Turkey and Technology

Technology can be awesome. Like when I’m in Haiti for Thanksgiving but I can FaceTime with my family in Indiana. Or when I’m not feeling great and just want to relax. I can turn my kindle on and watch a few episodes of Criminal Minds on Netflix. Technology can also be extremely frustrating, like when I’m trying to look on Pinterest for ideas on how to teach summarizing to third graders and my kindle shuts down randomly. Or when I’ve sat down and typed out a whole post for the blog (cough cough, this one.... been ready since December 2!) , but for some reason Google Chrome won’t stinking work for weeks, forcing me to wait.  Some days, technology is my best friend; sometimes, my mortal enemy.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I want to take a moment and share what I’m thankful for this year. First, I’m thankful for my family. They are so supportive of my decision to move to Haiti. We talk almost every day, which is more than I talked to them the last two years of college. This move has made me appreciate them so much more. I’m thankful that they’re giving up part of their Christmas break to come visit me so I don’t have to be alone for the holidays. I’m thankful that I can tell them a need that the orphanage has and before I know it, they’re hosting a packing party with our friends to raise the support and supplies that are needed. Man, my family is amazing. I’m thankful for my friends who have also supported and encouraged me. I was so worried that when I left, people would forget Tme. They would say goodbye and then move on with their lives. I’m so happy to say that’s not the case. Stephanie, my best friend in the world, texts me every day. I’m FaceTiming with my dear friend, Makenzie, tonight. Others send encouraging texts and Facebook messages. Even more of you encourage me with your prayers. Again, when I present a need, my friends amaze me by rallying together to provide for the need. I am so blessed by you guys! I love that I am constantly being encouraged by you, even when you don’t know it. I’m being 100% honest when I say this- I would not be able to do this without you. Lastly, I’m thankful to be in Haiti. This is my dream. Even though sometimes things are tough here, I’m thankful God has allowed this for my life! It’s easily one of the hardest things I’ve done and not a day goes by that I don’t think of what I’ve left behind. However, when I think about what I’m doing here and what has been done in me, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I know without a doubt this is what I was meant to do. When I focus on that fact, it makes the days a little easier.

Thanksgiving here was actually a lot of fun! I wasn’t quite sure what to expect since it’s not celebrated by Haitians. Would we have a Thanksgiving break? Would we have any sort of special dinner or would it just be another day? Ms. Sherrie decided to cancel school for Thanksgiving Day, since we have several American teachers and staff who would like to celebrate. The pastor of the church we attend, Pastor Dan, and his wife, Liz, invited us over to their house for a Thanksgiving meal with some other Americans from the church. We were all asked to bring a side dish to share with everyone; I made caramel pie! Our group showed up at Pastor Dan’s house pretty unsure of what to expect. We walked into the kitchen to find a feast! Jen and I went first in the line and were very conservative with our helpings of food. After everyone (about 30 people) went through, we went back to see if there was anything left. Imagine our delight to find that it looked like nothing had even been taken! (I’m still partly convinced that the Pastor borrowed some house elves from Hogwarts to help.) We helped ourselves to more turkey, sweet potato casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and salad. It was the most I’ve eaten at one time since coming to Haiti. I was absolutely stuffed. After dinner and dessert we relaxed poolside, allowing our food comas to take over entirely. At about 6:30, we returned home where everyone went to skype their families. I loved seeing everyone! We laughed and joked around and only a few tears fell. It was nice that technology actually decided to work so that I could see my family!!

Guys, I’m sorry I’m so bad at blogging. I have the best of intentions! Things just get busy here and I forget to write about everything I’m doing. Then when I get an hour or so with nothing to do, blogging is one of the last things I think to do. It seems like I write blog posts in my head every night as I’m falling asleep, but by morning I have so many things on my to do list that I forget what I planned to say. Please forgive me and be patient with me! I have a whole list of stories I want to share: my trip to the Dominican Republic, the Christmas program, my room switch (again!), driving in Haiti, and progress reports for all my kids. Thankfully, I have a two week Christmas vacation! It is my goal to share these stories, and many more, with you over the break. Stay tuned everyone :) 

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.... You are serving the Lord Christ." ~ Colossians 3:23-24

Foreign

In my hand, I have a pitit, wonn gourd. It’s pretty important. Do you want it? No? But come on, it’s the most important thing you will ever receive in your lifetime! Wait, you don’t understand what it is? Come on, I already told you. It’s pitit, it’s wonn. Let’s see, it’s jaun. It’s a gourd. It’s priceless; literally the most important thing in your whole life if you accept it. Just accept it!

This is how I imagine the Gospel to sound to the children of Haiti. Full of words like grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness that they have never heard of, much less experienced. Yet still we come to Haiti with the Gospel message, with the big words, with our trainings on the four spiritual laws and all our fancy Gospel sharing tools. We march in knowing we only have one week to make an eternal difference. We share the best news that we’ve ever been given with the people of a foreign country and encourage them to accept it during our time in their country. But have we ever stopped to think about how foreign some of the concepts we are preaching actually are? For the child who gets beat because they lose 5 gourds (the equivalent of about 9 cents), can they truly understand the concepts of grace and forgiveness? Can a woman with five children from five men understand what unconditional love means? It’s hard enough for me, a middle class American citizen from a loving, Christian home to completely understand such huge concepts. I have experienced grace, forgiveness, mercy and unconditional love from my amazing parents, from my youth leaders, and from my best friend on a near daily basis.

It’s like me telling you to accept the small, round, yellow coin that I was offering you at the beginning of this post. You had no idea what the words I was using meant! You just knew that I thought it was important, but did this make the object I was trying to hand to you any more important or valuable in your mind? Most likely not. You might have just accepted it to please me, because I thought it was so valuable.

I guess what I’m trying to do in this blog post is to help everyone understand my role as a long term missionary. I’ve been in Haiti for 3 months and I have not verbally shared the Gospel once. I realized this a few weeks ago and was deeply upset. What was I doing here if not presenting the Gospel?? Wasn’t that what missionaries were supposed to do? Go out every day and share the most amazing news to anyone and everyone who would listen?  Over the course of my worrying and apologizing to God for failing as a missionary, I felt like God was smiling and chuckling at me. Not in a mean way of course, but in the way a parent might when their child is fretting over something unnecessarily. I stopped and tried to figure out why God might be doing that. Then it hit me! I HAVE been sharing the Gospel every day. I share it in my classroom when I hug every student as they enter. I share it when I give students an extra chance to turn in late homework. I share it when a child is on my last nerves and I don’t hit them like they’re expecting because that’s what every other teacher has done. How can I expect my children to understand the concept of unconditional love from God when they have never experienced unconditional love from a human? Being at the orphanage, they do receive love and hugs and kisses, but with two people in charge of 35 children, they don’t receive as much as they need. It’s not the fault of the house parents, who do their absolute very best, but the fault of the situation in Haiti. My job here is to love these kids, to teach them to forgive someone who stole their crayon, to apologize and repent for bad deeds and to help them experience some of the foreign concepts of the Gospel message so that when the short term teams come and share that important message they can truly understand.

If gave you the small, round, yellow coin I was describing to you, how much more likely would you be to accept it?

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.... You are serving the Lord Christ." ~ Colossians 3:23-24