in the middle of all our earthquakes

By the time the house stopped shaking and the rumbling of the earth was silent, Nikki, Matt and I were standing in the coolness of night out front, reassuring the girls.  Rob and Lori came flying out of their house, and a minute later, Bill and Julie and the boys were outside across the way.  The weekend students came running from the men's dorm, Rob went to check on Mark and Marybeth, and Job, the head of security, came jogging over to headcount.

Matt was already on the phone with Junior in Port-au-Prince, who said the waves of earth had been quite mild, and within minutes my phone started lighting up with messages from friends throughout Haiti..."Are you guys ok?" and "That was terrifying! Everybody safe?"

We couldn't help but remember the last time we'd felt the earth shake like that, when Lily was just a year old.

No one could help but remember the last time.

Leme!

God brought him quickly to my mind, and I reached for my phone, not even sure what I would say.

But last time his father never came home from work, never to be seen again.  Last time Leme's leg was pinned under a building, he still bears the scars.  Last time he was there above the epicenter, and while this time I knew he was ok, just a few miles down the road, I knew that this time he'd be thinking of last time, and that that would be terrifying.

Renting the first floor of a huge concrete three-story building, I was right.  He was shaken to the core, as was his dear wife, and a few phone calls back and forth and he and Guesica were on their way to sleep at Emmaus...not that they'd be able to.

I laid in bed half the night awake with most of the island, googling what we should have done (which was NOT what any of us did!), researching every bit of news on the earthquake, thinking about how we need to do drills in the dorms and on campus, thinking about the great earthquake, remembering.  Thinking about what I would do, right now, if the earth started shaking again...should I grab Ben first, or Nora, and should I wake Matt up to make a plan? Was that an aftershock? How was Matt even snoring right now!? Should we all climb into Sofie's bottom bunk bed? Should I move the crib further from the wall?  Should I go wake up Lily and Sofie and tell them if it started again, to climb into the bottom bunk and pull Nora into bed with them? Should we be sleeping on the porch?

I prayed again and again, prayed for Leme again and again, prayed for all the hundreds of thousands of millions of people also laying awake all around me, remembering. Worrying.

We were all exhausted by morning light, but Matt had been invited weeks ago to visit Guenson's church and to share the sermon, so we were committed.  We called Leme to check on them, to see if they wanted breakfast, but Leme and Gues, who attend Guenson's regularly, were already at church, Leme teaching the baptism class at 8 am.  He said he's slept a few minutes throughout the night, but that poor Guesica had been up all night.

So understandable. 

What do you even say?  You don't really understand, there's nothing you can say or do to really help.  I'd just have to keep praying for them and so many others and hopefully, as time goes on without the earth shaking, they would stop being afraid again, or at least forget to be.  I was just thankful that God orchestrated for us to be worshipping with Leme today, because at least perhaps our friendship would comfort him.

Discipleship Church's new hanger was beautifully decorated and when the service started there were a few hundred people there.  It was good to sit with Leme and Guesica, to let them talk some, to see several of our staff and students in the audience, good, despite being tired, to be in church.

We spent some good time in prayer, prayed for our brothers and sisters and countrymen in Port-de-Paix, sang through some good good worship, and after another hour or so, several hundred people more were there, every chair and step and stump full of people, and Matt was on.

He talked for a few minutes about how natural it was to be feeling frightened this morning, about our experience, then had us turn to the story of Jesus in the boat during the storm, then to the story of Jesus walking on water, then to the Exodus passage on Sabbath.

These were not his passages...that was not what he'd told me he was preaching on!

For almost an hour you could have heard a pin drop.  Everyone was tired from a sleepless night and everyone was hungry for some comfort food.

And I was me--sitting in the back with a lap full of sweaty children, translating for our team, and running his new message through the never-ending-Stacey-filter.

And cringe, look at my lap, how did he dare?

WHY would Matt say that we not only need-not be afraid, but MUST not be afraid, when MATT never lost his father in an earthquake?  How could he say, Leme two feet from me, that we cannot hold fear in our hearts when HE has never been pinned under a building!?  How dare he gently talk about the perfect faith of Jesus in the Father as our example when that thing last night was so SCARY?

Why would Matt confront the fears of last night so forwardly, so simply, so ridiculously, so SOON, when everyone knew that everyone SHOULD be afraid, that it was TOTALLY understandable, that there was no way NOT to be afraid?  Surely in THIS circumstance, fear was justified and to be comforted, not confronted!!

Surely I sounded a lot like the disciple who shook Jesus awake that storm.

Thankfully, just as Jesus confronted them that day, the Holy Spirit quickly confronted me today.

Matt wasn't saying that perfect love casts out fear.

Matt wasn't saying that when fear is reigning in our hearts that we are lacking in faith.  

Matt wasn't saying that Jesus wants full confidence from his disciples and from us, despite the storms He walks on.

Matt wasn't saying that the peace of Christ must rule in our hearts if we have Him, even in the midst of earthquakes and loss and memories and trials and tribulations.

Matt wasn't even saying that to worry in our hearts and to be consumed by fear was sin posture.

The Bible was.  The Bible IS.

That's what GOD's saying, and the reality of the Truth of the Gospel is that often times, it's just not what we want to hear. It's not always what feels good. It's rarely tickling our ears and saying, "It's ok to hold onto this!"  It rarely says, "Everything's gonna be ok, and everything's fine, and I promise everything's gonna be just peachy and that nothing bad is going to happen to anyone."  The Gospel speaks the TRUTH, and the hard truth this morning at church was that there IS NO ROOM FOR FEAR in the life and heart of a Christ-follower.

Concern? Wisdom? Natural responses?  YES, said Matt. But we cannot live in it.  We cannot live in fear, we cannot wait for times of peace again to make us trusting people.

We must choose to trust the man sleeping in the bottom of our boats, we must choose to trust the hand of the man walking on the waves...IN the storm.  NOW.  Even THIS.

Because it is NOT just the earthquake God's Word speaks into.  Matt went through a culturally appropriate list of chains of fear that our Cher Ayiti battles, and challenged "NO MORE."  I mentally added Stacey culturally appropriate items to the list of fears.

He talked about how voodoo continues to dictate our ways, the ways that fear of revenge and curses continues to bind us.  He challenged NO. MORE. FEAR. to the most openly afraid country I've ever been in, and suddenly I realized that while I had tried to give Leme shelter and food and friendship and comfort, what he really needed was what I really needed, too.  The TRUTH.

And the truth is that the Sabbath the Old Testament commanded we take externally---to cease striving, to cease working, to rest in Him and to show Him our complete trust--the New Testament commands we hold INTERnally.  To cease striving on our own.  To cease working it out by ourselves. To STOP thinking it through our way, to stop standing on our past fears, to stop stop worrying, to stop STOP stressing, and to. Trust. Him.

How many ways does the Bible present it, ask it, COMMAND it!?

Drenched in sweat, Matt asked us to take His hand TODAY and to NOT FEAR, and as Guenson stood and spontaneously led us in powerful worship, the Holy Spirit was there graciously sweeping, raising renewed hands and replacing wearied fears.

and Leme?  Leme was grinning.

For His truth?  It sets us free.

May we embody His truth publicly in the missionfields we are each in today, and in the dark quiet places no one will ever see.  In the places that feel impossible. In the places where only HE can help us. In the middle of all our earthquakes