Friends of Friends

Yesterday afternoon I put Ava in bed for a nap and my phone beeps. The message says she's in labor one day ahead and my nephew is on his way into the world. My heart skips a beat and I say a few breath prayers for delivery and health. Mom is in the car trying to get to the hospital. To the new baby and new life. She says she wishes I was with her. A tear rolls down. It's hard to miss big events but I think to myself that it's no surprise. I knew I'd miss it. I tell Lilly and her face glows. She asks "Today? But you told us tomorrow." We giggle over a baby coming when he wants to come and not according to schedule. I think to myself this day is a game changer for that baby, that mama and that daddy. They will never know love like they know it today.

I head to Bible study to talk about Jesus. The women ask good questions. If Mary was a virgin, was Jesus the oldest sibling? For one split second I hear the sound of Bible pages turning and I think it's a heavenly sound. We bow in prayer for those who don't know the one who gives the real power. One of them talks about her sister not visiting because she doesn't believe in Jesus. I feel her pain and we talk about the power we know in Jesus Christ. I'm awed by their knowledge of Jesus and yet their ability to study the Bible due to the illiteracy most of them suffer from. We lift up prayers for healing and prayers for the struggles and for the needs in the community and for the praises. We agree we will make an effort to reach out to those who are lost and are looking for Jesus.

Last night after dinner I make a harsh comment to the Farmer. He asks to drop it and I can't. He's been gone all day and I've felt discontentment and discouragement creeping under my skin and I start spilling out words to make it his fault. I reel the girls into it and soon it's full blown. Sin is ugly and I think about Paul saying he does what he doesn't want to do and what he doesn't want to do, he does. I think about my own sin patterns and the effort trying to conquer them. But flesh wins and my words spew out before I can stop them. And then regret. Instead of sleep, I just replay them and think why didn't I stop before. I don't understand our lack of communication but I still know I'm wrong. I read a book that says picture the goal of the situation and then work towards that. But spewed words and serving the flesh was not the goal but it was the outcome. Lights out and lots of thinking.

This morning the guinea hens wake us with their awful God-made quacking sirens and my thoughts go back to those words and ugly sin. I start to pray with him but my thoughts are jumbled and I can't pray. We talk and I start choking on my sorry words. I say sorry but I don't change. I pray for change. It won't come fast enough. It seems easy until the minute I'm tested and failure comes fast. Deep sigh. I ask for his forgiveness and tell him I'm earnestly trying to make changes so that I don't lash out on words. And then a tear spills over when I say I just miss home. I miss my sister having a baby and my mom driving by herself wishing I was with her and Lilly begging to go see the new cousin. Homesick comes from a deep dark little place in the gut. I don't blame my sin on that but I tell him this homesick stuff was creeping under my skin. I start a shower and keep crying. The girls walk in and draw back the shower curtain and ask why the tears. I say Mommy has a lot of sin in her heart and it makes me sad. Sometimes I can't hide that it's hard. It's hard here. The out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-homeschooling-with-no-friends-here is not easy. I think if someone offered me a job to homeschool on an island where I didn't speak the language and had no friends if I would take it. But on the flip side, it's where God has us and the hard parts don't mean don't do it or give up. It means press in and seek Him because the power I talk about with the ladies is the power I have to draw from. The lean in hard and stand on the promises power. I am positive of it.

We load the car after the teary shower and put sunscreen in the bag. We make our way through the traffic and see the open road with watermelon stands made out of sticks and tarps and ocean as far as you can see. We get to the beach and meet friends. Not friends we've known but friends of friends who we want to know.

It was an incredible day of starting beautiful relationships between a group of crazy sinning Christians trying to love life in Haiti. We stood in the ocean and talked about the hard parts, shopping in the markets, the mama life here, home schooling, work trucks and all the in betweens. It was sunshine and fresh starts. It was one of the most refreshing things I've done in a long time. Our friends today were some of the most real people I've ever met. In an exchange of emails yesterday I make a request and then say I hope I'm not making a horrible first impression. Then they reply with 'we are the worst missionaries ever .... we smoke, drink beer and have tattoos, etc' .... Let's just say nobody has it all together and it's always nice to be with more people who recognize that and yet we all talk about the life God gave each of us to serve him and have purpose here. There's no model missionary. We're just regular people trying to conquer the sin patterns in our lives and love those around us the best we can.