FORGIVENESS 101

I got taken back to the basics this week.  And I still have a lot to learn.

Wednesday was a great day.  After school, all the OMS folks loaded up in several vehicles and headed out to Petit Anse, just on the other side of the airport, where our dear friend Pastor Storly Michel was presiding over a dedication ceremony marking the end of a huge two year process.  Petit Anse is where the transmitting towers of Radio 4VEH stand and Storly is the station manager.  Just a few months ago, the two towers were rusting away and the radio staff as well as visiting experts were fearful that a strong wind could send them crashing onto nearby houses. Much worse, from an eternal perspective, was the fact that the towers were operating at about 10% of capacity.  Sadly, so many people were unnecessarily missing out on the eternity-changing biblical teaching and gospel sharing of Radio 4VEH.

But Wednesday, we all praised God as we stood beneath brand new towers and Storly and several other key players threw the switch and the radio signal went out once again at full power.

I snapped pictures of Storly as he stood behind a small lectern, reciting a long list of people to thank. Pictures of the gathered crowd joyfully singing.  Pictures of the large tent where a group of people had lived for the last several weeks as they finished the work.  Pictures of all the tools required for the project, now hanging quietly in the tent.  Pictures of our kids standing beneath the 200 foot tower.

This post would have been me sharing those pictures ... if not for the ride home.

Melissa and I were in good spirits for the half hour drive in our white pickup.  Our kids had decided to ride in the big truck with their friends and a visiting mission team, leaving Melissa and I alone for the ride.

The new radio towers were big news for OMS and the Kingdom, but the big news in Cap Haitien the last few weeks has been the renovation of the airport and American Airlines beginning daily direct flights.  As part of a big push for renewed tourism, the government has also begun clearing away hundreds of ramshackle houses and businesses lining a good half mile or so of the waterfront just outside the airport, opening up a gorgeous view of the oceans and distant mountains.  (Most Haitians we have talked to see it as a very positive sign of progress and we're told that the people who were displaced were given compensation for their property.)

Well, Wednesday evening the area was full of activity: earth moving equipment, workers, scavengers and gawkers.  Melissa and I were gawkers.  And, of course, I pulled my phone off my belt clip as we crawled along in traffic and asked Melissa to roll down her window and take some pictures as I drove.

Just as we hit a curve where the new view really opened up in a spectacular way, there was a loud thumping sound from Melissa's side of the truck.  I glanced over to see two men on a motorcycle right outside the window and for a second I feared that I had somehow clipped the cyclist with my mirror.

But then Melissa screamed, "They took your phone!" And the motorcycle zipped in front of our truck and was several car lengths in front of us before the reality sunk in to my brain.  I tried to pull around the truck in front of me to catch up with the thieves, but it was apparent that my truck was not going to squeeze between traffic the way the motorcyclist could and they were quickly out of sight.

You need to understand that I LOVED that phone.  And I am not one to be too attached to material possessions.  There are only two other objects you could steal from me to get me anywhere near as upset - my laptop and my pocket video projector.  And they are a distant second and third.

It was a Samsung Galaxy S4 and I had it for just over a year.  It was my first smartphone and my first venture into the wonderful world of "apps".  It was my watch, my calendar, my contact list, my Facebook portal, my Bible, and my flashlight.  And, now and then, my phone. Always at my side, hanging on my nerdy belt clip.

But more than anything else, it was my camera. I have always loved taking pictures, but, over the course of this past year, having an excellent digital camera ever-handy in such a beautiful and unusual place as Haiti has turned me into an insatiable photographer.

So I confess that my heart towards the thieves was far from Christlike.  Especially in those first few minutes after the incident, I found myself fighting the urge to swerve into every motorcyclist on the road.  The following morning I awoke at 2:00 am, grinding my teeth over my loss.  I replayed the robbery over and over in my mind with various new and better endings.  I was told later by a Haitian friend that if we had yelled, "Thief!", perhaps some bystanders along the side of the road would have jumped the cyclists, pulled them to the pavement and beaten the snot out of them.  Imagining that scene brought a smile to my face.

But somewhere in the midst of my heart's grumblings over the last few days, the Lord reminded me of a short story my students and I had recently read at Cowman.  It was a Langston Hughes piece called "Thank You, M'am" which relates a tale of a middle-aged woman in Harlem, Mrs. Jones, who is the victim of a botched purse snatching. The would-be thief, Roger, stumbles and fall in his escape, allowing Mrs. Jones the opportunity to put him in a strangle hold and drag him back to her apartment.  There she feeds him, washes him up, and eventually sends him flabbergasted on his way with a ten dollar bill and an admonition: "Next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody else’s ... I got to get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”

In class, we explored the parallels between Hughes' story and the story in John 8 of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." 

The fictional Mrs. Jones was no doubt Christ-like towards the one who wronged her. Me?  I was feeling nothing BUT condemnation towards "those who had sinned against me".  

And that brought me to The Lord's Prayer, which I have been trying to use lately as a model for my own prayer life.  It struck me that to pray "forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me" was putting me on spiritually dangerous ground!  

The solution, of course, wasn't to avoid praying that sentence.  The solution was to forgive the thieves.

And that's when I realized I was back in "Forgiveness 101".  I long for the day when, by God's grace, forgiveness is my heart's default mode. 

If, as YOU ponder forgiveness, the Lord brings a name to mind, I urge you to pray it through, get to the bottom of the wrong itself and then forgive from the center of your heart.  It's a much better place to live.   

****************************************************

P.S. Fortunately, I had my phone programmed to upload all my pictures to the internet anytime it had a wifi connection, so I didn't lose tons of photos - just the ones from Wednesday afternoon. 

 Here's the last picture to upload. As we sat outside the office Wednesday afternoon before heading to the radio towers, I snapped a picture of Sarah (right), her friend Kristina (left), and a brand new friend, Faith (middle). Faith's family just arrived this past Tuesday and her dad will be the mission's new maintenance guy while her mom will be teaching English and helping out in other ways to be determined.  We welcome the Demerchants to OMS Haiti! 

Three 7-year-old princesses living in the same neighborhood?  Could be trouble!!