stable prayers for the ups and downs

 Lots of conversations at the Ayars house have naturally been turning to Haiti...it is always SO interesting to me the things the kids remember...focus on...and call HOME!...What things they are dying to do and who they are dying to see. What they are dying to eat...half their conversations are about food :). It reminds me that even though it's Haitian food to me, that I miss but do fine without, to the kids it is HOMEcooking...it's their food!  

(the garlic fried spaghetti for breakfast with mayo and catsup thing just never really resonated with Matt and I, but the kids....look out!!)

They are all anxious to see friends, to eat fresh mangoes and pineapple and sweet bananas and bean sauce and goat, all anxious to see their pets and their Tati Gertha, all anxious to see favorite students and staff members, to play soccer in the afternoons and pick cocoa pods, anxious for sunshine and barefeett, for the freedom of a campus full of loved ones and friends, a kitchen to help Paulcine and Edlin in, a shop to putter around in with Maxi, trees to climb to still-remembered favorite forks and perches.

There have also been some tears. It is incredibly hard for Nora to understand HOW, after waiting all this time to finally be back in Haiti with Sam and Joel, NOW, suddenly, Sam and Joel won't be there. That we'll be staying in their house with their cat that is suddenly not their house. She can't get what in the world they are doing in Canada if we're going to be in Haiti, or why we couldn't go to Haiti when they were there, and then they had to leave Haiti and now suddenly we can go.  Dear girl...she loves those boys fiercely and it breaks my heart to absorb her tears with no real answers. Dear Sam is such a realistic kiddo that he told Nora when they left our house in December, "Goodbye, Nora, I will never, ever see you again" and she just still can't get over how that potential reality hurts.  It DOES. It is the worst part of being a missionary, in any, any field. 

Many and most of our other missionary friends who have always been a sweet part of Haiti are gone. That will be an adjustment, for sure...though we are SO blessed that our girl Shelley will be overlapping with us a few days, and that we'll be overlapping some with another dear family there visiting for two weeks as well.  We had hoped and prayed and planned to also overlap with our fearless field leader and his beloved wife, but some health holds are keeping them back this month...something else for your prayers!

The big girls are anxious anxious for time with all their friends and are collecting little gifts to bear left and right. They know their friends--and what is not available in Haiti-- well and are collecting gifts they'd never collect for their friends here...like quality elastic hair bands, new sports bras and packs of underwear and Hershey's kisses. Sofie is anxious to see Granny, who no longer works at Emmaus and will be limited to visits instead of easy to find any moment of the night or day like she always has been, and Lily is anxious to work alongside the staff, as she's always loved. 

Lily, Hline and Alexandra have stood the test of time :)

Our brother Jonas, whom Ben still prays for several times a week, has graduated, but will come overlap a few days with us, and most we'll all be missing Matt...home isn't the same without him (nor will home be the same for him without us!)

We are leaving a day early for our drive to Fort Pierce so that we can visit a day with Dad and Cindy, and we're all looking forward to that, too.

Will you be praying with me for everybody's hearts?  Life in Haiti has shifted and changed, of course...things in Haiti are different now than they were when we were last able to go...which was already different from when we lived there....things and people always changing, including us!

Will you pray with me for the men and women and children we are blessed to be coming alongside, that the Lord might help us to encourage them WELL in Him...that He might use us to touch hearts and touch lives, to point to Jesus, to inspire faithfulness, to restore and refresh tired and discouraged hearts?

Will you pray with me for sweet and sacred moments...with students as we work through their stories, with friends as we catch up on lives, with family as we share trials and heartbreaks, for sacred moments brothers and sisters who have been living through so, so much?

It's daunting, heading into so much hurting and wanting so badly to be His balm. It's fragile, wanting to love intimately and well and being too "out of the loop" to rely on my own strength and ability to do so.  The Lord will have to be much at work, and I rely on your prayers for this confidence.

Pray for me to trust Him with every uncomfortable, stretching or worrisome part of this journey, to trust Him with every heart we encounter and with every heart I shepherd along with me. Pray for Sharon, who steps out with me and who models "coming alongside" better than anyone I know. 

Matt has been talking to friends on the ground from the airport to the school alm
ost daily, and everyone agrees this is the time for him to send us, and everyone is anxious to hem us under their care. Every person he speaks to, he hangs up with an, "I MISS that guy", and we are all just there...The Lord's got His people EVERYWHERE, and we MISS His people in Haiti.  

THANK you for praying for us as we prepare (both to be in Haiti and also to not be here!) and for sending us with the gifts of your love and prayers to carry to His family there! 

side note: We don't leave for another week...prayer is just heavy on my mind!