Wednesday, Feb 10




We said a fond farewell to the Firefighters for Christ this morning. Two things stood out in their visit here. First, they were extremely industrious. They worked from morning until night in very hot and humid conditions. They built a tent shelter along a wall on a piece of property that the owner has offered to people who have no place to stay. There are new tent cities all over the city, and the Firefighters took this one on. The shelter they built must be one of the most durable tent structures in all of Port-au-Prince.

Second, the Firefighters consistently lift up the name of Jesus. In all they do, they want the name of Jesus to be proclaimed... not just the name of God but the name of Jesus.

In the afternoon, I went over to the girls' home because I heard that Katianna was going to be preaching the message at the feeding program. She was busy braiding her younger sister Katrina's hair, so I told her I would wait until she finished. Chedline brought me to the back of the house. She was cooking lunch for herself, making soup in a tin container over a small fire made from slow-burning kindling. I was fascinated by the process. I didn't know all the ingredients she was using, but when she let me taste it, I was very impressed! I told her that if we were in a restaurant, I would order "Chedline's Sauce" (that's what she named it) and gladly pay for it. Ashley, one of the nurses on staff, wandered in, and we all made a deal that Chedline would make us lunch, and we would pretend that it was a restaurant. That should happen in the next few days. Who knows? Maybe someday Chedline will have a restaurant, and we will be able to say that this is where it started. :-)

Then Chedline said she wanted to make something else for me. She, Love-Mita, and Adeline demonstrated how to break open the almonds that grow on trees all around the area. You use a rock and chip away the outer nut until you get down to the nub, and then you crack open the nub to get the nut out. There is a definite skill to it. I kept getting down to the nub and then having to hand my almond to Adeline to finish the job. All the girls laughed at my clumsiness at opening up almonds. Katrina saw me opening almonds with the others and said that I was being a girl. Later I found out that opening almonds is something men do too.

With a bowl full of almonds, we went over to the guest house, and the girls -- now joined by Renise and Katianna -- made what they call Tablet. It is carmelized sugar with nuts. Delicious!

By the way, Katianna and I met before she preached. Dana has asked me to mentor the kids who are preaching, so I offered guidance to Katianna on speaking in front of people. I also did my best to impress on her how proud I am of her. I love seeing these kids step up! She did very well in her first Feeding Program sermon! Her message was to be thankful in all things. What a perfect theme for these days in Port-au-Prince!

Today was a day to recharge for me. God gave me the gift of seeing a little more of Haitian life, at least from the girls' perspective. One thing I have noticed is that you wake up in the morning here and present yourself to God, and then you see what comes your way. Few plans are realized the way you anticipate, and often God leads you down unexpected paths, some of which are gut-wrenching but others of which melt your heart all over again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Ten essential Dallas Willard quotes

Image
This week the church has lost a great saint and a shining light. Dallas Willard succumbed to cancer. As John Ortberg says in a wonderfully written tribute , Willard was brilliant, but "his heart and his life were better than his mind." I thought it would be appropriate to bring out ten quotes that do a pretty good job of getting at what Willard spent his life teaching and working on. 1. This quote states the central problem Willard spent his career working on: "My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." (opening paragraph of  The Divine  Conspiracy ) 2. The central problem, restated: "The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." ( The Gre...
Read more

Why I have no hope of going to heaven

Image
I have little hope of going to heaven. In fact, I don't even want to go to heaven. Why? Because if we mean by "heaven" the final destination for God's people, then heaven isn't somewhere we go at all. Heaven isn't up in the sky. Heaven is here. When we say "heaven," most people think it's the place you go when you die. You are with God and his people, and you live forever in eternal bliss. The trouble is, that's a half-truth. It's not the biblical hope. Imagine it like this. Say you are living in a house that has been your beloved home for a long time, but it has fallen into disrepair. The plumbing is bad, the roof leaks and the house is infested with termites. You have painted the walls, and you even bought new kitchen appliances. You love the house, but it needs extensive work. Now through the generosity of a rich relative, you suddenly come into an inheritance huge enough that you can have your beloved house completely remod...
Read more

Backpacking at the Dinkey Lakes

Image
I just returned from a backpacking trip in the high Sierras with my dad and oldest son. We packed in an area near Fresno called the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Yes, the lakes were dinky, as in small. Most natural alpine lakes are. But the place is really named for a small dog named Dinkey who protected his master by attacking a charging grizzly bear, giving the man time enough to grap a rifle and kill the bear. Dinkey lost his life for his act of heroism, but he was such an inspiration that an entire Sierra wilderness was named after him. Anyway, we visited eight lakes, each of them stunningly beautiful in its own right. The visit was everything we could have hoped. We shared adventure, exploring places we had never been. We fished -- successfully. We swam and goofed off. We enjoyed each other's company. There is nothing like three generations of a family getting large chunks of uninterrupted time together. The bonds between all three of us were strengthened, and for that we are deepl...
Read more

A test of your relationship with God

Do you have the kind of relationship with God that is like a married couple, including fights and spats? That’s the biblical, Jewish picture of a person who really knows God.  At a certain point in life when I was dealing with some major disappointments, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to yell all my frustrations at God than go through a separation and live apart from him. That’s why I love this quote from Lois Tverberg and her quote of Peter Kreeft so much. Trust me, you’ll want to read to the bottom of this discussion of Job.  “Job’s friends were making the mistake that Western Christians do today when we don’t have a Hebraic understanding of the ‘knowledge of God’—da’at Elohim. A Westerner opens the Bible and wants to prove God’s existence and construct a theology to explain God’s nature. We would call that ‘knowledge of God.’ But in Hebrew, to ‘know’ someone was to be familiar with him through experience and relationship, as a wife knows her husband.....
Read more

Connecting with God when it feels like nothing special is happening

Image
I read recently that Facebook has been known to lead to depression. This person just enjoyed a vacation to Hawaii. That person's kids are cuter and apparently don't act up like yours. And that friend over there just won another award. If you're feeling sassy about your life, you join in on the bragging parade. If that little gray cloud is hovering over you reminding you of how things just aren't turning out, Facebook makes it worse. Today I decided to raise my fist in protest by writing a post about the morning my walk with God was less like leaping forward and more like shuffling along. It's like getting on Facebook and posting, "Nothing special happened in my world this morning. You feel me?" This morning I got up and made tea like usual. I sat in my chair like usual. I began my prayer time, like usual, with these words: "You were [God’s] enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself...
Read more