I Live Among Them...

I live among them but I am not one of them.

He is my husband. He is the man I am closer to than anyone else in the world but, sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and I don’t know why. He tells me nothings wrong because he was raised in a world where emotional weakness can get you killed. I have never known true hunger; he told me once he went 4 days without eating because he had no money. He’s never owned a refrigerator, an indoor toilet, or a kitchen sink. He speaks only of today because for him, and every other Haitian adult, the future is to uncertain to plan for.

She is my daughter. She is a 4 year old with an attitude. She plays school in our back yard and can have hour long conversations with our German Shepard. She likes to change her outfit 3 to 4 times a day and always ask if she can wear my make-up. She’s a born leader and a great dancer, but when it’s time for bed she will go in her room without being told and fall asleep alone with the lights still on. She forgets sometimes she has a mommy now who will tuck her in at night. She lies when I asked her if she’s already eaten breakfast because she is afraid to miss another chance to get food.  She never ask for her real mother and she trembles when we pass her old house. I often watch her and wonder what goes on inside her little mind. How much hurt can one tiny heart hold?

He is my son and he is all boy. At 7 years old I often ask myself how it is possible for one child to get that dirty in that short amount of time. He plays hard and has an appetite that would put grown men to shame. He loves to cuddle when his friends aren’t looking, but when he gets hurt he refuses to be consoled. He tells me tears don’t fix anything so why show them. “Are you 7 years old, little boy?” I didn’t scold him when I found week old bread hidden under his mattress because I know old habits die hard. He’s never known a world where food is always available and I’ve never known a world where it isn’t.

She is my daughter and she’s going to be a beautiful young lady. She dances in front of her bedroom mirror just like any other 13 year old girl. She loves to wear beautiful dresses and on special occasions I let her borrow my jewelry.  She loves soccer and can argue defense strategies with her older brothers. She is smart, artistic, and kind hearted. I wake up every morning to find her sweeping the floor and doing the dishes and I wonder why. What teenager volunteers to do chores without being asked, a teenager who has been taught to work far to much. When will she allow herself to play? Why does she flinch when I raise my arms quickly to hug her? She must have been hit and it must have hurt enough to leave a scarred memory.

I live among them, but I am not one of them. I have never feared for my life or wondered where my next meal would come from. I have never went to bed not knowing if I was loved. I’ve never told lies for food or been forced to work as a child. I’ve never feared an adults embrace. I was shown more love in my childhood then some receive in an entire life. I have learned from my family how to accept love and how to show love. My job now is to take this precious gift I was given an show it to this small group of people.  Some days it seems like a very mundane job, but in reality it is anything but.  Love is never ordinary or meaningless. It is priceless and precious and once it is given to us we are all commanded to share it.

He was there

I forgot to pray that morning. We were in such a rush to get the kids ready and out the door that my time with the Lord somehow became less important. After what happened I’ve finally come to the realization that its not the strength of my commitment to him that sustains me, but his unfailing grace…..

We left the house early planning on a full day in Port au Prince. We were going to visit a young Haitian girl that is getting adopted by some friends of ours and then after grab a bite to eat at a restaurant that serves American food. After lunch we would visit the grocery store before heading home. It was a beautiful day. Port au Prince was exploding with activity, as usual. Women were selling their produce on the sidewalks. Motorcycle taxis were weaving through the mess of traffic. Horns were beeping and people were chatting, a typical day in Haiti. After we left the grocery store we headed home. Our bellies were full and we were all in a good mood. We were singing along to the Haitian radio trying to figure out the lyrics of our favorite Haitian rapper, Wanito. None of us saw the oil spilled all over the road. As soon as we hit it our truck started spinning out of control. I didn’t even know what was happening. The truck spun a round and jumped the curb. We smashed into a street light and spun around again before coming to a stop sideways with our back tires still on the sidewalk. I’ll never know how we managed not to hit anyone else. While I was still trying to make sense of what had happened I looked up and began to take in our surroundings. We were in the slums with a wrecked truck and no way of getting out. Immediately we were surrounded. At the time I didn’t realize the danger but I did see the look on my husband’s face and I knew we needed to get out of there. In the slums people are desperate and nothing can make you forget your morals quite like desperation. Desperate people steal, and sometimes desperate people get angry. It's not my fault I’m from one of the richest countries in the world. It's not my fault my skin is white or that I was born into privilege, but to a crowd of exhausted starving Haitians I represent everything that’s wrong with this world. It doesn’t make their anger acceptable, but it does make it understandable. They kept trying to open our doors to get inside but we had them locked with the windows rolled up. It was boiling inside the vehicle. We were lucky to have two police officers show up. They stepped out of their car with guns drawn, fingers on the trigger and stood in front of our door. Two police in a crowd of 50 people that was rapidly growing. Kenzy told me to call someone to come get us, but all I kept thinking was our closest friends are 2 hours away in Grand Goave. We can’t sit here that long. I decided to call a Haitian friend, Marc Allen. He works for the mission I worked for my first year in Haiti when I was teaching English. It was a long shot but maybe he could help. He answered on the first ring. I told him what was wrong and he told me to give the phone to Kenzy. They talked for a moment and then hung up. Then we waited. Kenzy stood outside the truck arguing with people while my friend Mallory and I stayed inside with the doors locked. I could see the sweat rolling off my husbands face as he talked to the police officers. As Mallory and I were trying to figure out what we could do I looked up and saw Marc Allen walking through the crowd. He had been minutes away from us!!! It was a miracle. What are the odds of the two of us being in the same place in that huge city at the exact same time? I couldn’t believe it.  He chained our truck up to the back of his van and pulled us out. We were lucky. No one was hurt in the accident and the truck can be fixed. It’s banged up pretty bad but the damage is minimal compared to what could have happened.

God was there. I may have forgotten to say hello to him that morning but he hadn’t forgotten me. I didn’t thank Him for my beautiful children or my health. I had forgotten to thank Him for my husband who always does his best to protect and take care of me. That morning getting out the door quickly was more important than telling Jesus how much his sacrifice means to me. I had ignored my obligations but he had not. His arms were around us that entire day and still are. The amount of love he gives to me is not dependent on the amount of obedience I show him. His love and mercy is unconditional. I am his child and He is my father and it will always be this way whether I forget that or not.

Rainy Season

Finding time to myself has become increasingly difficult. I came back to Haiti at the beginning of April and moved into my new home. In less than a week I became a mother of three. I love my children and what I do but in the beginning it was a little overwhelming. We’ve all managed though. The children are in a routine now and so am I. Although I may not have the cleanest house in the world it is definitely the busiest. We have school and feeding programs, Sunday school classes and the prison ministry. In the middle of everything else I have to remind myself I’m also a wife. Finding time with my husband is quite the challenge but somehow we find time for that too. All in all it’s a pretty amazing life.

The month of March marked the beginning of the rainy season here in Haiti. Every night for almost the entire month the rain would pour outside. Mud was everywhere.  Personally, I like the rain, but what I don’t like is what comes after the rain. Stagnant water is breeding ground for mosquitoes and mosquitoes spread disease. This year we were hit with a virus called Chickungunya fever. (Good luck trying to pronounce that) It amazed me how fast it spread through this country. It seems like anyone living here has experienced it, myself included. It starts with a fever. Afterwards you get a rash over your whole body. My rash was even in my mouth! Then the joint pain. I felt like I was 105 years old. I could barely walk to the bathroom because the bottoms of my feet hurt so bad. Everyone in my house has been hit with it. Some people have worse cases then others but there doesn’t seem to be anyone who is immune. I thought my son Ben was the only one that was going to get past this rainy season unscathed. He’s lying beside me as I write this blog with a temperature of 102. I guess I was wrong.

My supply of medicine is running dangerously low so I’m looking forward to my trip back to the States in July when I can restock my Children’s Tylenol supply. My house is a pharmacy. There seems to always be someone standing on the other side of my gate asking for medicine and holding sick children. I know what this virus felt like. I can’t imagine going through it without medicine.

Haitians are tough, but I suppose they have to be……

This One's Tough

A little over a year ago a young boy came to my house complaining of a sore knee. It was the son of the Haitian Pastor I always work with while doing ministry. His name was Osdanni. I had seen him plenty of times before. He was a shy kid but always very polite. I often got the impression he was more innocent then most children at his age, but he had a beautiful smile. It was the contagious kind of smile you couldn't help but smile back at. 
However, on that particular day he wasn't smiling. His knee was swollen and sore, so I gave him some children's tylenol and prayed over him. I told him he had probably twisted it playing soccer and then kept walking on it and made it worse. Thinking about that day now makes me wonder if I was just as innocent, as well. 
After that I left to go back to America for a short trip. While I was staying with my Aunt I got a phone call saying they had taken Osdanni to a Haitian doctor and they had done x-rays. The doctor had concluded that Osdanni had cancer and his leg needed to be amputated immediately. 
"What!" I said.
"What do you mean cut his leg off? There is no way the doctor could know that just by an x-ray. Just don't do anything until I get back"

When I returned, with the help of another American friend, we found a doctor from The States. He said he would help as much as possible, but after examining Osdanni he feared the worst, as well. He told us he needed to do a bone biopsy to be completely sure. 
So we did the bone biopsy and the result came back as cancer. The Haitian doctor had "guessed" right. An amputation was scheduled for the following week. What I remember most about that time was my husband giving his own blood for the procedure. Osdanni's father couldn't because he had already had malaria, so Kenzy and my friend Robert volunteered in his place. I was proud of them both.

Osdanni came out of the operation ok, but the doctors told us because his cancer was so aggressive he would have to go through chemo also. He was so brave through everything. I never once heard him complain. While he was going through treatment he would often sit underneath his father's mango tree reading his bible and praying. I learned a lot about faith and trusting the Lord by watching him and his father through this time. 

I remember, around Christmas time of this year Osdanni came to my house. My friends had bought a goat for him and I wanted to surprise him. He sit out on my front steps with his huge contagious smile holding his new pet. He tried to give me lessons on my guitar that day but he kept laughing at me because I was so bad. 
I thought to myself, "I haven't seen him this happy in awhile. He must be beginning to get better." 
Then a phone call from the doctor. Osdanni's cancer had spread into his lungs and other organs. The chemo had failed and there was nothing more they could do. If this was God's will then Osdanni's body would die within a few months. 
How do you process that? How do you accept it? How do you laugh and play with a child one day and then find out he's dying the next? I thought he was getting better......

He became weaker. He started getting thinner. After awhile he began coughing so hard he couldn't sleep at night. 

Yesterday we drove him to Port au Prince to a mission that has been helping to take care of him through all of this. For 3 hours I held him in my arms as he struggled to take every breath. There were times when he would stop breathing altogether and I was sure we had lost him. Then around 7:00 last night he took his last breath and went with Jesus. 
I've never seen death up close like that before. It was so real. Life is so fragile. 
What comfort can you give to a grieving father after he's lost his first born son? It's in these moments when I am most thankful for the sacrifice of Christ. I know where Osdanni is, and I know that because Jesus defeated death while he hung on that cross. He made heaven a possibility for us. He died so Osdani could live. 

One of my favorite authors is CS Lewis. He wrote the children's novels, The Chronicles of Narnia. In the last book of the series all of the characters get to go to Aslan's Country, which in comparison would be our heaven. One of the characters describes what he's seeing as this......
"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this." 

I'm trying to imagine what Osdanni is looking at right now. I'm wondering what conversations he's having. It's hard to fathom what he's experiencing, but whatever he's doing I'll bet he's smiling. 

"But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
― C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

Kay Espwa

 I recently met a little girl named Jessica. She is a beautiful little 4 year old that carries the weight of the world on her shoulders. Jessica stands out from the other children in our weekly Bible lessons because she never participates. She never smiles. She never plays. She rarely speaks. Something is seriously wrong at Jessica’s home. Poverty is brutal in this country. It’s impact is devastating and heartbreaking to say the least, but children are remarkable creations. They survive and adapt in a way I never could, but being unloved is the one thing that can break their spirits sometimes beyond repair. I look into Jessica’s eyes and I see a lost little girl that needs a hug more then she needs a plate of food. She silently wishes for a hand to hold instead of a new toy. She’s hurting and that means God’s hurting too.

About thirty minutes down the road from Jessica is a 14 year old boy named McKenzie. He’s been living in and out of a prison cell for most of his teenage life. His last offense, which cost him 6 months, was stealing a cell phone. This is not a hardened criminal. This is a little boy trying to survive in a world without love. He’s scheduled to be released in February and if something isn’t done for him I have no doubt he will eventually return to that prison cell again. He’s hurting and that means God’s hurting too.

I could write a hundred more stories of a hundred more kids that I’ve met in my short time on this island. I’ve been praying that God will give me answers for all the hurt I see around me, and now I’m beginning to understand that its not just physical needs that these people lack, its love. Poverty can not break them. Disease can not deter them. Earthquakes can not crush their spirits, but the absence of love is life threatening.
 There is a home built just down the road from where I currently live now. Its yard is over grown and its floors need a good scrub, but there is potential. I want to rent it and make it into a children’s home. I want to fill its rooms with laughter and happy faces. I want a separate room where I can take in the sick and nurse them back to health. I want to give work to boys like McKenzie who can do odd jobs for me and then have a place of refuge to feel safe and welcomed. I want to have movie nights and invite all the neighborhood children over to eat popcorn and watch movies about super heroes and beautiful princesses. I want them to come to my home and just be children. This is my dream for the future of God’s ministry here. 

The home will be called "Kay Espwa" which translates to House of Hope. 

The Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” 

That’s our vision... to bring hope. For every child that walks through our gates hope will be waiting for them. Hope will be standing in our doorways with outstretched arms and a loving heart. They will have hope that their lives will be better then their parents before them. Hope that a good education and a warm meal every night is not an impossible dream. Hope that one day they will be the ones that change their own country.

I want to take an empty house and use it as a tool to provide hope, fulfill dreams, show love, heal wounds, and teach the gospel.

Please pray with me as we work towards making the House of Hope a reality. 

That is Christianity

Maybe it't not about getting up on Sundays to attend a church service. Maybe it's not about reading a Holy book or singing hymns in a church choir. Maybe it's not even about giving to charity or refraining yourself from cussing the next time you stub your toe on the coffee table. It seems to me that those are just things we do, it's not what we believe. Christianity is what I believe in and Christianity is a person. It's about a man named Jesus, who was born into a poor family and raised in a poor town, but still managed to change the course of history within 3 years just by the things he said. He never fought any wars or led great armies. He didn't even so much as write a book. He simply stood up in front of people and dared them to love. He dared them to resist anger and hatred even when it's justified. He showed us how to love one another even when we don't deserve it. After he said all these things he died naked and hanging on a cross because he wanted us to understand what it means to sacrifice yourself for others. He spent 33 years here teaching, encouraging, and correcting. Now, there has been many great teachers in this world, but none that have made the impact that he has. Why is that? It's because he did something no one else on earth has ever done. He died, but came back. He was defeated, but conquered the grave. He was resurrected!!! He was seen by thousands of people including ones that had previously hated and denied him. He changed their hearts and lives with one great act of redemption. His story was and still is the greatest story ever told. And, if it's true it's the only thing that really matters. If we claim to believe this then it changes everything; the way we live, the way we dream, the way we treat the people around us. If Jesus is who he claimed to be then from this point on our entire lives must be centered around him because he is the center of everything. I never cared much for religious doctrine or self help programs, but this man and his story changed my life. This God is the only god worth following. He's the only God worth hoping for. He's the only God that sacrificed everything he had just to love me. That is Christianity and that's worth everything I've given up and so much more.

The Angels Rejoice

We started a bible study with a handful of elderly people in the city I live in. We chose 5 separate houses in 5 different parts of town. Every Friday, my team and I climb on our motorcycles and visit each home bringing food and a simple message. We just started reading out of the book of John. I'm not a Pastor and I don't pretend to be any kind of expert.
Going into this I just thought, "all I can do is read His story and pray the Holy Spirit does the rest."
The first house we visit is a lady that lives close to Soul Harvest Church land. She's a widow. Her son is in prison and her daughter was beat to death by a jealous boyfriend. Now this poor woman is left trying to raise the grandchildren all on her own. She told me once she couldn't go to church because she didn't have nice clothes. I guess she was afraid people would laugh at her, so I told her we would bring the church to her. Last week after we finished talking I briefly mentioned that if she had friends that would like to come read the bible with us they were more than welcome. She smiled and thanked me before we left. This week when I arrived I was blown away. She had invited half the village!! Her little porch was full and there wasn't enough chairs for all of us. Many people sit on rocks or laid rugs on the ground. I was shocked. I didn't have any great sermon prepared.
"I'm not capable of teaching these people," I thought.
I quickly prayed to myself that God would somehow help me. I began by telling them that God isn't just in a church building. He's so much bigger then that! Whenever two or more people come together in his name He is there. I said I don't have all the answers but if they wanted they could listen while we read the story of Jesus. I reviewed with them what we had read so far and then Kenzy read to them the story of Jesus turning the water into wine. After Kenzy finished I told them that Jesus showed us his miracles so we would know that he was the true Messiah. I explained how much he loved them and that unlike voodoo, Jesus' love is free. The gods of voodoo steal everything and offer little in return, but Jesus ask for nothing except your heart and he offers everlasting life.
The Haitian pastor that was helping me joined in to ask if anyone was willing to give Jesus their heart today.
One lady said, "I already have."
But then an older man exclaimed in a panic, "I haven't yet! Please, show me how!"
Our Pastor rested his hand on the man's shoulder and told him to be patient we would shortly. We asked if there was anyone else they could stand up and we would lead them in prayer. I sat on that porch in the morning sun and watched another of God's miracles take place as 16 people stood up and accepted Jesus as their savior. They clapped and cheered and hugged one another. They told me they were looking forward to next Friday's Bible study. I was speechless.....
As we were leaving on the motorcycle my husband pointed to a rock in a field to the left of the house we were sitting at. There was a colorful cloth laid over top of it and burnt candles around it. I asked if it was voodoo. He nodded yes.
As we drove past I whispered, "It will not be there for long. Jesus is reclaiming this land. Something great is coming"


"I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents"
 Luke 15:10

"The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17