Holy Saturday, Foreign Missions, and the Coronavirus
I don’t even know how to put to words what I am feeling right now.
“What the heck just happened?”
I imagine that’s what the apostles were feeling on this Holy Saturday many years ago.
“I thought this would end differently.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
Being a foreign missionary in the time of the Coronavirus is a confusing, heart-wrenching, emotion-filled time. And yet there is beauty, hope. We have the gift of watching the Lord move, of hearing His voice in new ways, and of moving with Him when He asks us to move.
I can’t say that my heart isn’t broken. It very much is broken.
On March 19th, after celebrating the feast of St. Joseph with our local parish in L’Asile, Haiti, we received news that the Coronavirus had finally reached Haiti with two new confirmed cases. The borders were suddenly closed. No flights in or out.
The next day our community jumped into action. We made hand sanitizer and bleach water. We bought food and dried goods in case of a food shortage. A few days later we heard about a flight out of Haiti. We entered into discernment mode. We lost a community member as the Lord told him to go home. The rest of us felt called to stay in Haiti during the virus, whatever that would look like. We continued preparing. We started our quarantine. We stopped ministry outside of our gate. We sang songs outside with the elderly in our nursing home from six feet away. We washed our hands a lot. We noticed that Haiti was making some efforts to stop larger gatherings. Schools were closed. Gatherings of more than ten people were prohibited. The radio announced, “Stay at home, take precautions, wash your hands.” There were attempts to close the outdoor market in our town, but the people rebelled and moved the market down the street.
“They can’t close the market. What are we going to do? Stay home and die of hunger?” I heard one woman say as I was buying my vegetables in a crowd of people.
“Those are the people that have the sickness.” I heard another stranger say as I was walking through the market that day. I stopped to talk to him and explained that I had been in Haiti for a few months already and didn’t personally bring the sickness to the country. He laughed awkwardly when I spoke to him in Creole. I’m guessing he didn’t realize that I was going to understand his comment, and even be able to respond.
Through a series of events over the next two weeks, some of us in our community began re-discerning whether the Lord was actually calling us to return to America at this time.
It was heart-wrenching. Leave a country that I have loved for years in a time when the people are suffering? Leave a community that I came to hoping to stay for years? Start all over again? Again?
I had fear in both directions. What happens if I stay and have to encounter death in a difficult way? Will I be able to handle it? What happens if I leave and have to transition again when I already feel spent? Will I be able to handle it? I eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle either one. And from that place of weakness, I realized that either way, I had to be completely dependent on the Lord. What a good place to be. I can’t do it, Lord – but You can do it in me. I don’t have the strength Lord, but You have the strength and grace available to give me, and You want to pour it out.
When we first arrived in Haiti in January, we read the story of the boy with his five loaves and two fish. That day in prayer, I felt the Lord speaking to me about my own poverty. You see, the five loaves and two fish was all that this boy was ever supposed to have. He wasn’t supposed to come with food enough to feed the whole crowd. The apostles weren’t supposed to come with food enough to feed the whole crowd either. This boy came in his poverty and weakness and the Lord multiplied what he had to show His glory, the glory of God. Often, I succumb to this lie that I should have brought more bread and fish. I should have more available to me. I should be able to do more. But no. The glory of God can only be shown in my weakness, in my poverty. I was never supposed to have more than my five loaves and two fish. I was always supposed to be weak and poor. I was never supposed to be able to do it all on my own. And in my weakness and my poverty, the Lord can move. He can show up. He can perform miracles with my littleness.
I started to realize that if the Lord was calling me to go back to America, even though I felt like I couldn’t do it, I just didn’t have the strength for that, it seemed to go against the very nature of how the Lord made my missionary heart . . . with His grace, IF that was what He was asking, I could do it. Only with His help.
A flight was set up by the US Embassy. The Ministry of Public Health in Haiti announced that there was one coronavirus case in our department (sort of like a state or county).
One of the missionaries discerned the Lord was calling her to leave.
After prayer and a few conversations with people that I trust, I felt the Lord calling me to leave also.
Then another person discerned to leave.
Then one more.
And suddenly we were all going back to the United States.
It was a heart-wrenching discernment. At one point, I thought I would be leaving most of my community in Haiti, in a very unknown and possibly dangerous situation. It felt like a ripping apart of our community. It was painful.
Yet it was also incredible to watch the Lord move one by one as people followed His voice. I am amazed and in awe at the ways that He has spoken to each of us over the past couple of weeks.
We spent the next two days packing and saying goodbye.
And the two days after that, we spent traveling through nearly empty airports with masks on.
We traveled on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. What a way to be united with the passion of Jesus, as we made a gut-wrenching move back to America, leaving the people that we had come to serve, leaving the country we all love, and that we had all been willing to die for.
Today is the first day of our quarantine.
Like the rest of the world, we now have no idea what the future holds.
Here we are. Confused. Just like the apostles on Holy Saturday. Waiting for the emotion to die down. Waiting for someone to make sense of it all.
“What the heck just happened?”
“I thought this would end differently.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
With the apostles, we wait for the resurrection. Today, however, I have been convicted to wait in hope. In hope that what the Lord said will come to pass. I imagine Mary waited with hope. I imagine she remembered the words of the Angel Gabriel, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” I imagine she remembered the thirty-three years of her son’s life and all the ways she had seen the glory of God in Him. I imagine at some level, maybe she knew. She knew more than anyone else that it would all be okay, because she had lived with and raised the Healer, the Savior, the Mysterious One, the Good Shepherd. I think she knew that all would be well. She had seen the plan of God unfold before her eyes for more than three decades. She knew more than anyone else that He is faithful.
So today, I want to hope against hope. I want to live in the trust of His promises, in the hopeful surrender of Mary. I want to remember all the ways He has moved over the course of my life, and to believe that He will do it again.
Let us wait together in the stillness of Holy Saturday for the resurrection of our Lord. He is coming.
"We are the Easter people and Hallelujah is our song." - St. John Paul II
“What the heck just happened?”
I imagine that’s what the apostles were feeling on this Holy Saturday many years ago.
“I thought this would end differently.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
Being a foreign missionary in the time of the Coronavirus is a confusing, heart-wrenching, emotion-filled time. And yet there is beauty, hope. We have the gift of watching the Lord move, of hearing His voice in new ways, and of moving with Him when He asks us to move.
I can’t say that my heart isn’t broken. It very much is broken.
On March 19th, after celebrating the feast of St. Joseph with our local parish in L’Asile, Haiti, we received news that the Coronavirus had finally reached Haiti with two new confirmed cases. The borders were suddenly closed. No flights in or out.
 |
| The procession from the crowded feast of St. Joseph |
The next day our community jumped into action. We made hand sanitizer and bleach water. We bought food and dried goods in case of a food shortage. A few days later we heard about a flight out of Haiti. We entered into discernment mode. We lost a community member as the Lord told him to go home. The rest of us felt called to stay in Haiti during the virus, whatever that would look like. We continued preparing. We started our quarantine. We stopped ministry outside of our gate. We sang songs outside with the elderly in our nursing home from six feet away. We washed our hands a lot. We noticed that Haiti was making some efforts to stop larger gatherings. Schools were closed. Gatherings of more than ten people were prohibited. The radio announced, “Stay at home, take precautions, wash your hands.” There were attempts to close the outdoor market in our town, but the people rebelled and moved the market down the street.
“They can’t close the market. What are we going to do? Stay home and die of hunger?” I heard one woman say as I was buying my vegetables in a crowd of people.
“Those are the people that have the sickness.” I heard another stranger say as I was walking through the market that day. I stopped to talk to him and explained that I had been in Haiti for a few months already and didn’t personally bring the sickness to the country. He laughed awkwardly when I spoke to him in Creole. I’m guessing he didn’t realize that I was going to understand his comment, and even be able to respond.
Through a series of events over the next two weeks, some of us in our community began re-discerning whether the Lord was actually calling us to return to America at this time.
It was heart-wrenching. Leave a country that I have loved for years in a time when the people are suffering? Leave a community that I came to hoping to stay for years? Start all over again? Again?
I had fear in both directions. What happens if I stay and have to encounter death in a difficult way? Will I be able to handle it? What happens if I leave and have to transition again when I already feel spent? Will I be able to handle it? I eventually came to the conclusion that I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle either one. And from that place of weakness, I realized that either way, I had to be completely dependent on the Lord. What a good place to be. I can’t do it, Lord – but You can do it in me. I don’t have the strength Lord, but You have the strength and grace available to give me, and You want to pour it out.
When we first arrived in Haiti in January, we read the story of the boy with his five loaves and two fish. That day in prayer, I felt the Lord speaking to me about my own poverty. You see, the five loaves and two fish was all that this boy was ever supposed to have. He wasn’t supposed to come with food enough to feed the whole crowd. The apostles weren’t supposed to come with food enough to feed the whole crowd either. This boy came in his poverty and weakness and the Lord multiplied what he had to show His glory, the glory of God. Often, I succumb to this lie that I should have brought more bread and fish. I should have more available to me. I should be able to do more. But no. The glory of God can only be shown in my weakness, in my poverty. I was never supposed to have more than my five loaves and two fish. I was always supposed to be weak and poor. I was never supposed to be able to do it all on my own. And in my weakness and my poverty, the Lord can move. He can show up. He can perform miracles with my littleness.
I started to realize that if the Lord was calling me to go back to America, even though I felt like I couldn’t do it, I just didn’t have the strength for that, it seemed to go against the very nature of how the Lord made my missionary heart . . . with His grace, IF that was what He was asking, I could do it. Only with His help.
A flight was set up by the US Embassy. The Ministry of Public Health in Haiti announced that there was one coronavirus case in our department (sort of like a state or county).
One of the missionaries discerned the Lord was calling her to leave.
After prayer and a few conversations with people that I trust, I felt the Lord calling me to leave also.
Then another person discerned to leave.
Then one more.
And suddenly we were all going back to the United States.
It was a heart-wrenching discernment. At one point, I thought I would be leaving most of my community in Haiti, in a very unknown and possibly dangerous situation. It felt like a ripping apart of our community. It was painful.
Yet it was also incredible to watch the Lord move one by one as people followed His voice. I am amazed and in awe at the ways that He has spoken to each of us over the past couple of weeks.
We spent the next two days packing and saying goodbye.
And the two days after that, we spent traveling through nearly empty airports with masks on.
We traveled on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. What a way to be united with the passion of Jesus, as we made a gut-wrenching move back to America, leaving the people that we had come to serve, leaving the country we all love, and that we had all been willing to die for.
Today is the first day of our quarantine.
Like the rest of the world, we now have no idea what the future holds.
Here we are. Confused. Just like the apostles on Holy Saturday. Waiting for the emotion to die down. Waiting for someone to make sense of it all.
“What the heck just happened?”
“I thought this would end differently.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
With the apostles, we wait for the resurrection. Today, however, I have been convicted to wait in hope. In hope that what the Lord said will come to pass. I imagine Mary waited with hope. I imagine she remembered the words of the Angel Gabriel, “For nothing will be impossible with God.” I imagine she remembered the thirty-three years of her son’s life and all the ways she had seen the glory of God in Him. I imagine at some level, maybe she knew. She knew more than anyone else that it would all be okay, because she had lived with and raised the Healer, the Savior, the Mysterious One, the Good Shepherd. I think she knew that all would be well. She had seen the plan of God unfold before her eyes for more than three decades. She knew more than anyone else that He is faithful.
So today, I want to hope against hope. I want to live in the trust of His promises, in the hopeful surrender of Mary. I want to remember all the ways He has moved over the course of my life, and to believe that He will do it again.
Let us wait together in the stillness of Holy Saturday for the resurrection of our Lord. He is coming.
"We are the Easter people and Hallelujah is our song." - St. John Paul II
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