RUSHING TOWARDS JESUS

Yesterday my family and I had the privilege of worshiping in a Baptist church in the heart of Cap Haitien. Pastor Marcellus Joseph is a student in my adult English class and when he pulled me aside after class one evening to invite me to preach from his pulpit, I jumped at the opportunity. 

The church sits directly on the very busy "A" Street, just down from the "four-way-go" where Route Nationale #3 leads to the airport. There's no parking on the street and so Pastor Marcellus met us in front of the church just before 10:00 am and showed us where to park on a side street. 

I've been in Haiti three years now and it just occurred to me yesterday that I have never seen a church building here with the space or need for a parking lot. Christians, by and large, tend to walk to a neighborhood church. Pastor Marcellus' church exists IN the neighborhood, THROUGH the neighborhood and FOR the neighborhood where God has planted it.

Once inside, we found a warm reception (in more ways than one). The sanctuary space had obviously been expanded over the years and some walls were going up on the second story. Pastor Marcellus has served here for 16 years.

Here was my view for most of the service, from behind the pulpit.

To my right were several very talented musicians and a door that opened onto a busy side street. This wasn't the type of church building where you can go to forget that there is a crazy, bustling, lost world right outside the walls.

As my translator for the morning, Mikenn sat beside me on the platform. Not sure if he was already sweating from the heat or from nerves about his role for the morning!

I preached from John 21:1-7, the post-resurrection story where Jesus finds the disciples on the fishing boat one morning after an unsuccessful night at the nets. Jesus gives directions from the shore; the disciples make a huge haul of fish and finally recognize Him. Peter's reaction is to jump into the water to get to Jesus as quickly as possible.

This passage caught my attention in the weeks after Easter because I was fascinated by Peter's reaction - how very different it was from the calling of the first disciples (as found in Luke 5), a story with a host of parallels:

* Unsuccessful fishing
*Directions from Jesus
*Reluctant obedience on the part of the fishermen
*Peter reacts dramatically

In the first story, Peter falls at Jesus' feet and begs him to go away: "Depart from me; I am a sinful man!" Three years later, Peter jumps off the boat in a rush to get to Jesus.

Is it because Peter is any less sinful? 

Hardly. 

In fact, he is carrying the guilt of the greatest sin of his life - his denial of Jesus the night He was arrested. (After boasting so confidently in his resolve to die with Jesus if need be.)

I would maintain that the difference in Peter's reaction is in how well he knew Jesus. There was something in Jesus' words and countenance upon their first meeting that conveyed His authority and holiness, contrasting sharply with Peter's sinfulness. 

Could it be that after walking with Jesus for three years, Peter knows His holiness and authority better than ever, but he ALSO knows Christ's great love and readiness to forgive? And perhaps THIS prevents Peter, even under the weight of great sin, from pushing Jesus away. He rushes to Jesus and finds Jesus ready to forgive.

How many Christians sit in church week after week maintaining outward appearances yet inwardly pushing God away with all their strength, desperately hoping to hide their sin from the only one capable of bearing its weight? How many outsiders recognize God's holiness on some level, but are too focused on their own sinfulness to see His love and offered forgiveness.

Don't attempt to hide your garbage from the Lord, but rather allow him to clean it all away. He has already borne its weight on the cross.


(I don't remember you asking for a sermon, but there it is!)

For the record, Mikenn did a wonderful job of translating for me ... at least as far as I could tell. :-)

Melissa and I really enjoyed getting some time after the service to get to know Pastor Marcellus a bit better. He and Mikenn and Ruysdael and Johnny joined our family for lunch at a new restaurant downtown. 

Good worship, good food, good company = Great Sunday.

DAY TRIP TO PORT

The imminent expiration of all four of our kids' passports in mid-April necessitated a trip to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Melissa and I debated three options to get the job done - bus, truck or plane. Although Port is only 85 miles from Cap Haitien as the crow flies, it is about 150 miles through mountainous terrain to drive it. Melissa nixed the bus idea early on - if you've ever seen how crazy the bus drivers are in Haiti, you'll understand why. To drive ourselves in a truck was going to involve a 6 to 8 hour (scary!) drive and call for a three to four day trip with extra expense for eating on the road and staying in Port for a couple of nights, not to mention mileage. In the end, we decided the whole family would be a lot happier if we spent a bit more and got the job done in a single day. 

Today was the chosen day since Melissa and I would only be missing a half day of school. Plus, we were stealing Mikenn from his duties with the 1st Grade to be our Port guide for the day. 

We rousted the kids out of bed at 4:45 a.m. to drive ourselves to the airport. We made it in plenty of time for our 6:50 flight - the airport wasn't even open when we arrived! 

This was Mikenn's first flight - and I think it left Ruysdael and Johnny a bit jealous!



Twenty-five minutes after boarding the plane, we were touching down in Port-au-Prince! Coach David's brother-in-law, Frednel, met us at the airport and gladly served as our driver for the day. What a blessing!

First stop was the U.S. Embassy, about 15 minutes from the airport where Melissa had pre-arranged a 9:00 appointment. The embassy is the big building behind Mikenn in this picture taken as Fredlen pulled the pickup in to park.



No pictures from this key part of the day - all cellphones and electronics had to be left outside with the security guard. Melissa had gathered the necessary passport photos and birth certificates and had worked a couple of hours making sure all the paperwork had been filled out properly ahead of time. (An embassy worker had given us the forms last fall during her visit to Cap Haitien.) Thus, Melissa was a bit perturbed when the lady at the window informed us that our forms were outdated - they were from 2010 and we needed the 2013 version. A minor hiccup, really, considering we were still able ultimately to walk out of the embassy in under two hours.

With our main business successfully completed and our return flight still five hours off, we asked Fredlen to take us to a grocery store. And did he ever deliver!



There's nothing even close to this in Cap. But our joy soon turned to frustration when we started calculating prices. Yikes! 

For instance, Sarah had her heart set on a quart container of strawberries. They looked good to Melissa and me, too, but not for $13!

We tracked little puddles of drool all through that store.

Melissa was happy to find some reasonably priced broccoli and sweet potatoes and some chips and a big bag of generic Captain Crunch cereal to bring home. But most of what we looked at went right back onto the shelf. 

Like this Blue Bunny ice cream ... about $11 for the quart size, $21 for the gallon! But I guess when you think about keeping something like that frozen all the way from Le Mars, Iowa, I can understand why the price goes up.

We did find some Blue Bunny ice cream sandwiches for under a fortune ...

So we all got to share in that PURE JOY under one of the trees in front of the store after we finished our (window) shopping. (Frednel is on the left.) 

As we had driven around looking for the grocery store, we had seen all kinds of various restaurants - including a place serving Chinese food - but when it came to deciding on lunch, the kids all wanted to track down the local ...

... Domino's Pizza. The price was pretty decent and the pepperoni was pretty good. (I was just happy that the McDonalds was too far away to justify a trip.)

With lunch finished, we didn't want to risk getting stuck in traffic and missing our flight. Plus, those of us in the bed of the pickup were getting a little weary of the sun, so we headed back to the airport after our lunch, even though it meant we'd be waiting almost two hours for our flight. It was kind of a shame, but the kids were obviously too tired to do any touristy things anyway. So we said goodbye to Frednel and took our seats.

Our flight was right on time.

It was sweet to walk straight out of the Cap Haitien airport without a scramble over luggage or a stop at customs. In fact, they were turning the lights out on us as we headed to our pickup. All told, we were pulling up in front of our house almost exactly 12 hours after we left it.

And that's how a chore I had been dreading since sometime last fall turned out to be actually quite enjoyable. 

(Wonder if the same will hold true when Melissa and I sit down to work on our taxes before next Friday's deadline?!)

We had asked many folks for prayer for the day because even simple tasks can get complicated here at times and each step of today's schedule held the possibility of failure and/or extra expense and/or bodily injury and, here we are at the end of the day, tired but thanking God for his protection, guidance and provision. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Now our kids will be allowed to return with us to Indiana in early June! ;-)

IN APPRECIATION OF ORDINARY DAYS

Melissa and I are still processing Friday's events. Not to mention, Caleb. 

I'm not the kind to view a freak accident as simply a random event to put behind us as quickly as possible. I tend to look for some meaning. Some lesson.

About 4:45 late Friday afternoon, Caleb (14) grabbed a bag of trash to carry to the burn pile down the path behind our house. Melissa warned him to be careful because there was a large, broken mason jar in the bottom of the bag. Halfway to the burn pile, Caleb jumped over a mud puddle and the bag swung against his right leg at knee level with enough force to tear through the flesh, When he looked down to see his leg bloodied and a bit of his knee cap visible, Caleb dropped the bag and came running home in a panic.

The culprit: 



(When I examined the jar later, I could find no trace of blood on it - the slice had been swift and the edge razor-sharp.)

While Melissa sought to stop the blood flow, Johnny caught me in my classroom a couple of blocks' distance from the house as my last English student was leaving. "You have a problem," he said. "Caleb hurt his knee." 

As a parent, I typically hear "hurt knee" as "bad scrape", but when I picked up on the urgency in Johnny's voice, I grabbed my bag and ran to the house.

Caleb was sitting on the front sidewalk with his leg extended, a blood-soaked washcloth covered his right knee. A small crowd of friends, neighbors and siblings had gathered around him by the time I arrived and Dr. Rodney was walking away from Caleb, heading to the clinic. There was no need to discuss whether or not stitches were required!

Johnny helped me lift Caleb into the back of the pickup and I drove as gently as possible down the path to the clinic where Dr. Rodney and a couple of assistants were already waiting with a wheelchair. They rolled Caleb to an empty room and lifted him onto an exam table and immediately got to work.

Johnny cradled Caleb's head since the table was so short. And Melissa took her post where she could offer words of encouragement - without having to witness exactly what was happening with the knee. I was holding Caleb's right foot against my stomach to keep it steady as Dr. Rodney worked. 

I must say, Caleb handled the whole episode with a great deal of courage and calmness, but I think in this picture he is smiling only at the sight of me with my camera out.

As Dr. Rodney examined the wound, we were relieved to hear that no tendons seemed to have been severed. Caleb flinched a bit as the four shots of anesthetic were injected, but otherwise only requested that we find something to talk about in order to distract him. We made small talk about Star Wars Episode 7, which at that moment was downloading to his brother's computer. It was the first day the movie was available on Itunes and all the kids, but especially Caleb, were looking forward to FINALLY seeing it later that evening.

As for me, I couldn't take my eyes off Dr. Rodney's project. The cut was easily over four inches long and at least an inch deep. Muscle had to be stitched before the skin could be closed up. 

(You know I took pictures, so scroll down quickly through the next two pics if these sorts of things make you squeamish!)

Seven stitches to close up the skin.

Caleb told me not to post the following picture on Facebook, but he didn't say anything about the blog. It cracked me up because all the worst was over - the knee has seven stitches and is freshly bandaged - but the last step was a tetanus shot and THIS is the face he makes.

Dr. Rodney personally wheeled Caleb back to the pickup, all patched up and ready to head home. No basketball or soccer for this kid for a while.

I don't want to read too much into the whole incident, but in the aftermath, God seems to be offering some reminders to me:

- We take for granted ordinary, uneventful days. Sometimes even denigrate them! But I have learned that ordinary, uneventful days are great gifts from God. I credit driving the roads of Haiti with reminding me of this truth almost daily. I thank God in my heart each time I return home in that pickup truck without incident or injury.

- It's tempting, but unproductive, to spend a lot of time on the "could have/should have" regarding how a freak accident might have been avoided. Melissa and I wish we would have wrapped the broken glass in a few layers of bags or something. I wish I had thought to take the trash to the pile myself right after school. But "what might have been" doesn't alter what IS, one bit. Except to add unwarranted guilt.

-Ultimately, it is impossible for us to protect ourselves or our children from the risks that come with living in a dangerous, fallen world. I grew up having occasional nightmares involving me showing up to school in my underwear or being chased by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Never both at once, fortunately.) Now, ever since Caleb was born nearly 15 years ago (and close on his heels, Hannah, Samuel and then Sarah), if I experience a nightmare, it always involves witnessing one of my children in physical danger. The safety of our kids was one of the major issues Melissa, in particular, struggled with in moving our family to Haiti three years ago. Ultimately, she concluded that there is no place safer than being in the center of God's will.

But, of course, even there we are not given any guarantees for this lifetime. The world is dangerous and God's will runs right through the center of it, quite often straight through the MOST dangerous parts. You and I are "but a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:14). I am (mostly) comfortable recognizing that truth for myself, but I still find it almost unbearable to acknowledge that same truth extends to my children. Even with all the knee pads, seat belts and Flintstones vitamins in the world, there is no security outside of God's eternal hand. My priority as a parent then cannot be in hovering over my children in a futile effort to swat away all pain and harm, nor in lying awake steeped in worry for them, but rather in guiding them into the eternal security of God's hands. 

Parents, we are given the ordinary, uneventful days to that end. God forbid we allow ourselves to be distracted from that priority!

-Finally, we are so thankful for being surrounded by so many brothers and sisters in Christ who have already offered prayers for Caleb's healing to be complete and without complications. Please keep them coming!