vision

Alright, friends, this one probably means nothing to you (feel free to skip), but sure means an awful lot to me. 

I fell asleep last night praying for the Edlers, today their very last day in Haiti...praying with all my own memories, praying for all the goodbyes, all the hearts, all the gaps, all the kids, all the broken.

Nora and Joel had good reason to think they were siblings

And I woke up with a vision this morning. 

I say vision, not dream, because it wasn't distorted or unclear, foggy or unrealistic...it was just a strong, long-forgotten memory, clear as day, and I woke up from it with a clear interpretation/meaning in my heart and mind that was absolutely full of peace and clarity and resounded as His Truth (and backed up by Matt). 

This morning while sleeping, I saw that we were just walking out of Wednesday prayer meeting, some six or seven years ago, at the Edler's house. I headed out the door to round up our kiddos after the weekly meeting, and looked up to see Sam (Edler) in the treehouse. I looked right at him and he was surrounded by kids...the Heckmans, the Bundys, Sofie was there, the Grosses...dozens of kids running all over the yard and Sam in the middle playing hard.  

We stood out in the yard as the sun began to sink over the palm trees, as we always did, chatting with one another fellow missionaries, final little catch-ups and prayers as car after car full of families pulled out one by one, heading home after dark, no problem, no worries, calling out for next Wednesday, carry on!

We were an imperfect bunch, always, but loved and supported each other so that we could all love and support the Haitian men and women God had led us each to Haiti to serve. We came and went freely. We always had fuel. We could always come and go. Wherever He was leading, we could go. However we could love and support our Haitian brothers and sisters, we could GO and DO and DID.  We had all come to Haiti to GO, and did...and meanwhile we all held one another's ropes and prayed and shared every Wednesday and argued about little things like dress code and remnants of asbestos in the roofs, every house on both campuses full, about which day we should celebrate Thanksgiving and trading recipes for what to do with baskets full of mangoes.

I woke up, so suddenly, and immediately saw Sam again, same treehouse, same place, same house, TODAY...alone. 

A few years ago, things in Haiti started getting harder and more unstable, and one family at a time, lots of different reasons, lots of different ways, said good-byes at one last Wednesday prayer meeting. 

Our last two years in Haiti, there were more and more Wednesdays we couldn't meet. You don't really realize that things are changing, but they were.  Many weeks there was no fuel to come or go, many Wednesdays the roads were too dangerous. We moved our meeting earlier and earlier for daylight travel, cutting into the day but committed to praying for one another and for our dear country. The family grew smaller and smaller...meeting was harder and harder, supporting our Haitian brothers and sisters wherever they were got harder and harder...sometimes we would all spend weeks...months...seasons, locked down on our fields of ministry--waiting for heated times to pass, texted our requests, holding each other up from down the uncertain raods.

We (OMS in Haiti) had had more partners than the houses could hold, so many children running the yard that it looked like a school, and today, Julie and Bill are the very. last. ones, and tomorrow they are leaving. It has been a year, almost two of no prayer meetings...no leaving villages...no beach trips...no fuel...no missions trips...no travel...no friends over. One by one, the few remaining missionaries in the have gone...some hoping to return, some tired of evacuating and lock-downs and leaving for the last time, some accountable to missions agencies calling the hard shots.

Julie and Bill have been trying to stay...and suddenly they've been trying to leave well, if they must leave...which has felt as utterly impossible as it did when we were desperately trying to do the same (leave WELL) suddenly almost 2 years ago. 

I have felt the guilt of leaving ever since...life so hard, so much to do, so many to love well. So much more work!

But when I woke up with this all this morning for the Edlers, I deeply realized genuine release for them. They had support and partners so that they could support and partner. They could come and go freely so they could go wherever He sent. 

Now they don't. 

Now they can't. 

The Lord is at WORK in Haiti, as much as He has ever been...and every ounce of the work and sweat and blood and tears for His glory by the Edlers....by so many...mattered, matters and remains IN there, in lives changed. But that era, at least for OMS in Haiti...at least for Emmaus...has shifted.

Julie, Matt and I served in Haiti together before LILY...through cholera...through earthquakes...through so many come and go...through crisis after crisis, through babies and adoptions and presidents. 

And the release I've NEVER felt for myself I saw so clearly this morning for my sister, for Julie. 

She can leave tomorrow, not by choice, not by plan, not as she had hoped, but WELL, with her chin up. The era I had forgotten and saw so clearly has changed...what He could do through foreigners I can see He is making another way...and that He's ever as good, and Faithful, and FOR Haiti. 

The Edlers have been so anxious to be faithful...not to Haiti...not to friends...not to the men and women and work they love, but to Him. 

And the eras come and go...yet nothing changes that He will be faithful to their family and faithful to those they love in Haiti. 

They go well, with Him, and faithful.

I don't know why He showed me that this morning, for someone else, who will have to wrestle her own peace with Him...and will. 

But I'm thankful for the vision I couldn't have given myself, and the confidence I haven't really had until today for Julie and Bill that following Him a direction you didn't choose isn't the same as abandoning His work or His people, for all the times and worlds that change...He never will.

The day we were all evacuated within 24 hours notice in March 2020 due to Covid concerns...and the last time we've been together.

Julie and Bill, (with Lily in arms) before they were Julie and Bill, standing in the yard our families shared.