from the day i fell on that soccer field, i've been dreading the weeks to come with this injury. i immediately had two problems. (1) i HATE not being active. hate it. i love to work out and i love to be outside and go on adventures. even when the e.r. told me it was a "sprain" (haha!!) i knew i wouldn't be back for a long time coming. i knew i would grow out of shape. after running my first half-marathon, that just made me shutter. (2) i knew i would be spending alot of time laying around, thinking. i knew i was going to have to face thoughts that i usually push to the side of my mind and don't allow time for. i knew God was going to make me talk to Him about them, too. sure enough, i'm out of shape and i've done alot of talking to the Father. but, as always, He's good. i didn't suffer through the thoughts, and He taught me so much. and it was sweet, like it always is.
so i'm STILL waiting for the rest of my haiti photos, but i have a few of my own and will go ahead and share a few things!
this is esther. let's just get to the point: she was my favorite person i met in haiti. i met her the first night i was there and told her i was ready to learn creole. so, we learned each other's names, then got started! you know why i love esther? she knows she was made for something big and she's just ready to do it. that first night, she pulled out her cell phone and says, "look what i did last week!" i wasn't expecting it, but she showed me pictures she had snapped (with her cell phone!!) while helping out with a heart surgery.... a heart surgery, people!!! she is uniquely gifted with children. on the days we had over 100 kids, she was able to capture their attention and they respected and loved her. as you can see, she is beautiful, but you should see the way she glows when she talks.
this is andy and i with our friend (and translator) ludgee. "teaching" kids english was my favorite thing I did in croix-des-bouqet (just a few miles out of port-au-prince). first of all, andy and i were a great team, it was a blast to work with him! it didn't take us but a few minutes to realize that we weren't going to be teaching anyone any english that day! these children, who don't go to school, are SMART! so they showed us their english stuff, counting for us, singing our alphabet, telling us what colors we were wearing. then, they all laughed, and started teaching us french-creole. it was completely amazing, how a chaotic group of 30 boys all were so excited to teach us their language. it was the first time the language barrier dropped for me. i realized that laughter is a universal language; and so is love. we didn't need ludgee to translate, we just enjoyed her laughter with us and the kids. they weren't well-behaved (by our standards) but they LOVED us and longed to interact with us, get to know us, learn from us, and teach us.
when i was lying in my bed that night, writing these things in my journal, i wrote at the top of the page "today is the day i fell in love with haiti." but, after two months of being home, i realize it is easy to say something like that on a short trip, where our accommodations were still levels above what many haitians will ever know. in retrospect, i know that God really opened my eyes that day. i've always had this "we are the world" outlook, believing humanity is one race, created by one Maker, destined for one of two places. but that was the day that i realized how COOL that is. how FUN it is. how IMPORTANT it is that i continue and grow in that thought and let God develop it even more in my heart. i realized that my life is bigger than me and i have got to rearrange my priorities. i realized my worries can be downright pathetic.
i read "radical" by david platt, my pastor at brook hills in birmingham, on the plane ride to haiti. it literally took my about 90 minutes. i'm not even going to review it or tell you what i learned from it. just read it. if you think you can't read it cause you don't have the money to buy it, you're wrong. call me, and i'll send it to you.
i will post a few more pics and stories in the days to come..
i will post a few more pics and stories in the days to come..
