His hem

We were 21 and 22 when we flew into Cap-Haitian to see where we had already committed to go. To meet all the people we'd already signed up to work with. To scope out the seminary and its' staff and students we'd already promised to serve for five years. 

We landed in the hottest, driest, strangest corner of the world around noon, and when we stepped off the plane knowing NO one, there was a beat up, white, 15 passenger van with no seatbelts, no air-conditioning, and no power-steering waiting for us, with an old man, a young pregnant couple, and three little blonde ones. 

We piled in and dusted off a seat and were instantly surrounded by small, bench-bouncing Bundys. Brett had a massive, Haiti-made cast on his arm, and every time we needed to turn, pregnant Angie would fling all her body weight across Brett and pull on the wheel with all her might. We navigated through the chicken - chicken - wheelbarrow - bottomless mud road chaos of town, and the chaos in the van wasn't much better.

I'd never known a family with four kiddos, crazy people. I'd never known a man in his 80's, wearing a tie and working in 200 degree Cap-Haitian. I'd never known a kid not wearing a seatbelt, or anything we were seeing outside of our dusty windows, so different from the booming city of Port-au-Prince we were used to. It was like Cap-Haitian was from an era long gone. 

I remember thinking a thousand things, probably all over our faces, and I bet we looked like babies... too young, too ignorant, too eager.

When we pulled up in our white, 15 passenger van Wednesday night in south Jackson, our 7 kiddos in tow (crazy people), and the Bundys were standing on the steps of a cute, white ice cream parlor, that day long gone hit me as hard as the heat had hit me off that plane.

The Bundy kiddos aren't kiddos anymore. Matt and Stacey Ayars aren't, either. We caught up just as fast as we could, two hours flying past, ice cream dripping down arms and kiddos, first shy, quickly sifting throughout all their memories and Haiti stories...once an MK, always. 

Life since then has changed an awful lot...they left Haiti when we were pregnant with Ben, and we've all done so much shifting and growing since then. Some of it we were wanting and ready for...a lot of it, we weren't.

How sweet and sacred those two hours were, because life has been hard and golden, too, and after so much you find that our Father has sustained us each. They committed to go, and worked hard at the plow and didn't look back, and for many years we plowed alongside in the Haiti-field of His kingdom, raising our babies and falling into hot and sticky beds each night too tired to care, and that will always be in us each. 

Family. 

We've all lost enough of it to be so very grateful for it, and we've lived enough chaos to know it's one obedient step at a time, clinging to His hem.