The Place Between My Own Two Feet

A few weeks ago, we planned to go on a home visit. We went to see Mari-Carmel who lives about a mile away. She was supposed to have twins soon and we heard that one of the babies was turned the wrong way, so she would have to have a c-section but didn't have the money. As I am typing this right now, she is in labor at the hospital. Thankfully, the baby has turned back around. When we got to Mari-Carmel's house, she wasn't home. So we went across the street to one of our teens house's named Lourdy. She also wasn't home. By this time, I was really beginning to ask the Lord what He had in store for us. His plans that day were obviously very different than our own. We started to walk down the street again to visit a woman that Amy, one of the other missionaries, had met before. On the way, we met Pierre, a woman who has three kids that she often can't feed. She has come to us before to get some rice and beans for them. Amanda, Paul, and I are going to be the god...

The Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage came out a few days ago, and I have to confess, I am angry, hurt, and ashamed. But I’m not angry, hurt, and ashamed by the government, same-sex couples who are choosing to get married, the gay pride parades, or the LGBT community. I am angry at the many Christians who have chosen to point fingers and “stand up for what they believe in” while cowardly hiding behind their computer or smartphone screens. I’m angry at the way my fellow Christians are ostracizing people because of their choices, and I want it to stop. I am also ashamed at what I myself have failed to do. Every time I read an article that a Christian has posted, I think about a couple of good friends I have who I once went to Church with, and who have now chosen to live a gay lifestyle. I think about a couple of Catholic friends I have who, despite the same-sex attraction that they feel, are choosing to live celibate lifestyles, seeking grace in the Lord. There are very, very f...

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...

Living in Haiti for almost three years seems like an eternity, but it is not very long when I remember that some people have lived here their whole lives. I am still just an ignorant American girl who has chosen to live internationally, while many Haitians were born into their circumstances, and many don't have the choice to live somewhere else. The very fact that I have chosen to live in a poor country means that I am privileged, and I can really never change that, aside from the option to take vows of poverty. I still don’t know how to process all the things that I’m feeling. I think because I understand more of the culture and language now, there’s a bigger burden on me for all the people that I talk to and the conversations that I get to have. I’ve come to the realization that when someone asks for food, their hunger is not a minority, but a majority of the situation in our neighborhood. When someone can’t send their kids to school, it’s the same situation. When a...

My feet are tired. Lately I have a pain in my foot that bothers me most when I wear flip flops or unsupportive shoes. It’s not very painful, but it is constant when it is there. My heart is also very tired. Tired from loving. Tired from wanting others to know Him. Tired from inviting people to mass, hearing them say that they will come, and finding a church that is somewhat empty. Why is my love not enough? Maybe because it’s mine and not His. I can invite, but when He invites they could not refuse, I hope. I am tired from being interrupted during breakfast by a woman who can’t feed her children. It makes me uncomfortable that I feel annoyed putting down my fork to go hear about her hunger. Isn’t that it? The poor make us uncomfortable because we know that we live a life that is unjust. So I put down my fork and let my eggs get cold while I pack up rice and beans, but she also can’t send her children to school. I give her money from my top dresser drawer because I don’t want ...

1. "A mission partner is the same thing as a donor or benefactor." False! A mission partner is really a partner for the mission. I need partners because I cannot go on mission by myself. This means a mission partner believes in the mission of "Leading Teens Closer to Christ", specifically in Haiti. I don't want mission partners who don't really care about what's happening in the mission and don't really want to support it. I want mission partners who love the mission, care about it, pray for it, and are invested more with their hearts than their pockets. 2. "Mission partners just give financial support." FALSE! It is my hope that all mission partners are also prayer partners. Some mission partners are also prayer partners who don't give donations. These are often my favorite mission partners because I know they are making real sacrifices for me. I have had mission partners who take cold showers as a sacrifice, give up drinking co...

Interruptions are a part of my daily life here in Haiti. It is nearly impossible to sit down for a morning to plan ministry, have a meeting, meet with a teen for discipleship, eat lunch, lay in a hammock, or whatever I am doing on any given day, without being interrupted by someone who walks into the gates of our mission base and needs something. It may be a parent who wants to send their child to school, or someone who needs food, or medical help. Sometimes it is just someone who wants to talk or say hello. While I know that this is a beautiful and necessary part of our mission, recently it has been very difficult for me. I often want to be able to finish whatever it is that I am working on. Sometimes I just want to be able to show the person in front of me that they are important, but someone else is hovering yards away, waiting to talk. Sometimes I just want to finish my lunch, or be free for a moment. I have been realizing over the past month or so that sometimes these moments ...

This summer, in our mission in Haiti, we helped nine young adults grow in their faith, be committed to daily prayer, and live out their missionary calling for four weeks. It was part of my job this summer to lead this part of our mission, although I think many of those responsibilities came by accident. When I began dreaming and planning, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into, and didn’t realize that I would be the one primarily responsible for carrying out that plan. Let me tell you all the reasons why I am unqualified for this. I cannot speak Haitian Creole 100% fluently. I have never led summer missionaries before, even in English. I am shy. I cannot think of hundreds of things to say in English, much less in another language. I am scared of people. I cannot sing. (It’s a cultural thing in Haiti that many people lead prayer by starting with a song.) I am lacking in confidence, and afraid of failure. And yet God used me. I’m not sure how or why. I am humbled ...

“I don’t want to work for the Lord. I want to belong to Him.” Several months ago, someone who came to visit our mission base in Haiti said this, and it has stuck with me ever since. After a ton of prayer, I feel like God is reminding me who He really created me to be. I think this struck me because recently, if I am honest, I have been tiring myself out trying to work for the Lord. The word “leadership” has come up a lot in the past few years of my life. For some reason I felt like this was what people were telling me I needed to be. I thought that I had to lead something in order to have value. If I wasn’t given something to lead, it must be because I was doing something wrong, and maybe no one had the guts to tell me exactly what that “something” was. I lived in constant fear of disappointing others. I thought that if I wasn’t leading, then I must be failing. As someone who does not have a leadership title, I then spent the better part of two or three years feeling like I was fai...

I recently attended a week-long Theology of the Body course , where I was able to retreat and be renewed, as well as learn a ton about the Church’s teachings on what it means to be male and female, and the truths of our sexuality. I am still unpacking so much truth from this week, but one immediate, relevant thing that stuck out to me was when the speaker said to us, “Play your Harmonica.” He had just finished telling a story about a gifted musician who had stopped playing the piano because she felt that she needed to sacrifice it to God because she loved it so much. He pointed out that that could come from a warped view of who God created us to be. If we are depraved, then everything we love needs to be given to Him and sacrificed. But if we are good, then all of our desires need to be offered to Him and purified still, but recognizing all the while that our desires themselves were given to us by God. The speaker also referenced a movie where the main character was encouraging someo...

Remerson, a ten year old who I have been accidentally calling Lameson for a year and a half, walked up to me the other day with shoes that were so torn that he was basically barefoot. He asked me for marbles, so I gave him marbles and a new pair of shoes (all thanks to our donors and mission groups). Over a year ago, we were riding in the car with two of our teens who were both about twenty at the time. We drove to Miragoane, a town twenty minutes away, and got ice cream. They had their first bite of ice cream in their entire lives and loved it. Around that same time, I was talking to one of our other teens, Taina, who told me that she usually sleeps on the floor. After going to her house one day, she showed me where the water can come in through the wall and wet the piece of floor that she sleeps on. Soon after, we were able to give her and several others a bed and a mattress. Several of our teens have told us that they used to not go to church before we got here, or that they w...

October 10th marked the one-year anniversary of our mission team moving to Haiti and beginning mission here at the John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization! I can’t believe it has been a year, but I am blessed and encouraged by all that God has done in these past twelve months. I have been reflecting a lot on the past year and the things that God has been opening up and changing in my heart. When we first realized that God was opening the doors for Life Teen Missions to come to Haiti, my first response was fear. Fear of helping to begin a new mission where there were a lot of questions and unknowns. Fear of my own weaknesses and incapabilities. Fear of failing, and letting down many people in Haiti and America. I chose to come here despite those fears, knowing that God was calling me and I could not say no. Many of those fears continued well into our mission. Some even grew and multiplied. Fear of speaking a language that I am not fluent in. Fear that something coul...

Today I studied some Creole, we had a missionary meeting, I exercised, watched the choir practice for our feast on October 22nd, gave our friend Joe a little snack, and collected names and phone numbers for a course Sister Flo wants to give to girls about cooking, sewing, etc. It was a pretty laid back day, but still a good one. Lately I am remembering that evangelization has to happen in small, everyday moments. Like when a teen today asked me to write an apology for her. I told her no, that an apology is a serious thing . . . someone else can't write it for you. Sure, by itself, that doesn't sound like evangelization, but accompanied by a Gospel-centered witness and an ongoing relationship, it certainly is part of it. These little moments are so important - not just in mission but also in my community, with my family and in friendships. These little things are the hardest things - remembering to make a phone call, not being grumpy with someone that I see every day, loving...

She sat down next to me on the hospital bench, colorful beads at the end of each of the twenty something braids on her head. Her five-year-old face was aglow and excited to see a white person. I’ve gotten used to that look in the past nine months. I tried to learn her name, but couldn’t catch all the syllables of the full name she gave me. Later, I asked her what her friends call her, since most people in Haiti have nicknames. The closet thing I can remember is Memi. Memi and I spent the next hour and a half together. She took me to see her mom who was sick with “anemi” . I thought maybe it was anemia. Her mom had been in the hospital for eight days, and had a few more left, she said. Memi took me to several other patient rooms. She took me to see the sick babies. One was a month old, but smaller than the size of a newborn. She took me to see the handicapped people in the next building over. I met a man in a wheelchair who had lived at the hospital for three years. She took me to t...

We just had a mission group come for a week. After cancelled flights and rearranged schedules, seven people arrived a couple days late, and five of them were able to stay a few extra days. We did some work, some evangelization, and also took them to the Eucharistic Congress with us. There were several moments throughout this trip, where I looked around and all I could see was people loving one another. Americans loving Haitians and Haitians loving Americans. It was beautiful. There were people pushing kids on the swings, people dancing, playing games, girls braiding hair. One day we made cookies with the girls while the boys played basketball, and then we all got together to hear a couple witnesses. It was a beautiful mission trip. It renewed me and reminded me that what we are really here for is to bring the love of Christ, and that sometimes that can be so simple. The thing that I love about those special moments though, is that they can't be planned. I love schedules, and I ...