It
has been four years since I moved to Haiti.
Today, I am spending my Haiti-versary preparing to move back to America
and reflecting on all the lessons I will carry with me when I leave this
amazing country.
Here
are just a few of the things Haiti has taught me…
Haiti has taught
me that children belong in families.
I
have worked at two orphanages and spent time at countless others. These experiences have shown me that although
institutional orphan care can certainly be done well, the bottom line is that
children belong in families. My heart
breaks for every child in an unsafe home, every child in every orphanage, every child who needs a family.
Haiti has taught
me that our faith and trust in God is not dependent on the situational outcome.
Sometimes
God calls us to go hard places and do hard things. We follow Him in faith and trust Him to lead
us well. But God doesn’t always promise
to give us the desired outcome. We
follow Him anyway, trusting that whatever He has for us must be better than
what we had planned for ourselves.
Haiti has taught
me that sometimes, God brings us to one place to show us He actually wants us
somewhere else.
I
actually learned this on my very first trip to Haiti. I transitioned from a week in Saint Louis du
Nord to Saint Michael where I was supposed to spend my remaining five
weeks. I ended up only spending a few
days in Saint Michael, but God used that time to show me that He had better
plans for me in Saint Louis du Nord.
Oh,
how this resembles my time in Delice. I
moved here with the intention of staying long-term, but God actually used this season to show me that it was okay to move back
to the US. It’s time. This is God’s plan. But if I had stayed in Cap-Haitien, I don’t
think I ever would have left. Coming here was a necessary step in making the decision to leave.
Haiti has taught
me that it’s okay to let someone else be the hands and feet of Jesus to me.
When
it rains hard in Cap-Haitien, everything floods. As I walked the dirt road to my goddaughter’s
house, I came to the spot that is normally a dry ravine. After a few days of rain, though, it was a
gently flowing river. As I walked
across, I stepped in exactly the wrong place and came out with my feet and ankles
covered in mud.
Great.
Suddenly,
there was a woman at my side. A complete
stranger who had seen my predicament and came running out of her house with a
bucket of water and a rag.
“Ban
m lave pye w yo,” she said. Let me wash your feet.
“You
don’t have to do that,” I said. “You’ll
get dirty.” But she was already stooping
beside me. Gently, she removed my feet
from my sandals and poured cool, clean water over them. She didn’t care that her own skirt was in the
dirt.
When
my feet and sandals were as clean as if I had just stepped out of the shower,
she stood and smiled. I said “thank you,”
but I wanted so say more. I wanted to
say that her humble act of service meant the world to me. I wanted to say that I would never forget
her. I wanted to tell her that on a
dirty, muddy road in Haiti, I met Jesus because I saw Him in her.
Haiti has taught
me that for someone with an ingrained desire to save the world, sometimes it’s
okay to focus on just saving myself.
I
have often been told that I as a Christian, I am supposed to love God first,
then others, then myself. Loving others,
serving others, and caring for others must come before loving, serving, and
caring for myself. People quote Mark
12:30-31 and say, “Jesus, then others, then yourself. See?”
But
living in a country where it’s a million degrees, it’s 5000% humidity, and
nothing seems to get done right the first time…I learned that self-love and
self-care have to come first. Serving
others comes from the overflow of that. I
can’t serve from an empty cup.
Mark
12:31 says, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Not before yourself. In order to
love, serve, and care for your neighbor well, you have to love, serve, and care
for yourself well.
Haiti has taught
me that safety is overrated.
I
can’t tell you how many people tried to convince me not to move to Haiti
because “it’s so dangerous there!”
I
can give you a thousand responses to this…like “don’t buy into the way the
media portrays this country”…like violent crime statistics from around the
globe…like my experiences with safety here in Haiti…
But the bottom
line is that Jesus called His followers to many things. Personal safety was never one of them.
In
Haiti, did I run into situations I didn’t want to be in? Yes.
Did
I get a terrible Caribbean disease that made me feel like I was dying for a
week? Yes.
Would
I do it all over again? In a heartbeat.
Because the safest
place for us as Christ-followers is in the middle of God’s will…wherever that
is.
Haiti has taught
me to never underestimate the power of prayer.
This
blog post from 2015 says it all.
Haiti has taught me
that there are blessings in the things I don’t want to do.
I
didn’t want to drive an hour away to bring a woman from the community to a maternity
clinic because she was having trouble breastfeeding. But I was incredibly blessed to sit with her
as other Haitian moms gave her advice and education.
I
didn’t want to go out of my way driving a former student home every day. But I was incredibly blessed when his father
stopped me in the street to thank me profusely for the gift of transportation.
I
didn’t want to go all the way out to the hour-away kindergarten graduation
ceremony. But I was incredibly blessed
to join in celebration with a family that was rejoicing in opportunity for
their children to get an education.
Haiti has taught
me how to care for orphans and vulnerable children.
Louis
was only 8 years old when he spent two hours screaming at me from the other
side of the closed door, chucking spoons at it every few minutes.
Was
he this upset about being put in time-out for punching another child? No. He
was really upset about being abandoned.
Again. By another
care-giver. He was really upset because
8-year-olds shouldn’t have this much heartache and pain. Nobody should. He was really upset because he’s a little kid
with big emotions that he didn’t know what to do with.
So
I sat on the other side of the door. And
when he finally calmed down, two hours later, I was there to sit with him and
tell him that I loved him no matter what.
And
when Anna cried in school every day, it wasn’t because the cursive worksheet
was too hard. It was because she had a
hole in her heart waiting to be filled with love.
Caring
for kids with trauma is challenging in so many ways. I am
certainly not an expert, but I know that the past four years have prepared me
to be a foster mom.
Dear
Haiti,
Thank
you for the memories. Thank you for the
lessons. Thank you for everything you
have been for me. I will never forget
the past four years. They have been the
best years of my life.
