A rambling “Thank you”

I have been guilty of being cynical about America and the Western world in general. Working overseas and seeing the beauty in simplicity and joy in poverty it’s easy to react against the extravagances of our culture labelling it as individualistic, materialistic, selfish, etc. I’ve been in those conversations before and I’ve even led them.

I am now humbled. Being back in the states has been hard for many different reasons, but not from a lack of love or community. We have been OVERWHELMED by the generosity and love by the people around us here in Oregon. And not only Oregon, But Australia too, even some people in Europe. Many of these people we’ve never even met, and yet they have given generously to Haiti and to us, simply because we were family, friends,  an acquaintance, or know someone we know, or just saw us in the news. Witnessing this all it has made me ashamed of those conversations where I would spout off at how Americans don’t understand community or relationships like people in the Global South.

A few months ago, I was reading a book called, African Friends and Money Matters, which was about how Africans (and Haitians in many ways) view money and how much the community plays a big role in that. One example was that you give you money to others around you, because one day you’ll be in trouble and they will help you out in your time of need. I remember reading that and thinking, “it’s too bad the western world is not like that”. But I was wrong. It really is, I just think in different ways. We are a bit more isolated in the States, we don’t live with our parents and grandparents in one big house (usually). We have our private living spaces we have our personal finances. So I think it’s easy to see that and assume that we don’t understand community. But I think we just express it differently. For instance, the earthquake in Haiti. It’s been amazing to see the genuine desire in people to help however they can even though they have no attachments to Haiti. And then when two people lost everything, they did what I thought would never happen, people gave generously and sometimes at great  personal expense. We’ve been offered a car to use, places to stay, clothes, groceries, gift cards, money to replace things we’ve lost. Our community took care of us.

And it’s not just financial. The personal prayers that have been made daily on our behalf, the churches that have supported us, the time with family, the friends who have taken us out to coffee, or called to chat or even just sent a facebook message. It is an example of true community. It is here, in the Western world, in Oregon, all over the place. It’s different than Haiti to be sure but it’s here. It’s not to say it’s perfect and couldn’t gain from a different perspective from a place like Haiti. But it is here in very powerful ways.

Though I’ve mainly just been talking about culture, I think in a bigger way it’s a testimony to the church which surpasses cultural lines and boundaries. This is the Acts church today, giving what they had to each other. It’s not perfect, but it is pretty amazing and I have to say way beyond what the world offers. It’s Christ moving among us. So this is a rambling way of saying “Thank you” to everyone who has helped us these past few weeks. You are all so appreciated there aren’t even words.

And one even bigger thank you to Jesus. Because He is everywhere and He is amazing.

Out of Control

It’s been a really hard transition back to the states (where we haven’t lived in about 3 years now), even if it is temporary, we are learning just how little control we have over anything. We had no control over what is happening in Haiti, feel kind of disconnected to our community in Haiti, we have no control over our ‘healing’ process, we have no idea on the time frame of when we will return to Port-au-Prince, we don’t understand the pain and suffering… we are out of control.

There has been some space for us here in Oregon for prayer, reflection and spending alone time with God. Here are some things we’re learning.

First, we have been given life through Jesus and our lives are to be used to bring God glory. No matter what that means, out of obedience we are to go and do whatever it is that God is asking of us because we were created by Him for Him. We will not always or maybe ever understand why we are where we are or why we are doing what we are doing but it’s not really that important as long as our lives are surrended to Jesus and we taking the steps we are being told to take. 

Second, we are not to fear anything or anyone but God. After the earthquake, crawling out of the rubble heap that used to be our 5 story apartment building and wandering the unrecognizable streets of our neighbourhood in Port-au-Prince alone for about 9 or 10 hours in our undies we were shocked, worried and afraid. For the following two days in Port we remained in that place of fear. Since then it’s been difficult to walk into a building or shut the doors in rooms just in case I need to leave in a hurry. But God is speaking peace into those areas of my heart and mind. We are not to live in a place of fear but of power. We are not to fear man, we are not to fear the tremors of the earth, we are only to fear God and we are to be concerned with the things God is asking us to do, no more or less.

All this to say, we don’t know much, we don’t understand much, it is a hard thing to even comprehend at a time like this but we know this to be true, God is in control.

2 Weeks Later

To start off, we’d just like to say thank you to everyone for the amazing outpouring of love and support not only for us but for the beautiful country we are calling home at the moment, Haiti.  

Now we are in Oregon, USA were Joel’s family and Rachel’s Mom’s side of the family is. Joel had almost 20 stitches in his head, gash on his foot and many scrapes. Rachel had some gashes on her arm and big bumps on the head and also many scrapes. Now, 2 weeks later, Joel’s stitches are out and none of our cuts are infected. We are seeing a lovely trauma counselor and are walking with God through this process.

Our hearts are still in Haiti. It’s nice in a way to be able to be here to heal but it’s extremely difficult for us to be away from our friends and brothers and sisters in Haiti. We really love you all and are standing with you in prayer and await for the time with great anticipation that we will be able to be together again. We hope and pray that time is soon.

We’re Okay….

This quick message is from Joel and Rachel, via family. They want you to know that they are okay. They were in their apartment when the quake hit, the entire building colapsed, they dug their way out and are okay (Joel had a few stitches and both were scaped up). They plan to fly home as soon as possible. Their apartment is rubble, no belongings to recover. Thanks to all who have been praying. “It is a miracle” that they are alive.

Creole

It’s been four months since arriving in Haiti and usually one of the first questions people from back home ask us is “How is your Creole coming along?” The answer is “It’s coming,” although sometimes too slow for our liking.

Neither Rachel nor I are huge fans of language learning. I would even go so far as to say I loath it. I mean I like being able to speak a language, but learning it is painful, frustrating and often downright embarrassing. In the meantime getting by with our simplistic phrases, we know we sound like children, because let’s be honest that’s how people learning English sound to us.

A psychological difficulty in this whole process is that we are expending all this energy to learn a language that will be virtually useless after we leave. So by the time we really start being comfortable we will leave and most likely never use it again. It honestly makes it harder to want to learn it. French is much more attractive and if you know it you can still get around Haiti quite well, and also have a lifelong skill. I can imagine myself years from now telling people I speak Creole and them looking at me with a look on their faces that asks, “Why?”

So I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Why bother to learn Creole? I guess the first obvious answer is because this country belongs to Haitians and that’s the language they speak. An obvious fact but one that sometimes takes a while to sink in. Learning Creole isn’t an act of charity, it’s an act of respect and dare I say justice. To think I can come here and use my English and make others adjust to my culture is well…probably a bit arrogant. I am a guest, I am a visitor. If I want to come for three years, I need to learn their language. I’ve been thinking too about how everywhere in the world people are trying to learn English. You can get a job teaching English just about anywhere. Though it’s almost a necessity these days it also sends a message regardless of intent, that my language, my culture is more important than yours. But that just isn’t true.

It’s hard learning a language, but I think it’s pretty necessary. If I want to be a part of this culture for the next three years, learning Creole is probably the starting point. Though there are times I feel like my head is going to implode like a star falling in on itself, I’m glad I’m going through the pain. I look forward to being able to see the beauty in a culture that few people out side of Haiti ever get a chance to experience.

Happy New Year!

Congratulations! We all did it! One more year!

There is always a sense of accomplishment when the clock strikes twelve on new years eve and the date changes to the 1st of the 1st month of the new year. When it does change to 12.00 am there might be a kiss, or we might find ourselves singing about ol’ lang syne (not sure why we are still singing in old english), or watching a massive ball of lights on a huge pole in New York City come falling down (and we think other cultures are strange), but regardless of what we are doing there is usually a happy feeling that goes along with it.

This year at midnight I (Rachel) was actually asleep and Joel was watching a movie on our laptop in bed… but in the morning we had that oh so joyous feeling that the New Year was upon us. 2010 is going to be another wonderful year. We are full of hope, expectancy, resolutions and are excited to see what God has planned for it.

So yes, we all did it, we made it one more year! Wherever you are in the world we want to wish you a very Happy New Year!

Holiday pictures

 

Joel's family posing for a picture through skype

 

overlooking the city, pointing to our apartment

 

A tea parlour in Haiti? False, a crappy diner, but it did have a great view

 

Up in the mountains

 

Crabs

 

A beach our friend Patrick took us to. It was really nice.

 

Joel is snorkeling. There actually were quite a few fish.

 

Relaxing

Chicken burgers and friends.

Yesterday we ventured out of our regular area of Port-au-Prince down the hill to some new friends house for dinner, chicken burgers actually. It was wonderful to spend time with such a beautiful family. There  was also another family there for dinner and the husband is from Oregon. It was pretty fun to talk about the cold weather and general love of Oregon with fellow Oregonian. Both these families are working with pretty cool projects Heartline Ministires and The Apparent Project check out their websites to see what they do.

It was really an ecouraging time for us and on the drive home we felt so blessed that we didn’t even notice the huge traffic jam we were stuck in and reflected on how these friends are a huge answer to prayer. One of the main things we ask for pray about was finding good fellowship and community over here. We know that is often a difficult thing to find but is oh so important. We thought staying in Port-au-Prince over Christmas might get a bit lonely especially with all the other MCCers going to the States or having family come here, but we have found it to be the opposite. God has blessed us over this holiday with the building of more friendships with brothers and sisters and our hearts are full. 

Thank you all for praying for us. We know and feel the effects of those prayers everyday and will be diligent it praying for friends and family from here too. So as the new year is upon us we are bringing hope, expectancy and thankful hearts.

For the curious…

This is just to let everyone know that we’ve added a new tab above called “Books we’re reading”. We both are doing quite a bit of reading these days, and thought it would be fun to write mini-reviews as we finish each one. If you’re interested, feel free to check them out. We have quite different tastes in books so you will see that Rachel tends to gravitate towards non-fiction/political writings, whereas I prefer more fiction/classics. Anyway there should be something there for everyone so check it out every so often. We’ll try to impress you with our reading choices:)

Our Christmas in words

Rachel and I just watched “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It was one of many presents that were sent to us for Christmas. I really enjoy that movie. It’s very sentimental but I don’t care. When George Bailey’s friends come squeezing through the door giving George every available cent they have, I can’t help but get a little choked up. It’s a happy ending, and we get so few of those these days.

Speaking of which, I’ve been trying to think about Christmas and what it really means or what it should mean to me, and the more I do I can’t help get that same feeling I get at the end of the movie. There are some really dark, evil things in this world. They are all around us, whether here in Haiti or back home in the US or Australia. Working in development/human rights, it’s easy to get discouraged about things. When we start getting to the place where right intentions don’t even count anymore, it’s depressing.

The world is messed up. How many of us ever feel like George Bailey and just wish we could end it all? But I guess that’s where Christmas comes in. Into the darkness came a star, a great light that the darkness could not understand or comprehend. That light brought light to the whole world. With that light there is hope that things are going to all turn out ok in the end.

Jesus is that hope, and I think Christmas is a good reminder of that. Development strategies are not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Human rights work is not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Advocacy is not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Orphanages are not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Policy changes are not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Wars are not going to make the world right: Jesus is. Non-violent resistance is not going to make the world right: Jesus is. A new health care plan is not going to make the world right: Jesus is. All of our effort, all of our causes, all of our work is not going to make things right: Jesus is.

This is not said in a spirit of wanting to sit back and wait for the world to fall apart and for Jesus to return to make everything right. This is simply acknowledging that it is Jesus and Jesus alone who is the hope for this world. Nothing else will work. No other religion, no other development strategy, Jesus alone is going to save this world. That may not be very ecumenical, but I think it’s as ecumenical as Jesus was. No doubt Jesus will use many of these things listed as a way of bringing his Kingdom and he will use us to do it, but Jesus is the focus. If he’s not in it, there is no point. Jesus is making everything right and Jesus will make everything right. There will be a happy ending.

I have found myself then faced with this choice: to give in to the pain and misery and discouragement that is fighting its way into us relentlessly, or to celebrate that a man was born who will save the world and is saving the world. And I can either work with Him or get out of His way. Either way He’s going to do it. There will be a happy ending. There will be peace on earth and good will towards men, but only because of Jesus. Only because of Jesus.