Returning Soon

Going back to America consumes my thoughts lately. What will I do? How/when will I find a paycheck? Will I still work in ministry? Will I still be able to serve the poor and preach the Gospel with my life?

Or worse, will I forget all that I have seen here? Will it seem less serious when I am not looking at the faces of my hungry brothers and sisters, and serving with them, praying and worshipping with them, helping them find solutions for their school problems and food to feed their children? Will it seem less serious when I don’t see their sandals with holes in them, or when I don’t see Remerson wearing girl’s clothes all around town, or when I’m not listening to Wendi tell me how he wants to go to school?

I’m nervous that it will be easy to get sucked back into life, into consumerism, and all that America has to offer.

Will I really “GO” again, to make disciples of all nations? Or is this it?

Sometimes I don’t even know what I want. I don’t know if I want the things I want because I really want them, or because other people have told me that I should want them. That’s not true with mission, with being with the poor . . . sadly, I have not been told that as much as I have felt it. So maybe it is my job to tell? Let’s bring the Gospel to the ones who have no food. Let’s bring hope and Christ and some help to the ones who can really show us how we should live – putting all our trust in the Lord and His providence and care for us.

Lord, where will you send me? I want to be sent out FROM Haiti. Not sent BACK to America. I want everything that I have learned here to be written in my heart so that I carry it to wherever I go next, as a new person, not as the same girl that came here three years ago.

I think I am someone with a little more courage. I think I am someone who knows now that fear is not important enough to listen to. I think I am someone who is willing to do something, even if I don’t know how I am supposed to do it. I think I am someone whose heart has been broken several times, in several different ways: by the suffering of others, by relationships, by community not being what I would want it to be. And those broken moments have taught me more about who I am too. I am more resilient than I thought, more capable of loving than I thought. I need more every day to put my trust in the Lord instead of in people, to not expect someone else to fulfill me. I need to remember to open my heart more, to continue to love even when it hurts. I need more hope.

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