Avoiding Jadedness: An Apetite for Vibrancy

So it has been a few months since I've been calling Haiti my home. And for a few months, I have had a word recurring on my heart: Jaded.

Not only does this word get me singing a little C'Wood, but it also rocks me to my very core. I've met quite a few people over the last 10 years who live in/visit often/love/have a heart for Haiti like I do. I have kind of a strange mind and I remember specific things about people often quite vividly and there are a handful of people who I remember as jaded. Jaded to life in Haiti, to ministry, to Haitians, to their own families.

How does this happen? Does such blasé just creep in unexpectedly and grab ahold of all you once were passionate about? Do years and years of ministry fatigue even the intentionally fresh?

I know one thing for sure:
The very last legacy I want to leave is that of a lack-luster life.

How do I make sure that doesn't happen?

I believe in intentional living - when it comes to my faith, my family, my friends, my work and ministry especially, I believe that if I'm not intentionally trusting God and relating to people in love, life too easily slips into meaninglessness.

It must be the same; I need to learn about myself the things I need to be intentional about to keep my luster. They're probably different for everyone, but big ones for me are things like maintaining good boundaries, making sure I have time to myself and a day off every week and maintaining a connection with my people back in the States. And I expect to add to this list as I learn more about how I best function in this atmosphere.

I am thankful for the friends I've made here. Very thankful. We were just saying the other day how we live such random, strange lives and yet God has brought us together as friends and as people who would hang out together even if there were lots of other people to hang out with (...which there is not). They're tre enpotan to keeping me passionate about life and ministry here.

C'Wood said it pretty well:
"I don't want to spend my life jaded, waiting to wake up one day and find that a lot of these years go by wasted"

These years that God has called me to Haiti I want to count, I desire for them to be vibrant and quite awesome, really.

Arcahaie and some Scumbag

Friday was Flag Day in Haiti. All around the country, kids were marching in parades wearing cute little red and blue costumes and waving flags symbolizing Haiti's birthday. 

There are often parades in Haiti and singing and chanting, but usually those things mean guys up to no good or even voodoo stuff, so I don't tend to like the thought of dancing in the streets and parades. But Flag Day is different. 

I wish I had some awesome pictures to show you, but I don't. But here is one that John McHoul (@mchoulj) took: 

My friend Katie and I decided to go to Arcahaie where most of the celebration was to be had -- Prezidan Martelly was scheduled to be there and there was a big flag-raising ceremony and parades, music and all sorts of fun stuff. 

We saw Martelly, pretty close actually, and watched the raising of the Flag and people cheering for their country and their leader. 

Then, we wanted to be close to the parade, so we started to make our way through the crowd. I'm thankful that I am not someone prone to claustrophobia, because we squeezed behind a stage (it smelled great back there, by the way) with about 10,000 other people. Sometime during that 10-minute jaunt pressed body-to-body with complete strangers in an effort to get to our point B, this happened:

They cut right through several layers of fabric and grabbed what they must have thought was my wallet. Thankfully, it wasn't. It was just a small bag that I carry necessities in, like chap-stick and lotion, I had my checkbook in there, business cards, hand sanitizer and other random stuff. So I'm sure they were quite disappointed when they opened it up. 

I first thought my bag had got caught on something sharp during the migration of the sardines, but then Katie's bag was also cut. She lost her iPhone and her wallet. 

So we left; we had to. It was a bit traumatic to think that we were totally targeted. But we really had a lovely day until then. 

Katie and I have talked about it quite a bit since then, and we are thankful that the scumbag who really wanted our stuff really didn't have a desire to hurt us or to even traumatize us. For that we are thankful. 

The rest of the weekend was dramatic, too. The boys had a crazy moto-ride that could have turned pretty bad. Praise God for His hand in that situation, too. Read about their story on Ryan's blog here.

There is spiritual warfare all around us. Some days we feel it more than others. Pray for Haiti.  

The Life of a Lizard: Living a Scared Story

Last week, I finished a book that I hope changes my life. By that I mean I hope I am not so lame that I forget about it and don’t let it change my life.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (Don Miller) is a wicked good book. Miller gets approached by some people interested in making his autobiography into a film and is challenged to live a better life story. His storytelling is raw and I like that. He began creating a more awesome life, through adventure and intentional relationships.

The parts of the book broke down the elements of a good story and Miller applied his newfound desire for a great life story to each element.

A character wants something, and overcomes conflict to get it.

I started asking myself what it is I really want. Problem: I don’t really want much. I want to get home everyday in less than 2 hours, I want to not get kidnapped. And of course I have a desire for the women in our programs to be successful and to live fulfilled lives, but as far as “practice” stories, I don’t really have much. 

The reason I don’t have a list of things for me as a character to overcome conflict in order to obtain is an intense fear of failure. If I don’t ever have a goal, or something I’m striving for, it is sure hard to fail. If I don't ever declare a 'want' in my life then I am not accountable to try something that I might fail at.

I don’t really consider myself a fearful person because I’m not really afraid of many tangible things (yes, yes, yes, I am terrified of birds – I said it).  But the Lord has been revealing to me that the things I am afraid of are keeping me from a truly wicked-awesome life story.

There are somewhere around 4.3 million lizards at the OK. There are 5 or 6 that live in my apartment and I like them because they’re kinda cute and they eat bugs. There are big lizards, too – up to eight or ten inches in length. Those are not in my apartment.

One thing about lizards is that they are scared creatures. They scurry away into the nearest hiding place at their first inclination of human footsteps or voices. They’re always living in fear of being stepped on. Or captured and de-tailed.

The reality is that Haiti can be a scary place to live; for lizards and for people. This last Sunday, the sister-in-law of a [really awesome] lady who works at the Maternity Center got kidnapped. Their home was invaded and she was taken from her husband and six-month old baby. Praise God she was released unharmed and is now back with her family. Agathe said something like ‘this is why Haitians don’t want to live in Haiti. You are totally on your own’. The police don’t intervene and the government sees such problems as overwhelming in a place with lots of overwhelming problems.

Something I studied and sought counsel for before I moved here was God’s protection and what that means for us. Someone said to me that the Lord doesn’t promise physical protection from worldly evils. God doesn’t tell me that I’m not going to get kidnapped or robbed here in Haiti or anywhere in the world,  but what God does promise is spiritual protection and an assurance of our lives secure in Him.

Agathe’s sister’s story has challenged my faith and in parallel with the theme of the book, the Lord is showing me that if something crappy happens, it is part of a larger story being scripted by the Ultimate Author. 

I've been praying that I would stop being such a baby, but I'm being taught that it isn't quite that simple. I have to be open to being broken down and brought back up in Him if I want to live a fearless life story. I'm not excited about that breaking down part.

So I recommend the book highly, but only if you really want to be challenged the way that I have.

Pray for Haiti and for Agathe's sister-in-law as she is healing from trauma. Pray for heavenly intervention and leaders passionate about a new and a different story for Haiti.