TEN YEARS AGO

Google photos is breaking my heart this week with its "On This Day ___ Years Ago" reminders.

Without the reminders, I don't know that it would have clicked with me that this time a decade ago Melissa and I and the kids were in the middle of our two week family exploratory trip to Haiti. This was the trip that confirmed our call to serve the Lord in Haiti. (But it took us another two years to make it a reality.)

According to Google, ten years ago today we spent the afternoon at the beach and then had dinner with Bud and Jane, our missionary hosts at the OMS campus.

Here's Samuel on a brief carsick stop while heading over the mountain to get to the beach:

The kids making friends in the sand:

Sarah never met a Haitian tree she didn't want to climb:

Samuel contemplating life: 

Caleb enjoying the surf:

Hannah and her siblings checking out some artwork for sale:

A homemade pizza dinner at Bud and Jane's house after returning from the beach:

Sarah, worn out:

Ten years later I have to doubt there's any young missionary family visiting Haiti for the first time this summer and thinking, "Let's move here." 

And that just tears me up. 

Our years of ministry at Cowman School (which became Cap-Haitien Christian School) were an incredible learning experience for us all. We always knew there were no quick and easy answers for Haiti's problems. We hoped our school was a long range, slow-building ministry which would play a role in the betterment of Haiti. 

But we never suspected the darkness and suffering would be far worse ten years on. 

I am including a sampling here of some other photos from those two weeks in Haiti, ten long years ago. I am posting them with a sense of painful longing - for the beauty of Haiti, the innocence of simple pleasures, the joy of friendship, the excitement of discovery, and the presence of God in the everyday. And I am fighting the tears as I do.

My prayer for Haiti right now is that this simple statement would prove to be miraculously true: "The best is yet to be."