RETREAT, THEN FORWARD AGAIN!

Each (early) spring the OMS Haiti staff gets away together for a retreat in the Dominican Republic. Over the last few years, it seems to work best to schedule it over the days leading up to Mardi Gras - when things can get a little wild in the streets of Cap Haitian and very little work can be accomplished anyway.

This year, because of some political rumblings, we decided as a group that it would be wise to get across the border a day earlier than our reservations allowed and spend one night at a hotel in Montecristi. The CHIC Hotel.

I can only conclude that "chic" means something entirely different in Spanish than it does in English.

But it was a place to spend the night - restlessly. The motorcycles were zooming past our open windows LATE into the night.

Still, we were with friends and family and ready for a break together.

On Sunday, it was only about 3 miles to our final destination, the El Morro, a hotel in the shadow of the local Mountain by the same name.

It was definitely more "chic", but also a whole lot more restful. 

And remote. It really felt like "getting away from it all".

It was Super Bowl Sunday and, although I could have found the game on cable TV in the room, I had no desire to even watch the commercials this time around. Our kids wanted to swim and that was quite alright with Melissa and me.

Mega kudos to the Heckmans and Ayars, our friends from Emmaus Seminary, who had found this location on a DR trip earlier this school year and suggested it would be a perfect place for all of us to gather for retreat. It WAS. 

El Morro had everything we could have asked for, and we were pretty much the only people there.

Here's the screened in dining hall - that was just big enough to seat our whole group for each breakfast and dinner.

It turns out, we were actually on a little island, only connected to the mainland by a small bridge - a truly unique environment with mangrove swamps and a lone mountain, El Morro.

I looked up "el morro" on Google Translate - it's Spanish for "the nose". From this angle, I guess that makes a lot of sense.

Here it is from another angle.

The location is known for harvesting sea salt. The mangroves filter the sea water which is then channeled into little square fields to foster evaporation. The salt is later shoveled into wheelbarrows and stored in this type of shed.

Not as natural, but with its own sort of beauty, Montecristi is also home to actual grocery stores.

And an ice cream shop!

At its core, though, our retreat is intended to be a time of spiritual renewal, for both kids and adults. We adults were challenged each day by this year's speaker, Dr. Charles Lake. Melissa and I were already familiar with Dr. Lake, knowing him as the founding pastor of the Greenwood church which later birthed our home church in Columbus, Indiana. We knew he was a gifted preacher, but we had no idea of the depth of his wisdom or the extent of his personal history with OMS over the years.

From the 4th chapter of Ephesians, Dr. Lake challenged all of us to "put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

We had a lot to chew on.

Dr. Lake brought along some friends, Michael and Brenda, to work with our youth and children. Here's Brenda allowing Sarah and the other girls to cover her legs with marker "tattoos". 

Outside of our Bible study times, we enjoyed activities from shell hunting ...

To mountain biking ...

To early morning runs ...

To wave jumping at the beach...

Or just hanging out with friends.

One afternoon, all 30 or so of us piled into two boats for an up-close tour of the mangroves.

I don't know how it could have been a more perfect day.

Our tour guides gave us a chance to explore the mangroves first hand.

Everyone got a kick out of handling a sea cucumber that Phil Heckman had discovered. 

And just when we thought the tour was ending, the boats swung us out to a small island to explore.

This picture taken from the center of that island cracks me up - looks like it should be entitled "Ethan Heckman and his Entourage".

As Melissa and I are more aware than ever of just how quickly our kids are growing up, we truly appreciated such great family time all around. The retreat was an amazing few days.

We felt rejuvenated by the time we were ready to cross back into Haiti.

The day after our return, we had the great pleasure of picking up our friend, Kelly, from the airport. She came in for a week to help Melissa juggle the kindergarten class with her usual third grade obligations while our lead kindergarten teacher is out for a few months on maternity leave. Kelly was such an encouragement to our entire family.

We put her to work right away making some Valentine's Day cookies to share with Daniel's neighborhood kids on Sunday morning. 

As always, Daniel's place was packed out with eager kids - standing room only.

We brought 70 cookies and barely had enough to go around.

When Monday morning came, we put Kelly right to work at Cowman. The kids LOVED her. And she LOVED the kids!

We thank the Lord for the time of rest and for meaningful work to come back to. We thank Him, too, for good friends like Kelly and YOU, who come alongside us. 

We are blessed beyond belief!

GETTING BEYOND FAT TUESDAY

[This post was meant to roll earlier this week, but weak internet connections prevented it. Hopefully, there is value in giving thought to fasting, even if the Ash Wednesday starting line has already passed!]

Mardi Gras (aka Kanaval, aka Fat Tuesday, aka, Carnival) is celebrated in Haiti with a fervency that (I would imagine) rivals that of New Orleans. I took the opportunity last Friday afternoon to speak to my adult English class about the big day. The students told me about the parades and bands and drinking and raucous celebrations. But when I asked them if they knew why it’s called “Fat Tuesday”, nobody could say.

Do you know?

Here’s a simplified version: Fat Tuesday is, of course, the day before Ash Wednesday. (My students tell me few Haitian churches recognize Ash Wednesday in any significant way - most had never heard of it.) Centuries ago, many Christians began “celebrating” the season of Lent as a time of fasting and repentance. Some people found it helpful to rid their houses of food that might tempt them or that would go to waste before the arrival of Easter - dairy, eggs, beef.  In time, this purging of the kitchen took on a celebratory feel – the last hurrah coming the day before the leanness of Lent, getting "fat" before the fast. From there, it was only a short jump to the notion of “let’s eat, drink and be merry today and repent tomorrow".  Nowadays, I would guess, Mardi Gras is completely disassociated from even a passing thought of Lent or repentance or fasting in the minds of most observers worldwide.

Historians believe that the name "Carnival" came from the Latin carne vale - "farewell to flesh". Apparently a reference to fasting from meat, but supremely ironic if you read "flesh" in the biblical sense, huh?

I wonder how the yearly number of Mardi Gras celebrators compares to the number of Lenten "fasters".

When I told my Haitian students that nobody in Indiana (where I come from) even acknowledges Mardi Gras, they couldn’t believe it. But when I reflected on it later, it struck me that in the United States, it’s not exactly that we don’t celebrate Mardi Gras, it’s more like we refuse to limit Fat Tuesday to one day a year!

Surrounded by an abundance of things, activities, and food - with the TV and radio constantly urging us to get more, more, more - we find it a struggle to get serious, and to stay serious, about our relationship with God. 

Look at how the Lord warned the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8 about His fears that bringing them into the promised land - "a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing" (v.9) - could potentially lead them to FORGETTING Him! 

"10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

Fasting is all about refocusing - taking our eyes off the gifts and returning them to the Giver.

I hope to take the next few posts to reflect on the practice of fasting. (And I also plan to share some thoughts and photos from this past week's OMS staff retreat.)



P.S. Here was my Fat Tuesday indulgence...