All in all

Three things:

1. I read a little prayer in a tract found at a mall in the early 80s and I asked God to forgive me of my sins. In January of 1992 I sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit. Over the next couple of years I started to learn what it meant to both love and serve God and also to learn the truths about who I really was: loved, significant, made in the image and likeness of God, a person with a purpose. I learned that there was healing for past wounds.

2. At church on Sunday the pastor said that when we talk about God, it shows that we are thinking about God. And when we talk about other things more than God, that shows that God isn't a priority in our life. I've been reflecting on that, particularly tonight when I just wrote a Facebook note that didn't mention God at all except in a song title -- and then only in brackets.

3. I haven't dated since Valentine's Day, seventeen years ago. The only thing really memorable about that relationship was its ironic ending, actually on this holiday. 

What's the relationship between these three items? God is my all in all. Sure, I sometimes take my eyes off of Jesus. Sometimes I forget who I am. But, really, the truth is that God is my all in all.

I hear very frequently that the struggles and joys of marriage and parenting are a significant way for one to grow closer to God. The struggles with our spouse or the challenges of parenting lead us to rely on God more and we learn hard lessons in submission and service. Viewed positively, the relationship with our spouse shows us the miracle of true intimacy, our unqualified love for our children teaches us God's inexhaustible love for us. I don't dispute any of this, and I am glad that God uses marriage and parenting to deepen people's walk with God. Over Christmas, though, I was skimming through a book written by someone in a Bruderhof community. The author mentioned that it says in the Bible that single people are primed to grow close to God. In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians he says that unmarried people can have their attention fully focused on God, undivided, wholly devoted.

How does this play out?  I told someone from my Minnesota church last summer that I had decided that I was going to take more time off because really, I was 40-years-old and it was time to do what I wanted. Now, I didn't know this person very well, and he very appropriately questioned what I meant. I mean:

• It was for freedom that Christ has set me free. I serve God, and my relationship and service to my supervisor and co-workers is a reflection of that – but not taking the time off that my organization gives me because of fear of disapproval or misunderstandings is not right.
• God has beautiful ways of doing things, and wants me to live abundantly, spending time with family and friends both in rest and service to them.
• God has actually designed me to work better with periods of rest, both in the day, week, and year. There is wisdom in living within the rhythms of life.
• While it is true that I have been created for good works (Ephesians 2:10) I have been created to do these works in multiple contexts, not just at my job.
• My heart (again, when I'm fully me) is to do what God wills. I have tasted and seen that God is good -- over and over. So when I say that I'm going to do what I want, I mean what God has for me. And remember, it's been just Jesus and me for a long time.
• Until this earth is fully redeemed/renewed/remade (depending on your eschatology), there will constantly be a lot of work to be done that seems urgent (the Bible seems to indicate work even on the New Earth, but I don't think the sense of urgency will be there). Just because I see a need it does not mean that I am necessarily the one to fill it. My role may be to find the right person to do it. Or weep for the injustice and hardness in the world. Or pray that others will be inspired to get involved. Or wait.
• God is sovereign, and the work that needs to be done will get done:

1) likely much better if I work in God's way

2) possibly regardless, because God can do that

3) I will be living out the glory of God as I trust.

So, I don't know. Tonight I wrote a whole joyous Facebook note about being free and running and loving where I am in life. Jesus was in there the whole time. I didn't say his name, though. And maybe I should have; I'm still thinking about this. If you didn't see Jesus in that post, I'd be happy to expand on it, just like I did with Charlie at the church retreat last summer.

Grand Goave, southern Haiti, part 4

Those of us staying in the village (three trainers and two interns) were given a “first breakfast” of boiled plantains and yams. This was served with a different sauce each day, sometimes with fish or hot dogs in it. Our “second breakfast” was later in the day with the Training of Trainers (TOT) participants, and was spaghetti nearly every day. This is a traditional Haitian breakfast, and we were offered canned tomato paste, ketchup, Tobasco, and mayonnaise for toppings. Lunch was rice and beans with either fried chicken legs or a meat and vegetable sauce.

After the participants went back to their mountain homes, we would pack up from the day (we emptied out the training center, a local church, each night), discuss the day, walk down the back of the mountain to get water, bathe.

Above is one of our master trainers, Erigeur, with the indefatigable Gena.

Here is the local watering hole: kids collecting water in buckets on the left, people of all ages bathing on the right (including me the day before -- every other day I elected to bucket bathe on top of the mountain).

Then we were served my favorite meal of the day: labouyi. This is a porridge made of plantains, milk, and sugar. Mmmm..... They turned on a generator for an hour or so, then it was bedtime.

Above you can see an intense game of dominos being played (center) and a girl having her hair done (left). The guys are wearing hats because it's cold.

We stayed in a one-room cabin which was normally used as a meeting room and which, as you can see, allowed all the cool air to blow in. It wasn't so bad at 8 pm (the time of this picture), but got really chilly as the night wore on. The first night none of us really slept due to the cold and pain -- most of us were sleeping almost directly on the concrete. And have I mentioned the donkeys and their bizarre, loud braying? The second night we hung up extra sheets to block the wind, and we were loaned hooded sweatshirts and more blankets and padding. I should have taken an early morning pic of my fellow trainers looking like mummies -- covered from head to toe to block out the cold.

At the end of one of the days I used up my laptop battery correcting one of the supplements we use. A lot of our materials need revision, and this one was difficult to read due to several translation and spelling errors. I could have revised materials every evening if I would have charged up my laptop while the generator was running each night. (One night I did request to charge my cell phone – they had to remove one of the 13 cell phones that were plugged in at the house with the generator to make room for mine.)

I didn't ever re-charge my computer, though. Our days were already long, and I was really tired at the end of every day – when I wasn't facilitating a lesson I was interpreting everything (both what the facilitators said and all of the participants' comments) for our Canadian interns.

So, I thought I might end up here (one of many tiny cemeteries dotting the landscape) due to my rigorous schedule of late. However, the mountain air and walks were so refreshing -- God is gracious and his love is never ending!

There were lots of challenges with this training. Several of the participants had a hard time grasping the volunteer nature of our program. In addition, I think a lot of them went away thinking that Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is exclusively spiritual. This happens a lot – people either think that all we do is community health and development, or all we do is evangelism. It takes a mental shift for people to see that, in a kingdom of God mindset, they can all happen together. This mental shift can happen during a TOT, and many of our lessons are about the holistic nature of the gospel and examples of how CHE works practically.

Yay! Here we all are at the end of the training! And one final big thanks to Lydia Hamilton, who took most of the pics in this blog post.

Grand Goave, southern Haiti, part 3

Adorable children! These girls frequently stood outside the building where we had the training and often would start dancing when they perceived that they were being watched. ;-)

At one point we separated the class into two groups to put the steps to implement a Community Health Evangelism program in order. Then a couple of "moderators" from each group were chosen to look at the other group's responses as they were discussed.

It got a little heated! Each group wanted more "right" answers (not really the spirit we were going for).


Above you can see Gena (pink shirt) laughing at it all. She got our water every day (see the first post in this series), something that was one of her daily tasks anyway for her extended family.


This is where Gena lives with her extended family, which includes her uncle, a prominent leader in the community and our host. We stayed right next door.

Above you can see another donkey. Again, I would like to ask, what is up with the braying?

Once more I would like to thank Lydia Hamilton who took most of the pictures used in this post.

Grand Goave, southern Haiti, part 2

Did you know that donkeys bray any time, day or night? And it's freaky weird and loud and goes on longer than you would think.

Part of the Training of Trainers 1, which trains one of the critical groups involved in a Community Health Evangelism program, has the soon-to-be trainers come up with their own sketches to introduce the subjects that they will be teaching in the future. This is one of my favorite parts of the training, since it always involves a lot of laughing!

In the above picture the group presented a story about a man with a serious headache (who has already gone to the doctor) who asks some of his friends to pray for him. They said that they would go get people from the church to come over some time "later." They were trying to illustrate how people in the church are either not trained or are unwilling to pray with others, instead relying on the "experts."

We were all laughing during this sketch for a few reasons -- none of which were intended by the group, unfortunately. Firstly, the physical position that the protagonist adopted for most of the sketch is one usually associated with diarrhea. Secondly, the protagonist was played by Jackson, who'd made us laugh all week already. You see, during the first session of our training the participants come up with the "rules of the game" that they agree to follow: telephones on vibrate, respect others' opinions, etc. They also come up with a punishment. This group decided that people who violated the rules would have to dance (or drink a gallon of water, but no one took that option).

Jackson ended up leading the rule-breakers in their dances to make sure that they really danced. He would do crazy motions and make the others follow, saying, "Lower, really get down!" or "No, your other hand in the back!"

Above is another group's sketch about the importance of evangelism. The two people seated are bound with pieces of paper which say peche, or "sin."

Above you see another sketch about the importance of taking care of the environment. The woman is miming the typical way of cooking while the ground near her is littered with trash.

The above picture is for my Arizona church -- I felt "at home" when seeing this all around! (Yucca, isn't it?)

Yet again I would like to thank Lydia Hamilton, who took all of the above pictures.

Grand Goave, southern Haiti, part 1

This has been a season of travel – since late October I've been “home” in Cap Haitien only a handful of weeks. My last travel blog post was about my time in Peru. After that trip I was home for four days followed by:

• Leogane, southern Haiti: Training of Trainers 1 for a partner mission organization
• Cap Haitien, northern Haiti (home): Christmas and New Year's and office time
• near Cabarete, Dominican Republic: vacation with our Canadian intern family!
• Santiago, DR: helping Marie, the wife of our Haiti director, get medical treatment
• Grand Goave, southern Haiti: Training of Trainers 1 for a partner mission organization
• Santiago, DR: return to continue Marie's medical visits

Today I want to write about Grand Goave – what a great trip! I went there last week as one of three facilitators in order that I could also interpret the TOT into English for our Canadian interns, Rick and Rhonda, who hadn't yet taken a TOT1. Except for some car sickness and lots of waiting, we traveled there uneventfully – flight from Cap Haitien to Port-au-Prince, then a several-hour drive from there to the city of Grand Goave, where we stayed overnight and then went via truck up into the mountains the next morning (pictured above).

The whole area is incredibly rocky.


Above is the path down the back of the mountain where our hosts got our water for bathing. I hauled up a gallon container (and had to stop a few times to rest), while our host effortlessly carried a 5-gallon bucket (40 pounds!) on her head.

Above you see Rhonda going back up the hill.

This, again, is the PATH. Crazy with rocks!

Every day we woke up with the sun (or earlier, due to the cold). I hiked up to the top of our little mountain in the mornings to have some prayer time at a beautiful overlook.

Above is the road as it flattens out at the top.

This is the view of the bay and the town of Grand Goave.

A special thanks to Lydia Hamilton (daughter of our Canadian interns) for the photos in these posts on Grand Goave!