harvest on the hard road

I felt the same way at least four or five times a day. Mona needed help. No question. She was desperate, tears in her puffy eyes, her head wearily resting in well-worn hands.

This time, it wasn’t money or food that was needed. In fact, this time it wasn’t even anything that I could give. Her mother is dying, wasting away before her eyes, not eating, not speaking, silently dying day by day, the end obviously near.

“I don’t know how to understand it,” Mona told me with a sigh. “The woman who raised me, by herself…the woman who never slept, who cooked and worked and cleaned and cared, first for me and my brothers and sisters, and then for my children while I worked…she is shriveled and immobile and…Finished. She has quit fighting, she is done. How can I live with this? I cannot stop crying. I cannot imagine life without my mother.”

My heart broke for her yesterday morning, and a bit frustrated at my inability to help, I left for class after holding her hand for a moment and giving her my heartfelt prayers.

(pictured: a few of the women from our Tuesday morning Bible study)

A few hours later, she and 7 other women and I sat around sticky topped picnic table in the seminary cafeteria, singing our weekly opening song-prayer:

“My Father, this morning I sit before you

With my Bible open before me

And I ask you to please open my spirit

So that I can understand what is in Your Word

So that I can remember that you are my Father

So that I can always do what you tell me

I need your Spirit so much

So that I can always stay in Your Way.

Wash me with living water

Tie me to the living Word

So that I can serve a living God

For you, I want to be living for You.”

Then together we nine studied His Word, the Psalms of Ascent, dwelling this week on Psalm 126. We talked about all the beautiful things God has done in our lives in the past with verse 1-3. We talked about the hopes that we have for seeing His hand work in the future with verse 4-6.

We talked about the times we have laughed because of His great love, laughed in light of His great miracles. “Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting…the Lord has done great things for us! (vs 2).

We wrote down our many hopes and our prayers, writing in confidence that He who carries us will bring these things to completion in His perfect time and way. Those of us that didn't know how to write just lifted our hands and muttered our dreams.

And then we talked about the road where we are TODAY. The part in the middle. We remember all that He has done. We hope for all that we will do. But today, we were all just struggling with the long hard stretch of road in the middle. The “sowing in tears” part. The “weeping, carrying his bag of seed” part.

With joy, God helped me take vs. 4,5,6 a step further. “Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting,” gives the condition, gives the promise. “He who goes to and fro weeping, carrying his bag of seed, shall indeed come again with a shout of joy, bringing his sheaves with him,” another condition, another promise.

The joyful shouting comes from the sowing! The bountiful harvest and shouts of joy come with the planting in tears! When we are struggling, when we are hurting, it is easy to just cling to each promise the Lord has given us…easy to hold fast to our Light, desperately hording His Spirit to help us make it through each day.

But we can’t! The joyful harvest doesn’t come from our endurance as we cling to The Hope…it comes from our SHARING our light, even in the weeping moments. It comes from planting His hope, giving His love, in the midst of our hard-road times.

While we talked, studied and prayed, I felt my own spirit lift, and with joy I watched Mona’s face transform. Completely. I promise you, I could SEE the Lord take her burden from her. I saw her shoulders lift and her eyes widen as she saw something in His Word that she had never seen before.

I could see her overflow with love for her Lord, the kind of love she couldn’t contain, but MUST share with those living around her in darkness, despite the dark time in her life.

A few minutes later we finished in prayer, and eyes brimming in joyful, free tears, Mona gave me a huge kiss, and I laughed out loud at her newfound joy.

He is more than enough, and all the Help, the perfect Help, that we need.

“The Lord has done great things for us; We are Glad.” (vs 3).

I know this is already a long blog, but due to the fact that we won't have internet again until Monday, here's a few pictures from a beautiful Thanksgiving Day yesterday, full of good food (thanks to many of you!), family in Christ, and MUCH to be Thankful for! (Thank you, Brenda and Sue, for persevering without your husbands yesterday!) Lily had a fever and slept most of the afternoon, but woke up JUST in time for her first Thanksgiving food.

go, go, go with friends!

The last few days have been a whirlwind! On Friday evening, Craig and Debbie joined Don, Jack, Lily, Matt and I down in Saccanville. They came to check out Haiti in preparation for possibly teaching a course at Emmaus Biblical Seminary in April, so we did everything we could to introduce them to the people, land and culture that we have grown to love here in Haiti!

Saturday, we spent the day in town and at the beach, giving us some much-needed time to relax and time to be in fellowship.

Sunday morning, we were joined by some friends and all headed up the mountain to Coup-a-David, the mountain church we love to worship with! It was a sweltering day for November, but the hike was gorgeous as ever, and the sermon was worth arriving drenched in sweat.

It is always a blessing for us to come alongside our brothers and sisters from the mountain ranges surrounding this church, but this was a special blessing for us to do it with friends from 2 countries with 1 God. It also gave us a good opportunity to build some relationships with the some of the women that went with us.

It was a wonderful day!

Monday, Craig and Debbie joined us for campus tours, English and Hebrew class, and Craig preached in chapel. It was a busy day, but we were grateful for a chance to introduce them to some of our students and friends.

My first year English class had lots of good questions for their counselors, like, “What is your temperament?” and “Why do people have psychological problems? How do you fix it?” In a country where psychological issues of all degrees are largely mysterious, untreated and misunderstood, our students had a lot of questions for people who have studied such things!

Finally, last night we went “out on the town” to celebrate my birthday, and all had fried or creole fish and mushroom rice, plantain, militon and icy cokes to celebrate (thank you, Craig and Debbie!) It was an awesome evening!

Lily was SUPER tired, but we had some amazing conversations, much laughter, good encouragement and great music, making the weekend a birthday weekend to remember! (despite my old age that is making it difficult to remember all kinds of things! J

Thank you for all your patience with our very limited internet access! Hopefully, we’ll have internet up and running at the new seminary site before too long!

“I lift my eyes up to the mountains

where does my help come from?

My help comes from YOU

Maker of heaven and earth.”

Ps. 121:1-2

friends, food, more of Him!

This is proving to be a very busy season for us! Wednesday was OMS's Thanksgiving Day, and we enjoyed a turkey flown in from Florida and all the trimmings, Haitian and American together with the other OMS missionaries and visitors.

Jack, Abel, Maxi, Don and Magua have been working like crazy on the seminary, pouring sidewalks, finishing rooms and buildings, working on plumbing and doors, etc.

What a gift it has been already to have these guys working with us in our new town, filling our mornings and evenings with talk of friends and family, burdens, blessings, missiology, football, good food, the beauty we all see here, children, marriage, you name it! Jack's bag also has yet to arrive (though he landed on Monday), but he's been SO chill about it, donning some of Matt's clothes and without complaint!

They also helped Matt out with some grocery shopping. If you thought getting your husband to take your shopping list to Wal-Mart for you (and actually come home with exactly what you wanted :) was a challenge...Whew, try sending them here! "That wasn't even so bad!" Matt said later, dirty, sweaty and toting a few bags of carrots, mangoes and pasta.

Today, we will be joined by two more friends who will be here until Tuesday. Craig and Debbie are the parents of two good friends of ours who were here in May, James and Elisa (pictured).

They are coming to spend a few days with us checking out Haiti and the Seminary, and are looking for ways that their colleagues, passions, education and experiences in Christian Phycology could bless and serve the Haitian church/Haitian Christians. We are really excited about their visit and are planning some "action-packed" days throughout Northern Haiti. We always have great conversations with Craig and Debbie, and are really looking forward to sharing this part of our lives with them!

(Matt and Lily on their morning walk with Shay)

Please pray for us while we continue to seek ways to build transforming relationships with the people of Saccanville, for a weekend full of travel, ministry and friends, and that we might ever be deliberating laying ourselves down that we might take up more of Him!

His delight: US

A dear friend sent us this verse on moving day Saturday:

“He sent from on high, He took me;

He drew me out of many waters.

He delivered me from the strong enemy,

and from those who confronted me in the day of my calamity,

and the Lord, He was my stay.

He brought me forth into a spacious place;

He rescued me, because He delighted in me.”

Psalm 18:16-19.

What a beautiful image for these last few days, and as you can see, He has indeed brought us into a spacious place! Our new home is just overwhelmingly gorgeous, with gorgeous views from all windows of flowers and mountains, new neighbors who have already greeted us so warmly and helped us repeatedly, even long into the night, and even a patient watchdog for Lily.

Monday morning, two friends from Sharptown Church joined us, and it is wonderful to have a home large enough to house guests in!

(notice Lily checking out Jack and Don, helping us get hot water!)Thank you all for your prayers for a busy busy weekend. We are still working out the kinks that come with working 20-30 minutes away from where we live (welcome to America, right ?), sharing a vehicle, lack of internet, totting Lily all about, having visitors, having colds, remembering everything, etc. We cannot seem to get started early enough to not be pressed!

However He reminded me in my women’s Bible study this morning that “Those who put their confidence in Him are like Mount Zion.” We CAN be going through a transitional, busy time and still be unshaken if we are firmly planted in He who cannot be shaken.

Don’t get me wrong, we need to continue to work on prioritizing, and we need to see if there are some things we can change/delegate/stop/discontinue until the Seminary joins us, but we can ALWAYS be still in our hearts…can always choose HIM to be Lord even now, even in this…He is our STAY.

We are reveling in His delight of us: not because of what we do, how we do it, who we know, how we live, who we help, where we go, or how hard we try…but because we are His.

bikers, brothers and our Isaiah prayer

The Lord gave us quite the random and special afternoon on Wednesday. The Christian Motorcycle Association does a huge bike rally every year in the States, and donates all the money to buying motorcycles in Haiti and the Dominican for godly men to further His Kingdom. They give these bikes based on recommendations, and through a friend we were able to recommend two Emmaus graduates. One, Luke, is on staff at Emmaus and doing his master's with Matt, and the other, Enick, is the pastor of the mountain church we love to attend.

A large group from the CMA came down just to present the bikes, four of which went to Haitian men. We picked up Luke, Enick and his mother and went to the presentation together. It was SO fun for us to meet this group, and be a bystander of such a huge blessing like this! These bikes will change these men's lives and ministries, communities and churches, and it was just awesome to hear the presentations as the CMA members shared their hearts, and then to hear the four pastor's share their gratitude and ministries.
It was not an 'everday' kind of gift, and we were thankful for this brief moment of celebration with brothers and sisters from two very different worlds.

Tomorrow morning, Kate's watching the baby and we have some friends coming to help load up the truck. Another friend is preparing rice and beans and chicken for lunch, and another group of men are helping to unload and move us into the new house. It is promising to be a busy day, but also a day that will provide some awesome opportunities to praise the Lord for the friendships He has blessed us with in Vaudreil, and to praise Him for the new friends down the road...

Photos to come. Thank your for your prayers during this especially intense, transitional and dependent-on-Him time!

This continues to be our prayer:

"Drip down, O heavens, from above,

And let the clouds pour down righteousness;

Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit,

And righteousness spring up with it.

Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' No!

Thus says the Lord, the Holy One and my Maker:

'Ask Me about the things to come

and you shall commit to Me the work of My hands.

It is I who made the earth

I who stretched out the heavens

and I have aroused him in righteousness

and I will make all his ways smooth

I am the Lord, and there is none else.

I have not spoken in secret, in some dark land;

I did not say to Jacob, 'seek me in a waste place'.

No! I the Lord speak righteousness.

Gather yourselves and come;

Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth,

for I am God, and there is no other.

Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.'" from Isaiah 45