So much has happened in these past few weeks that I'm not sure where to begin. So I'll start with this. I am broken. I am full. I am torn. Ripped apart. Completely dependent. Fully surrendered.
In the month and a half that I've been living here I have learned much.
I have learned that mosquito nets do not in fact keep rats out. I have also learned that rat poison is my friend. I have learned how to shower in the dark and how to wash dishes with a potato sack. I have learned just how painful of an experience getting your hair done can really be and that you should always look before you sit down, lest you sit on a pile of red ants.
I have learned more about love than I ever thought I was capable of learning. It is my purpose, my job, my calling, my everything. Every morning I wake up to 19 children running after me screaming, "Bonjou Cot-neee!", wanting me to play and hold them, and every night, I smother them one by one with kisses and hugs before they go to bed.
I am a teenage mom. To nineteen children. The way that I love them...I know it's not of me. I am not capable of producing such a love. I am too inadequate to love as a mother loves, and yet God chooses to use me as such.
Sometimes I get too overwhelmed. I don't think I have any more to give, that I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, and I have no more love left in me to pour out.
And then Jesus whispers, "Courtney, these are the forgotten, the ones I call you to love. I will give you the love you need."
And He does.
I have begun to build relationships outside of my orphanage as well. I go to school with the kids three times a week to help with the preschool and kindergarten classes, and spent last week with some people from the United Kingdom, who help run both my orphanage and another orphanage called the Mango Tree, which I have also gotten connected with.
And with every relationship that I build, and every place I go, I keep encountering God in new ways, and yet my mission here remains the same.
Love. Sometimes I feel as if it's the one only thing I talk and write about. Maybe because it's so big and the world is so starved for it. Or maybe it's because I so long to be the kind of disciple Jesus longs for and this is how He tells me to do it.
With the boy at school with diarrhea. With the little girl who reeks of urine. With the harsh woman that intimidates me. With the baby with snot all over his face.
Every day God is giving me these moments, offering me the choice to surrender more of myself and to look more like Him. It's as if He asks, "Will you love as I do? Will your love look like mine?"
And every time I find myself making the choice, taking the challenge to love. Because more than anything, I desire Him and long to be more like Him.
So I will love that boy at school. Hold that little girl. Speak kindly to that woman. Kiss that baby.
I have so much to be thankful for. This past Thanksgiving, there was no turkey, and no table piled with food. There was no gathering with my family and playing board games for hours and hours.
And as much as I longed to celebrate with the people that I love, This Thanksgiving was perhaps the most beautiful one yet.
Because there was a feast in my heart, and it's table was full, where I could celebrate with not my family I was born to, but with the family I was brought to. Where I was not a daughter, but a mom. Where I got to watch for the first time, all of my kids go to school because we finally got the funding from a faithful woman who wanted the money from her will to go to the education for the kids in Haiti after she died.
I am encountering things I have never experienced before-every day. And while I could talk about things like the Voodoo culture here, or getting in my first car accident which resulted in a minor riot (everyone is fine ;)), I would rather talk about the bigger things. Like how I have never experienced prayer like this.
I keep finding that God continues to answer every prayer I pray, in an urgent way.
I ask for big things, like for all of my kids to go to school, and He answers.
Everyone prays with me for healing and I haven't been sick for weeks. I ask Him to open my ears so I can understand Creole and the next day I am able to translate at the Mango Tree orphanage. I ask Him for small things and comes through.
One day in the middle of the night, I am trying to take a shower and right when I am the soapiest, the water just stops. After a while of freaking out and trying to figure out what to do, I prayed out of desperation, and as I pray, the water starts pouring out.
There was another morning where I waited for over an hour to use the bathroom, and when I am finally able to get in, the toilet is broken and can't flush. It's so full that I can't even use it, and we have no tools to try and fix it. After staring at that toilet for a few minutes, ready to break down myself, I remember to pray. I kid you not, when I said Amen, the toilet flushed by itself.
And so these are the kind of miracles God gives me- in the form of broken toilets and showers.
As I write this blog post, I'm sitting on the edge of an empty, broken pool where a soccer battle is breaking out between the boys, while the little girls are getting ready for their baths before bedtime. Our baby goat is scampering around our backyard, clothes are drying on the line, fruit is falling from the mango trees, and somewhere in the midst of it all I hear God whispering and changing me.
I don't think I have ever laughed so much, been so broken by such need, longed for change this much, ever loved so much, or felt God moving in my soul like this.
It is beautiful, and it is hard. At the end of the day, I am full of dirt, my legs muddy from soccer with the boys, clothes full of snot, chalk, and dust, hands peeling from washing clothes and dishes so much, and sweat covering my entire being. But this has become home, and it's not just some faraway place anymore, with issues that need to be resolved. These are my kids. I know them by name, and by heart. I know who is crying before I see their face, and I know where each of them is the most ticklish. They are mine to hold, mine to love, mine to help take care of. What a responsibility...what a privilege.
God reveals himself to me every day. My heart is changing in ways that make me want to explode with joy. He is tearing down my high places. Dethroning the kings in my heart. He is showing up everywhere, in every single thing I do, and with every person I meet.
When I search for Him, He is there. That promise rings true again and again.
And so everything really is upside down when you follow Jesus. My culture tells me I should be in my second year of college. Instead, I'm a teenage mom and call an orphanage, home.
Never saw that one coming.
Kids are calling. Time to go score some goals.
In the month and a half that I've been living here I have learned much.
I have learned more about love than I ever thought I was capable of learning. It is my purpose, my job, my calling, my everything. Every morning I wake up to 19 children running after me screaming, "Bonjou Cot-neee!", wanting me to play and hold them, and every night, I smother them one by one with kisses and hugs before they go to bed.Sometimes I get too overwhelmed. I don't think I have any more to give, that I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, and I have no more love left in me to pour out.
And then Jesus whispers, "Courtney, these are the forgotten, the ones I call you to love. I will give you the love you need."
And He does.
I have begun to build relationships outside of my orphanage as well. I go to school with the kids three times a week to help with the preschool and kindergarten classes, and spent last week with some people from the United Kingdom, who help run both my orphanage and another orphanage called the Mango Tree, which I have also gotten connected with.And with every relationship that I build, and every place I go, I keep encountering God in new ways, and yet my mission here remains the same."By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:35)"
With the boy at school with diarrhea. With the little girl who reeks of urine. With the harsh woman that intimidates me. With the baby with snot all over his face.
Every day God is giving me these moments, offering me the choice to surrender more of myself and to look more like Him. It's as if He asks, "Will you love as I do? Will your love look like mine?"
And every time I find myself making the choice, taking the challenge to love. Because more than anything, I desire Him and long to be more like Him.
So I will love that boy at school. Hold that little girl. Speak kindly to that woman. Kiss that baby.
And as much as I longed to celebrate with the people that I love, This Thanksgiving was perhaps the most beautiful one yet.Because there was a feast in my heart, and it's table was full, where I could celebrate with not my family I was born to, but with the family I was brought to. Where I was not a daughter, but a mom. Where I got to watch for the first time, all of my kids go to school because we finally got the funding from a faithful woman who wanted the money from her will to go to the education for the kids in Haiti after she died.
I am encountering things I have never experienced before-every day. And while I could talk about things like the Voodoo culture here, or getting in my first car accident which resulted in a minor riot (everyone is fine ;)), I would rather talk about the bigger things. Like how I have never experienced prayer like this.
I keep finding that God continues to answer every prayer I pray, in an urgent way.
I ask for big things, like for all of my kids to go to school, and He answers.
Everyone prays with me for healing and I haven't been sick for weeks. I ask Him to open my ears so I can understand Creole and the next day I am able to translate at the Mango Tree orphanage. I ask Him for small things and comes through.
One day in the middle of the night, I am trying to take a shower and right when I am the soapiest, the water just stops. After a while of freaking out and trying to figure out what to do, I prayed out of desperation, and as I pray, the water starts pouring out.
There was another morning where I waited for over an hour to use the bathroom, and when I am finally able to get in, the toilet is broken and can't flush. It's so full that I can't even use it, and we have no tools to try and fix it. After staring at that toilet for a few minutes, ready to break down myself, I remember to pray. I kid you not, when I said Amen, the toilet flushed by itself.
And so these are the kind of miracles God gives me- in the form of broken toilets and showers.
As I write this blog post, I'm sitting on the edge of an empty, broken pool where a soccer battle is breaking out between the boys, while the little girls are getting ready for their baths before bedtime. Our baby goat is scampering around our backyard, clothes are drying on the line, fruit is falling from the mango trees, and somewhere in the midst of it all I hear God whispering and changing me.I don't think I have ever laughed so much, been so broken by such need, longed for change this much, ever loved so much, or felt God moving in my soul like this.
It is beautiful, and it is hard. At the end of the day, I am full of dirt, my legs muddy from soccer with the boys, clothes full of snot, chalk, and dust, hands peeling from washing clothes and dishes so much, and sweat covering my entire being. But this has become home, and it's not just some faraway place anymore, with issues that need to be resolved. These are my kids. I know them by name, and by heart. I know who is crying before I see their face, and I know where each of them is the most ticklish. They are mine to hold, mine to love, mine to help take care of. What a responsibility...what a privilege.God reveals himself to me every day. My heart is changing in ways that make me want to explode with joy. He is tearing down my high places. Dethroning the kings in my heart. He is showing up everywhere, in every single thing I do, and with every person I meet.
When I search for Him, He is there. That promise rings true again and again.
And so everything really is upside down when you follow Jesus. My culture tells me I should be in my second year of college. Instead, I'm a teenage mom and call an orphanage, home.
Never saw that one coming.
Kids are calling. Time to go score some goals.