness He has shown and been and continues to be.
Thank you for hoping and praying with us.
I really do trust Him, and we are trusting that He will provide her passport at a time that He will use and meet us. I really do trust Him with this trip, that He will meet us and help us and give so much grace. I really DO trust Him with our precious friends and family, that He is giving them what they need, and that, Lord willing, He will use us to encourage their hearts as they fight hard for His kingdom in such a dry and weary land.
They pray, our brothers and sister in Haiti tell me daily, for us, as WE fight hard for His kingdom in a dark and broken land they simply canNOT understand the news headlines of...and when we're all praying for each other as we work for His kingdom both now and not yet, apart and together, it seems strange that you'd need a passport to get one to another.
Thank you for praying with us.
Matt, beautifully, is not joining our family-still-unmet in Mexico for WBS's cohort graduation this weekend...just too much, especially if we are able to leave in a week for Haiti as planned. I am anxious for him to get to Mexico City...but I am thankful for him to get there a different time! This season has been full of so much travel and time apart!
I shared a post on Facebook recently from Shannan Martin's book The Ministry of Ordinary Places, and it just perfectly describes how I feel in this world and in Haiti...
We might have a zillion reasons to be jaded about our world, but that is not the kind of person I want to be.
I'd rather be a hope holder (in Haiti, in Mississippi) with mud on my shoes (or flip flops).
I want to be the kind of person who clings to the grace and the gift and the good, standing ready, as Christ's ambassador in my neighborhood, wearing grace and flesh and jeans (or skirts).
The mission humbly asks that we devote ourselves to the overlooked spiritual practice of paying attention to wherever God has placed us.
This afternoon, thinking about Haiti as we all played in the sunshine at the playground 1 mile from our house, I left my purse and my phone and the dog sitting by the wayside and focused on clinging to the grace and the good and standing ready.
I started playing with the four, and soon Sofie, Lily and I had roped in several straggling single kids. As the girls all starting doing dance and gymnastics and singing and as Ben and I pulled two little ones into soccer, I stepped back now, with our children now playing together, the moms and dads were easy to engage.
By the time we left, much later than we had planned, we had all spoken with lots of people, but an Indian mama (who kept referring to all the people in her life as "my American friends" and to how her rambunctious three year old has "ruined my slim body!"), an African-American mama (in the throes of virtual learning desperation with her 5th grade ADHD daughter who was sharing all her snacks with Sofie and chatting a mile a minute), and a confused blond-graying woman from Haiti (who knew of none of the places they were talking about and with four times as many kids running helter-skelter) had really connected. Really talked about so many of the hard things. Had laughed together, had truly understood and been understood.
In paying attention today to where God had me--no mud hut village, but some fake grass playground...in being flesh, not formal...in outstretching grace, just grace--we all used what the Lord gave us through Haiti, just an awful lot of love and simple faith and like-shoed conversation.
I felt--finally leaving there today to rush home to make dinner--like a hope-holder.
As we miss home, as we are home, as we long for Home...as we go home, or as we stay home, as we WAIT for Home--I'm going to start paying more attention to loving well, boldly, right where He has placed me, today.
When I think of all the missionfields we inhabit, family, just even you and me...there is hope.
❤️
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