Four Years

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.

http://myheart4haiti.blogspot.com/2015/05/deploy-troops-send-in-backup-go-go-go.html

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.