And the Home of the Slave

Takin' it back....January 18th, 2004

Today I question freedom as a right and possession I have always claimed.

This morning, as I find myself settling into a land with few obvious freedoms, I suddenly find my grasp on freedom rather empty.  I wonder, for the first time in my life, if I have it at all as I watch a people who own a freedom in Christ like I've never seen.

I had thought that my freedom came with my ability to choose.  I get to choose to come, to go, to eat, to sleep, to work, to worship, to vote, to study, to travel: my freedom.  However, if having choices is what freedom is, then these friends around me and most of the world have no freedom at all, and I have seen that this is not the case.

This new year is a year of meaning for the Haitian people.  It has been 200 years since they successfully threw off the shackles of slavery, though restavecs, children living as slaves, are still found in many households, and women and young girls continue to do unspeakable things just to feed their children.  

In that same year, 1804, the country dedicated itself to Satan for a promised 200 years.  Now, 2004 represents a break from this bondage of fear and lies, though voodoo symbols still cover buildings, hotels, restaurants and cars, and sacrifices are still key in holiday celebrations and in personal and public disasters, and the sick and troubled continue to seek out witch doctors for healing and blessing.

Yet while its people celebrate the close of these 200 years, Haiti is plagued by poverty, a self-seeking and undeniably corrupt government, riots, violence and fear...surely freedom is to be found far off.

But today in a church so hot that my sweat pours while sitting, in a church so full that the rickety benches cannot be seen, in a church so poor that its people sacrifice food in order to tithe, I learn something about what freedom is.

I have seen a body shackled by cancer be freed from sickness and pain, free to sing eternal praises to the God of all healing. 

I have seen a hundred lives suffocating with sin crawl to the cross and leave there dancing.

I have seen a bedraggled, spotted woman shuffle from the back of this church to the cinderblock stage to sing a familiar tune with a power unmatched by her frail body.  The chorus broke her voice down to joyful tears as goose bumps charged my body: "I sing because I'm happy," she whispers, confident.  "I sing because I'm free!  His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."

I think that perhaps freedom has little to do with having choices, except for the choice of joy in all circumstances.  I think that freedom has little to do with being healthy, independent, or even financially stable.  Maybe it has little to do with which government reigns, what language is spoken, or what land is inhabited by who.

Freedom, I'm thinking, is being content in Him, and if so, then today I find that the land of the free is not only available to America the Privileged as I had thought, but to Haiti the Impoverished, as well.

I think I might stay for a while."

People Preceding Productivity: A Richer Way to Live

Takin' in back again, January 2004, serving teams for CSI, Haiti.

"The table has been cleared for almost an hour, but conversation continues to be served and consumed long into the night.  A tiny Hindu woman from India speaks almost urgently to a Methodist minister about ABC's reality show, "The Bachelor," a divorced mother of three chatters of various diets to a five-foot-two church janitor, and a suntanned missionary debates the recent Ohio State Bowl Game with a Cincinnati factory worker, who bangs his fist emphatically on the table in response: all at the same time.

Por-au-Prince, the big city

It's not about the minutes, and not about being on the same page.  It's about the moments and about being together, and in Haiti, it's all a part of the package.

The poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti is a country that is all about relationships, not efficiency.  Run to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for the clinic, and wait with six other people on one bench for an hour only to find out the store doesn't have it.  Say good-bye to new friends and move on.

Stop by the hardware store to grab some bolts for the next team project.  You can't pick some up and head for the door after shoving a few bills across the counter.  No.  You take a number to a clerk and exchange conversation about everything from your children to your religious beliefs before he starts to search for what you want.

Walk out on the porch in the evening, and you'd better expect to see your neighbor taking a bucket bath  in the moonlight.  Try to duck back in, and he's got you wrapped into conversation, even if you never wanted to have a heart-to-heart with a naked neighbor.

Coming from America, where time matters more than talk, personal space more than sharing, and privacy more than openness, I often grow frustrated by the endless inefficiencies of Haiti.  I cling to my planner, schedule my friend time, and multi-task almost 24/7, often writing while talking on the phone, listening to boyfriend-drama while doing laundry and philosophy at the same time, often catching up on phone calls while driving.

But as the people priority in Haiti forces me to re-focus, I wonder which way is best.  (My need to determine what order of bestness things go in is probably an American side-effect, as well.)

Tonight I watched from a distance as a 15-year-old American girl and a wiry German man who had just met around the table entered the kitchen and offered to wash dishes with the Haitain cooks.  I waited for Ginny to politely decline their eager help, knowing the chore would be much faster completed alone without the language barriers, age gaps, and limited space.  

But to my surprise, they were warmly welcomed and put to work.  I watched in amusement as the four unlikely friends joyfully interacted in their broken languages, building relationships over soapy water, unaware of the ever-shifting clock.

I don't know which is best.

But I think I might stay a while."

PS--Matt is safely home from England and sleeping it off!  Thanks for all your prayers!

PSS--We start our "world tour" Saturday...check the link above, "Summer 2013", to find out when we're where!  Would love to see you!!!

takin' it back

While in Columbus, I always spend some time cleaning out the house, the girls room and our room.  Last week I found a notebook housing my musings from my first mission trips in 2002...2004.  I'm surprised, as I read them how much has changed, and how MUCH hasn't.  My writings on my first days in Haiti remind me of cultural difficulties I have since completely forgotten, and so many of my struggles have shifted, while some remain the same.

After my first 2 month trip to the Dominican Republic, I asked my parents to drop my Music Performance Major in exchange for Foreign Missions.  Hesitant, my mom pointed out something I had never really realized before...I loved to write.  So instead, I pursued Journalism with only a minor in FM, and found an outlet I will always be so thankful for.

So, from almost 10 years ago, some Stacey...

"The sky settles in for the night, peaceful pink and purples of cloud and fog, tucking in over the mountains, matching the lavender hues.  No line separates the sky from the ocean, all is soft, and the only movement from my roof-perch comes from the kites.  Little scraps of plastic bag garbage with knotted string fill the warm sky, dancing ballet in the sky, diving and climbing and streaming with my busy head and my tug-of-war heart.

There is much at the heart of man that is unaffected by one's placement, their company, or their calling. That which laid deep within me in America I find within me still. 

There is loneliness, for one, the loneliness embedded in the fibers that can only be truly, deeply filled by being fully know.  The children, work, friends, music...fills it, only to find at the oddest times the crevice is dry again.

There is also the overwhelming question, along with a rare acceptance of the answer, of whether I am significant, whether there is importance, of some inability of life itself to exist if I did not.

But we've all known, and will many more times, that we live and die, and time doesn't spare a single tick to mourn.  

I still find selfishness within me, though I have more than my three million neighbors do and probably ever will.  It is a desire for more that I mistake for a need -- for money or position or comfort.  

And on misty, large nights such as this, wether near or far, alone or crowded, in peace or turmoil, I remember in myself again a doubt of my point, my life, my reason, my Maker, only to be frustrated at the prospect that maybe I have never grown at all. 

The reality of my life is that only once was birth chosen for me, and only once will I die without my own permission.  My daily living and dying then, is mine to decide.  It is a freedom He has given me, and I've worn both roads.

At the end of the day, my life's just one handful, just a few scraps of beauty, of broken, of life, and of death.  So I think of what that handful would be, and wonder at my most significant moments.  I find that not one is when I aged, only what I did with the time in between.  Not one piece is what I've gotten, only what He's given another through me.  There is no room in this palm for the day my heart was first broken, for the day I moved from home, or for the hours I choose each path--only room for the growth and failures that comes from each.

Still, it surprised me that all of my making and living and dying and believing, the moment I would place most significant is not the day that my mother died, but instead the day after.  It was the day I lost my innocent outlook, my invincibility, my hunger.  It was the day I lost my motivation, felt my memories slipping, and in many ways, lost myself.  It was the day that I lost every single thing that I ever believed in...almost.  I found, at the bottom of my now empty dark solo self, a single crumpled pixel of truth--a seed, smaller than mustard, of blind faith.

Not faith large enough to trust that He was just and good, not big enough to believe that He was all-powerful.  I would no longer bet my breath that He was present, that He was in control, or that He was mighty.  I clung and believed and vested in the only thing I had found to know for sure: His love for me is GREAT.

It opens the door to all of my questions.

The sky has grown darker now than this pen, swallowing up the mountains and oceans and kites.  I wonder if they'll grow up again tomorrow.  Though I sit atop the middle of the largest city in Haiti, the only beam of light comes from a close moon, thrusting blue light for the world to spin upon.  

I know I have come far from that day.  I hold much more to be true now, knowing Him to be more through His loving.  I desire again to see the mountains rise up, and I dream dreams of tomorrow and next month and next year.

But it makes me realize that in all of my questions, and pondering, and searching, and qualms, that if all that I have and if all that I cling to is the knowledge that in all loneliness, doubt and denial, there is Him who loves even me, then I'm at peace with none else, with only room to move ahead.

Yesterday in the mango fields I watched a small defiant human disobey, turn away, run.  He was chased down and beaten--I heard the belt snap across his bony rebellions back, and I knew as I cringed that he had played his part in the beating.  In a heap he finally knelt, no longer mighty or independent, but snot-nosed and tear-streaked.  He broke, lifting up his now humble arms and begging just to be loved.  In a fraction of a second the leather fell to the dust, followed by a larger, wiser set of knees, and with tears in my own eyes I watched the desperate embrace, watched the small shaking shoulders slow into peace.

Some days I forget the lesson, and exalt my own shoulders, taking the beating over and over again, trying to prove that I am bigger, that I can dish it out, that I can take it.  But when I am finished fighting, though I'm often bruised and despairing by then, I know that the sole lifting of my eyes and the tight clinging to the one small truth of His love, will be the most precious, intimate moment of my life.  

Of all that's within me, and of all that will be, may it always come back to me calling out simply, humbly, hungrily...GOD!

The moon is joined by a cacophony of stars and I rest thankfully in arms bigger, warmer, and more reliant than my own."