Thankful.

As I sit in my room and listen to the rain I am just so thankful. Thankful for much needed rain finally falling. Thankful for wonderful friends here that are always encouraging. Thankful that I get to serve in this place.  Thankful that God is faithful. Thankful that His perfect love casts out fear. Thankful for my family and that I will get to spend time with them soon.  Thankful that I get to be a mentor and friend to some precious teenage boys.  Thankful that we were able to worship with our community this week. Thankful that God understands all languages. Thankful for opportunities to pray with our students who don't know the freedom of the gospel.  Thankful for joy. Thankful for hope. Thankful for Jesus.

JUST THANKFUL.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

Today was one of those days.  You know the kind where nothing really seems to go right and you cry at the drop of a hat.....yeah, that kind.

First, some history:
I have basically become a mom to several boys who live in our neighborhood.  They come over every day after school to do their homework, eat lunch, and just hang out.    

As I'm sure you can imagine from the photo they are a bit of a rowdy bunch.  The one on the far right (Kitson) is my buddy, or my "shadow" as some call him because he literally goes everywhere with me.  Well, last week he got in a fight at school....with a girl no less.  So after school we sat down to talk about it.  He told me that she hit him first and the he had to hit her back because otherwise everyone would just hit him because they thought they could.  I told him that he didn't need to do that and that he should just walk away, just because someone hits you doesn't mean you should hit them back.  I told him how I knew he was a better person than that and how we want to be more like Jesus, and Jesus wouldn't hit somebody back.  

Fast forward to today...

Kitson, Richcarde and I are sitting waiting for English class to start and one of the boys that is in our secondary school said something to me in Creole that I didn't understand, so he starts laughing at me and talking about how I can't understand Creole.  So (in a voice that was probably not as nice as it should have been) I told him that he shouldn't laugh at me that at least I'm trying and that if he tried to speak English I wouldn't laugh at him if he didn't understand something.

A little later Kitson said he was going to leave, but really he just went outside of the school gate and was hiding behind the wall just trying to be funny.  I went over to tell him to come work on his homework and as I was looking over the wall a boy said something that wasn't nice about me in Creole because he thought that I couldn't understand.  I didn't say anything mean to him but just told him (again in a voice that was probably not as nice as it should have been since I was already frustrated by being laughed at) that I could understand what he was saying and that it was rude.  I was so frustrated that it made me cry.  This obviously bothered Kitson because he waited quietly (super unusual for him) for me to get out of class.  

As soon as I walk out of class he starts questioning me about what happened.  I tell him what happened and then he starts telling me that I shouldn't pay attention to people who say things like that and reminding me of all the things that I told him last week.  Wow.  Eyes and ears always watching and listening to what you say and do.  I didn't do what I had told him to do and he let me know it.  As we continued to talk about it I told him that I should have just walked away and I didn't, I made a mistake and I'm sorry.  That seemed to settle it for him, but I continued to think about and process it.  Only by the grace of God will I be able to react to situations as I should.  I need to be very intentional in praying about this because no matter how much I want to just set my mind to it and be able to do it I know that I can't, only He can.  

I think the hardest thing is that when I really stop to think about it I realize that this teenage boy most likely isn't saying rude things just because he's a punk kid, but there is something much deeper going on.  This place is so full of darkness and despair.  And in that moment when someone really needs to see Jesus I pray that my reaction would be one that would show them His grace and mercy and not my frustration.

Bon Ane!

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.  At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.  Then there will be equality, as it is written:  "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little."

- 2 Corinthians 8:13-15

Last Saturday we went hiking in the mountains.  We set out at 9 AM with a few of our Haitian friends. Our friend Donald has been hiking quite a bit, so he was leading us.  He told us our destination was about 2 hours away.  After 2 1/2 hours of walking (mostly uphill) we started questioning him about the time it would take to reach our destination....."only 30 more minutes" he would say.  Sometimes Haitian time and American time are two totally different things :) .....so when we had been hiking for 4 hours we decided we better head home or we weren't going to make it back before dark.  We actually continued on in a loop so we got to see even more of the beautiful countryside.  After a full 7 hours of strenuous hiking we arrived back home, grateful and tired.  

The hiking crew :)

Beautiful mountains

More beautiful mountains

A school along the way

The whole time we were hiking I just kept thinking about how this was something we were doing for recreation and how it was an everyday life reality for so many people.  Walking uphill, and not only walking, but carrying water or various other things....for miles.  Just simply having enough water or food in a remote location like that is a very difficult task.  Children have little or no access to education.  Preventable diseases run rampant because there is no access to medical care.  Floods or droughts ruin crops that are a family's only source of food.  

I went to bed early that night because I was so tired by the time we got home.  I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep.  I decided I would read a couple of chapters in the book I'm reading and part of what I read I would like to share with you here.  

     Whenever a major jetliner crashes anywhere in the world, it inevitably sets off a worldwide media frenzy covering every aspect of the tragedy.  I want you to imagine for a moment that you woke up this morning to the following headline:  "One Hundred Jetliners Crash, Killing 26,500."  Think of the pandemonium this would create across the world as heads of states, parliaments, and congresses convened to grapple with the nature and causes of this tragedy.  Think about the avalanche of media coverage that it would ignite around the globe as reporters shared the shocking news and tried to communicate its implications for the world.  Air travel would no doubt grind to a halt as governments shut down the airlines and panicked air travelers canceled their trips.  The National Transportation Safety Board and perhaps the FBI, CIA, and local law enforcement agencies and their international equivalents would mobilize investigations and dedicate whatever manpower was required to understand what happened and to prevent it from happening again.

     Now imagine that the very next day, one hundred more planes crashed--and one hundred more the next, and the next, and the next.  It is unimaginable that something this terrible could ever happen.

     But it did--and it does.

     It happened today, and it happened yesterday.  It wil happen again tomorrow.  But there was no media coverage.  No heads of state, parliaments, or congresses stopped what they were doing to address the crisis and no investigations were launched.  Yet more than 26,500 children died yesterday of preventable causes related to their poverty, and it will happen again today and tomorrow and the day after that.  Almost 10 million children will be dead in the course of a year.  So why does the crash of a single plane dominate the front pages of newspapers across the world while the equivalent of one hundred planes filled with children crashing daily never reaches our ears?  And even though we now have awareness, the access, and the ability to stop it, why have we chosen not to?  Perhaps one reason is that these kids who are dying are not our kids; they're somebody else's. 

--From "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns

It's so easy to push these children out of our minds because we don't personally know them.  I think that it is so easy to live in our comfort zones and in our little bubbles......where all is right with the world and my life is all about me.  But what if you were the mother who couldn't feed your children because you couldn't get a job....there are no jobs to get, but even if there were you have to carry water all day which leaves no time for anything else.  Wouldn't you want someone to help you?  This part of the book really challenged me....it really made me think about the way I spent my money when I had a paying job, about the way I use my resources now, and honestly about the way that it is sometimes easy to become immune to this pain even when living in a 3rd world country.  Things that should never be normal or acceptable sometimes become so commonplace that it is hard to see them for what they truly are.  I think the prayer "break my heart for what breaks yours, Lord" is so important and necessary not only in America but also in the developing world.  It is only by His grace that we can be compassionate for others.  God didn't put us on this earth to live life for ourselves.  He blessed us so that we might bless others.  

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will about in every good work.

-2 Corinthians 9:8        

John Piper puts it this way in "Desiring God":

Why does God bless us with abundance?  So we can have enough to live on, and then use the rest for all manner of good works that alleviate spiritual  and physical misery.  Enough for us; abundance for others.  The issue is not how much a person makes.  Big industry and big salaries are a fact of our times, and they are not necessarily evil.  The evil is in being deceived into thinking that a six-digit salary must be accompanied by a six-digit lifestyle.  God has made us to be conduits of his grace.  The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold.  It shouldn't.  Copper will do.  Copper can carry unbelievable riches to others.

As I look back on 2013 I am so grateful for the many things God has taught me this year, but I know that I still have a lot to learn, and for that I am also grateful.  I am looking forward to what He has in store for 2014 and am challenged to live my life more for Him and less for me. 

Break my heart for the things that break yours, Lord.

    

December Update

Things have been busy as usual so I thought I would just update you all with some photos!  

Morning flag ceremony at school

Teacher appreciation lunch

Kindergarten Christmas party

Notes of appreciation from the Special Ed teachers

Funny goat :)

Amber, Belo, Bernard, Patrick, me, Kam

Giant rat that was living in our house for a week and is finally dead!

Be careful what you ask for!  Adam, Kam, and I had been working on learning all the creole lyrics to a song that we sing in church.  We were so proud of ourselves for learning them all and were singing the song several times a day.  Then we were out walking and saw Carlos, the music pastor at church, and told him that we wanted to sing the song on Sunday because we now knew all the lyrics.  It was a simple song request, but apparently that meant we wanted to sing the song in front of the church.......so here we are singing in creole for the whole church!

Terra came to visit!!

Giving tours of the school

Fresh coconuts!

English class Christmas party

Report card day at school

Christmas Eve treat making

A day at the beach!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  

Broken Plate. Broken Heart. Broken World.

Last Thursday I was with the kids and some of their friends at the cafe working on homework, but then art class started and all the tables were getting full so we decided to leave.  Micha asked if their friends could come to the house to do homework with them that afternoon so I told her yes.  Each of their friends headed home to change out of their school uniforms before coming over and I walked the kids back to the house.  After they quickly changed Micha, Jessi & I headed out to pick up their friends.  We arrived at Dada's house first and when we went in she was already doing dishes.  We had left her at her house approximately 5 minutes before and she had already changed out of her uniform and had started working.  As we talked to her about coming over to do homework Micha walked around where she was doing dishes and accidentally knocked a plate off of where it was sitting.  It of course broke on the concrete floor and Micha asked her if she was going to be in trouble.  Dada said yes, that her 'mother' would beat her when she got home.  My heart broke.  Sweet, precious Dada is a restavek like so many other children here.....doing all the work, being mistreated and not being able to just be a kid.  I walked Dada home after she finished her homework.  Her 'mother' was home so I told her that I had broken her plate and that I was very sorry it was an accident.  She of course said that it was no problem and that she had plenty of plates.  I don't know what happened after that, but I just prayed that Dada would be protected.

It is so frustrating to not be able to fix things for these children.  It is so frustrating to not be able to just call child services and have them taken out of these situations.  It is even more frustrating that it is so ingrained in culture here that people  don't even think twice about it.  There is so much darkness wrapped up in the culture here that things that are definitely not ok are just overlooked because they are completely normal here.

This evening a few of us went to visit a family that is very dear to us.  They have recently taken in a 13 year old girl whose mother died.  After we found out about this we were so happy because we know what a great couple they are and what loving parents they are.  But the last time we visited them something just didn't seem right, the girl that they had taken in was working the whole time we were there.  She was just taking laundry off the line and sweeping which are reasonable chores for a 13 year old, but she never sat down to chat with us and was just constantly working.  We just couldn't believe it, there was no way this couple would ever have a restavek.  After some conversations that Kam had this week she basically found out that this girl is doing all the work at their house.  I know that they are treating her well and that she is going to school, but she is still a restavek.  Cultural norms can definitely cause hearts and eyes to be closed to reality.

Please pray for these dear, sweet girls....pray that they would know true freedom in Christ.  Pray for the adults in this country....that their hearts and minds and eyes would be open to reality and that they would see children as the precious, loved children of God that they are instead of as slaves.  

John 8:36  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

        

Break Every Chain

God does not judge by what he sees on the outside. This verse literally blew my English students minds today. There are so many people here who are in physical bondage, but there are also many here who are bound by legalism in the church. Culturally in Haiti, you must dress a certain way to go to church. Not only will you be looked down upon if you are not dressed properly, you will likely be kicked out of church or never allowed to enter at all.  In essence, if you don't have money to buy proper church clothes (most people don't) then you aren't allowed to worship God within the church. There is something very wrong with this.  Jesus didn't die on a cross just for people who have enough money to buy a certain kind of clothing for church, he died on the cross for EVERYONE.  As we discussed this passage of Galatians today with Pastor Mark my students had so many questions and it was easy to see that they were beginning to grasp this truth. The chains are breaking.  Praise Jesus!

M'ap li ak ke kontan! (aka I'm reading with joy!)

On the second day of school Amanda and I were under the tree taking photos of some students who don't have sponsors when Rita walks up on the phone.  She seems to be talking about something very serious and then says, "Well I'll have Stephanie go talk to her, she's sitting outside the classroom crying".  Of course my initial thought is "Oh no, what has happened?!" which is quickly followed by "Whatever it is my creole isn't good enough!".  Rita hangs up the phone and with tears in her eyes explains what has happened.  Loulou has been kicked out of 3rd grade because she can't read.  She's been through 3rd grade twice already and now she is going to have to go back to 2nd grade because she can't read.  As I walked over to talk to her I just prayed that the Lord would give me the words to say to her.  I hugged her and talked to her about it and told her that we would help her.  I asked her if she wanted to be able to read and she said yes, she just needed help.  I sat with her for awhile and silently prayed for her and about how we could help her.

Reading is an issue that we as a staff have discussed so many times because we know that it is a huge problem.  Children grow up speaking Creole and then suddenly when they go to school everything is taught in French.  How are they supposed to learn when they can't even understand what is being said?  Not only that, but they are never really taught to read, they are just expected to do it.  A few weeks ago in my English class we read an article and discussed the education system in Haiti and this was one of the many issues we discussed.  All of my students were very passionate that the education system in Haiti needs change.  And then it hit me.....a Saturday reading program with my English students as the volunteers!!  I presented the idea to my class the next day and asked them if they were able to come on Saturday to volunteer an hour of their time to help some children who can't read.  

I was quite nervous the first Saturday.....what if none of my volunteers show up?!  But, to my pleasant surprise I had 6 volunteers show up!!  Only 3 kids, but 6 VOLUNTEERS!  

    
And then this Saturday.....13 kids and 6 volunteers!  

It is such an awesome thing to see the students from my class who I have grown so close to really living out the gospel.  They are an inspiration to me and definite agents for change in a country that is so broken.  Please pray for these kids as they learn a skill that will literally change their lives and for these volunteers who are so generously giving of their time to serve others.

James 3:13

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.