I was a zombie coming home from the orphanage. My limbs were heavy, my body felt like a stone. I had held her skeleton body on the motorcycle in the darkness, I could hear her whimpering as every bump in the road jolted her bones against me.
We made it back home and I escaped to the bathroom for a minute. My entire being was aching with sickness, and I wanted to crawl onto my mattress and forget it all. I breathed and I breathed.
I was okay, I made it through, I willed my body to act like I was strong.
We made it back home and I escaped to the bathroom for a minute. My entire being was aching with sickness, and I wanted to crawl onto my mattress and forget it all. I breathed and I breathed.
I was okay, I made it through, I willed my body to act like I was strong.
Relief trickled in as I watched her drink down some medicine, and keep down most of the soup. I watched her drift off to sleep, and soon the house was silent.
It wasn’t until the water in the shower started pouring over me that I fell apart. Water can wash away all of the dirt, and fecies, and dust, and foul smells away. But not the hurt, never the hurt.
I am Moses. I am Moses- the one God chooses and I can’t understand it. I am Moses- the reluctant one, the one who isn’t adequate, the one who argues with God to ask someone else instead. I am the one He chooses to love anyways, the one He asks nonetheless.
My mom always tells me that when she was pregnant with me, she would think of Hannah and Samuel, and she would pray Hannah’s words over her belly. She would give me back to the Lord once I was born.
I think the first time she told me that was the first time I came back from Haiti.
It’s strange realizing that I have known Jesus all of my life, that in the earliest of my memories I can remember Him being my friend.
For the past few months I have thought of Moses- as he looked upon the pain of his people- at their misery, and slavery, the very thing that led him to murder. And besides the murder part, this has been my own reality.
Suffering, hopelessness, pain. I have looked upon my people, my friends, ones I dearly love, and I have watched them walk in that.
One of my closest friends was electrocuted and broke his shoulder, and after getting an X-ray, the doctor gave him some pain killers and sent him home. Each time I visited the orphanage in the rainy season, the mosquitos would come, the kind that aren’t just annoying. The kind that hurt. The kids start crying when dusk came. A mother I know, spent over a year coughing until she threw up, every day. One exam later, and tuberculosis was named.
Several meetings with Social services later, the orphanages remained the same, unchecked, unmonitored, full of misery.
I received some funds- enough funds to send at least 25 children to school in the families I work with. I was relieved and excited- for once I didn’t have to wonder where I would get the funding I needed. And then I had to give it all away for another need, and I was suddenly in need of thousands of dollars again.
I met Louisna many months ago. Her house was open to people to see in, her children went place to place, scavenging for food, her husband died from alcoholism, and she was 8 months pregnant. Louisna never went to school, can’t write her last name, and her sons weren’t going to school. This was her situation, but this isn’t Louisna. I love Louisna.
She lives in Jerizalém, which used to be a tent city after the earthquake, but now is a city of dust and tin and cement. Louisna works hard. She is brave, and beautiful, and even though she can’t provide for her children, she loves them in a way that I haven’t seen a lot of here.
She loves me in ways that continue to surprise me. She has never taken advantage of me, not in the smallest ways that she could. She is upright, and tender-hearted.
We decided to rebuild Louisna’s house, and the entire time, I kept thinking of Hannah. I thought of Hannah weeping bitterly to the Lord in her anguish, calling out in her pain and grief. And how the Lord remembered her.
I hear those words every time I’m with Louisa. He remembers you. He remembers you.
I didn’t know how far along she was, she never went to the doctor. One day, I gave her money for her to get a sonography, little did I know, I was actually paying for the midwife to deliver her baby safely the next day.
Now she has a house with privacy, her baby girl is healthy and growing, her youngest son is in school, and her oldest son is in an accelerated program to finish school more quickly.
God sees Louisna. He remembers her. He remembers me too.
Now she has a house with privacy, her baby girl is healthy and growing, her youngest son is in school, and her oldest son is in an accelerated program to finish school more quickly.
God sees Louisna. He remembers her. He remembers me too.
The past six months might have been the hardest six months of my life. My heart became torn up from anxiety and stress, my soul became weary with discouragement and hurt. So many relationships have changed, so many transitions have been made, so many hard choices have been had. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, for the first time in my life, I felt too skinny.
I never questioned God’s goodness. I could see the darkness and hard times for what they were, but it was as if I was just walking in the dark, knowing that God is there, but not knowing what to do with myself as I was walking.
I never questioned God’s goodness. I could see the darkness and hard times for what they were, but it was as if I was just walking in the dark, knowing that God is there, but not knowing what to do with myself as I was walking.
I would walk past baby aisles in stores, wondering over my little baby Moses that I haven’t seen in 9 months. I would cling to Nickenson at the orphanage, crying over him every time I came. I started searching for doctors for my friend with the broken shoulder, and started to wonder where I would find $5,000 to pay for his surgery or who would agree to do it. I could feel Satan attacking me where it hurt the most, I could see how he was trying to destroy and ruin. Amidst the hard things, things started to happen that made me dare to hope. I became terrified of hope, knowing how quickly it ransacks my heart and takes over.
In March, as my best friend started to watch life suddenly become hard for me, he told me that God is letting all this happen, he is breaking apart what needs to be, so that what is best can be before me. It was so simple, but it stuck, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. And I knew it deep in my heart- seeing Jesus even then felt familiar, I knew He was working on my behalf, that He was fighting for my good, and that when He does that, it is usually painful and hard.
But what was I supposed to do while He did that?
Yes, be faithful. Yes, trust Him. But I was missing something.
It wasn’t until July that I knew what it was.
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you…therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” 1 Peter 4
I was supposed to praise him in the dark.
When my heart is all out and exposed, and all that is inside it hurts, I am supposed to thank Him. When I don’t understand, when I’m supposed to trust Him, I’m supposed to thank Him. When I’m taken advantage of and used or feel as if God isn’t answering, when someone betrays me or lies to me, when I feel nothing but despair for someone’s life, I am to rejoice.
Through a lot of work, and time, God provided the $5,000 surgery for my friend for $1. My friend’s mom is taking medicine for her TB, and is doing much better, and the skeleton child spent a month and a half recovering in a clinic for malnutrition. Her name is Marie Andre, and she smiles now. My best friend who reminded me of God’s presence in my life got baptized a few months ago, something I had been praying for since I moved down here. God provided the thousands of dollars I needed to send all of those children to school in a matter of weeks, and then added some more. Three of which I have been desperately praying would be taken out of the orphanage I lived in. For three years I had prayed for that to happen. Three years later, God has answered me. Three years later, He remembers me.
I have walked through the dark, and God has brought me out, but that doesn’t mean that after what’s hard, everything is made right. Suffering continues, heartache remains, and pain lives on. With no legal paperwork, Marie Andre had to go back to the orphanage, I still have to wave goodbye to my family at the airport, sickness rages on, families are still very much in need, kids are still trapped in a corrupt system, and ones I love get held at gunpoint in the streets. It’s still dark out.
But I have learned to praise God in the dark, and to thank Him for what is hard. I have learned a new kind of love from this, a maddening kind of trust in Him. A trust that is a fierce, struck-down, seizure kind of force on your body. I think when you feel hopeless and you remember that you are remembered, and understand the impossible way He evidently loves you, it does that to you- enraptures you.
Beautiful things are seen in the darkness- like the moon and the stars and the silhouettes of trees. Friends get married, ones you love choose to follow Jesus, and you get to see a little more of the world. Moments become more beautiful when they are cherished in the hard times.
But I have learned to praise God in the dark, and to thank Him for what is hard. I have learned a new kind of love from this, a maddening kind of trust in Him. A trust that is a fierce, struck-down, seizure kind of force on your body. I think when you feel hopeless and you remember that you are remembered, and understand the impossible way He evidently loves you, it does that to you- enraptures you.
Beautiful things are seen in the darkness- like the moon and the stars and the silhouettes of trees. Friends get married, ones you love choose to follow Jesus, and you get to see a little more of the world. Moments become more beautiful when they are cherished in the hard times.
I want to start closing my eyes more. When I pray, when I sing, when I don’t have words. When I close my eyes, the world goes dark, and somehow the communion I have with Jesus deepens. He is there, in the darkness, in what is hard.
The whole land went dark when Jesus died. It was a place of great suffering and death and gruesome things. But life came after, salvation came after. Hope arose, and He made all things right and good.
Maybe when it's dark, we are just supposed to bind our hands to the cross, praise the One working on our behalf, and ask for the strength to do what is hard and the bravery to do what is good.
I will be like Moses, I will reluctantly say yes and I will face the darkness in the world. I will be like Hannah, I will pray, and I will rejoice, and God will remember me.
And I will be like Louisna, I will be brave, and I will love, even when I don't have. I will love, because again and again, He surprises me. He is kind to me. He remembers me.
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| Marie Andre |
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| Getting the surgery! |
