that is that

I almost quit before we ever got here.

The exhausting drive, half in the dark, all in pouring, pouring rain, every last 720 minutes. 

Made it on the second day to Missionary Flights, and the last time we were there my dad drove to meet us and send us off. We miss him. I needed his stabilizing way. 

Trying to get everyone settled and sleeping in an uncomfortable bunk room with 12 other women and children and a confused toddler who would NOT go to sleep. A 4:20 am alarm, bags and weights and keys and last minute changes, including Sharon not being on our plane. A flight on a DC3 in a storm that had Nora throwing up and frightened kids. An absolutely overflowing Cap-Haitian (the result of the horrors of Port-au-Prince...people gotta run somewhere) in an absolutely overflowing van of dust and sweat and children hanging on both sides of the widows...wide-eyed on one side, and begging for food they absolutely needed on the other.

When its all the Ayars kids knew, it looked normal. When Mississippi has become normal, it looks utterly overwhelming, staring desperate need in the face and scanning a bottomless horizon of further desperate need. You can taste it, touch it, smell it, see it, feel it all at once, everywhere, and it's heavy.

I almost quit eleven times, with what in the world are you doing? running through my thoughts again and again. I've got a safe, clean house in a safe, clean neighborhood for my safe, kinda clean kids. Haiti's been in trouble a long time, but it is absolutely past the brink of safe, of stable, of hope. And going there, on purpose, is ridiculous. And taking children, five!, is insane. And ALL that effort and time and energy to just let all our hearts shatter, deranged! 

At my very lowest over the last days, I texted Matt the doubt in my heart without realizing what it was until I sent it. 

Maybe this is too much. Maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm not a missionary any more.

Home was far more crowded and dusty than it used to be, sweating and suitcases and finally some freedom from three days of travel for the kids. They gobbled down their long-awaited rice and beans and ran off to pluck the cocoa pods and smash open the coconuts and run with their dog and swing in the trees, and I finally sat with our plates and Gerta finally rested and I put my hand on her arm.

How's Thaliya?

With school? Gerta asks.

No. How's Thaliya with the death of her precious dad? And how are you? Really?

And as tears instantly flooded her eyes and poured down her cheeks, she answered instead all the contents of her heart. The whole story. Not the version I got over the phone six times. The real. The accusations of her husband's sudden death being a result of being voodoo cursed. The fears of it being her fault. How much she misses him. All her fears for the future. All the pieces of her heart for their daughter. 

And I listened long and hard as she talked and talked it all through.  Tears poured down my cheeks as they poured down hers. And I reminded her of the Truth. And she longed for it, and remembered. And I saw her, and I heard her, and I love her.

And that, the Lord reminded me, is that.

If you are reminding people of His truth, and seeing them the way God does, and hearing them, not your own way, and loving them because He loves them, because He loves US...you're a missionary. 

He didn't promise it would be easy. Or that it wouldn't require some courage. Or that getting there was going to be fun. Or that it would be comfortable once you got there!

And when we sat around our old dinner table last night and Jonas--his whole life an orphan with health issues from starvation throughout his childhood to this day--introduced us to his girlfriend with the words, "Naika, these people are my people"...that is that. 

When Maxi, who climbed the stairs with his wife and Christie to see us last night, and my eyes instantly closed to the years of praying with him for that child... the sleepless night Kerline labored and labored in that hot and black hut and almost died, years of miracle-Christie playing in our yard with Lily and Sofie....and he climbed painfully to show me the horrific scars on his legs and arms and on Christie's legs from the propane explosion they had in December...when he told me all the details (people NEED to tell their STORIES, dear ones...ASK and listen)....I was in agony with him.  They called and told us he'd been in an accident. But we had NO idea, I couldn't understand, I didn't SEE until we came.  

There is something to that God Sent Jesus. There is something to that Jesus touched the lepers. That He picked up the children. That He drained out for the woman. That He bent down in the dust for the sinner. That He roasted fish for His friends. That He ate from the same loaf as the doubters and the betrayers. 

We must be strong and courageous friends. Not domesticated Christians. BOLD.

There is one kind of ministry that matters, and it is the one where Jesus CAME. It's the one where we go out and suffer with the hurting and break with the broken and sweat with the sweaty. It's the one where we run to the sound of pain. 

It brings tears now that in my weary, fearful moment, I wondered if maybe I was done being a missionary, done running to the sound of pain because the pain is too painful. 

As long as Jesus was a missionary, and as long as Moses and Jonah and Abraham and Joseph were sent, as long as the church went out like He told it to, as long as Jesus forgot about Himself and sat in the dirt with the dirty, Imma run to the sound of pain. And if it kills us, fellow missionaries, it killed the One we are following.

And that is that.

Haiti may be past the brink of hope.

But God is no where near that place. 

I have so much to tell you...