I left that god in Haiti

"You won't leave Haiti the same person."

I heard this said by a variety of people before we went on our trip.

I tried to imagine what they meant.

What will change me?  The poverty?  The people?  The discrepancy between my life in America and the average person's life in Haiti?

When will I feel the change?  Will it be immediate?  When I get off the airplane?  Mid trip?  On the way home?

I felt like such a drama mama waiting for "it" to happen.

Although words have always been a familiar, reliable friend to me, when we got home I could not find the right ones to describe our trip.  Was it a good trip?  No.  It was overwhelming, heartbreaking and difficult.  Was it a bad trip?  No.  In the midst of so much disaster we felt God filling our hearts with hope.  We saw joy.  We felt God's presence.

My favorite poem growing up was by A.A. Milne.

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair where I sit:
There isn't any other stair quite like it.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top:
So this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up, and isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery, it isn't in the town:
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really anywhere! It's somewhere else instead!"

A few years ago I took all the boys to the stairs.  We counted them.  We found the halfway stair, sat  on it and then looked around the room.  We could see out the window.  Down the street.  The neighbor's house.  We talked a great deal about how sitting in this new spot gave us a new perspective. We saw things we don't normally notice or appreciate.

Haiti has been that strange spot in my soul lately.   The halfway stair.  That country has grabbed hold of my mind and my heart, and it won't let go.  Weird how this poem swirled around in my mind while we were in Haiti.  Where I sat in Haiti caused me to see some things in a different way. 

All sorts of funny thoughts run round my head.

Thoughts about our stuff.  About America.  About poverty.  The church.  Adoption.  Children.  Joy.  Hope.  Heaven.  God's Kingdom.  The Fall.

In those ways, Haiti has changed me and continues to be the catalyst for new thoughts, new convictions, a new filter, a bigger perspective.   Haiti has changed how I read my Bible.

But most difficult....

Haiti has changed the way I see God.

I think I had made some things up about God that were not true.  They were lovely, and those false thoughts comforted me a great deal.  I liked the god I had created.  He made me happy.

The god my hands had made loved me by giving me loads of "things."

I remember a time when we were selling one of our houses.  I loved the tin ceiling in my bedroom.  I was going to be sad to say goodbye to my tin.  And then we bought a bigger, more beautiful house and come to find out that house had several rooms filled with tin ceilings.  I remember thinking about how nice God was...how much He dearly loved me to give me my tin back, and this time loads and loads of it.

That memory waltzed through my mind as I stood looking at sweet families in Haiti living in tents.  They had nothing.  Nothing.  Many of those people were up bright and early (like 5:30 a.m.) singing to God.  They walked out of their tents in suits, ready to go to church and worship the Lord.

All sorts of funny thoughts run round my head.

I don't want to say that God doesn't love us with "things" because how He wants to love us is His business, but I can no longer say that God loves us by giving us tin ceilings or an upgraded car.

That used to sound sweet to me...something that you'd hear a pastor's wife say at a woman's conference in America.  The women in the crowd would smile.  Maybe say a hallelujah or an amen, remembering their tin ceiling or tile floor and get warm all over thinking about how much God loves them.  How much more he loves them today, compared to five years ago when they were living in a trailer.  I would have been one of those women smiling, thinking of God's love for me as He's consistently given me more and more, better and better.

But if the God I had worshiped most of my life loves people with stuff, then He doesn't love that family of believers in Haiti who call a tent a home.  Because those people had nothing.  Nothing.

God did not give them any stuff.  None.

No tin ceilings.  No ceilings at all.  No tile floor.  Nothing but mud to lay their kids in at night.

And yet He is still God.  He does love them.  The Bible is still true.  God's promises for them are still valid.  My mind has a long way to go before I understand this new God.

As I sat in Haiti, halfway up and halfway down, I had to admit that God is love, but that maybe I don't understand very well what that means.  To admit that God loves Haitians living in tents made me question a great deal about how I have expected God to love me.

Would I know that God loves me if He took everything from me?  Would I still love Him?

After leaving my old god behind in Haiti and meeting this new, strange God that can love people and allow them to live in hot, muddy tents...conditions most people would not find acceptable for animals, I had a hard time deciding to move to Haiti.

It would have been easier to move to Haiti with the old God.  He would totally take care of every single thing we needed while we were there.  He would give me everything my heart desires in Haiti.

I liked the old God better.  The one who was all wrapped up in me getting granite counter tops and more bedrooms in America.  He was nice.  So just-the-way-I-wanted-Him-to-be.

The God I met in Haiti scares me.  As we were making our decision to go, I had to admit that God was not promising me nice things...He wasn't necessarily preparing a great place for us in Haiti.  He isn't obligated to provide me with wholesome, quality food while we're there and keep my kids sickness free.  He doesn't have to give me great "stuff" when I get to Haiti.

If that's how God loves people then once again...He doesn't love Haitians because they have nothing, and their children are dying of stupid things like diarrhea.

Matthew 8:20
Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

If God loves people with "bigger and better", then He didn't love His son.

Jesus had nothing.  No earthly possessions worth getting all worked up about.

The Haitians know that Jesus.  They love that Jesus.

I am praying they teach me more about Him when we get there.