14 Years

Dan declares to me first thing this morning that we need to go negotiate a very important purchase. He wants to buy the rooster next door. I'll let you be the judge of why. When Robinson comes up I tell him Dan's idea. Rob politely replies 'you can, but there will be another one to take it's place tomorrow morning, they are everywhere'. Can you buy all the rooster's in the country? In that little humorous story it also revealed the plight of a nation. You fix one problem today and it surfaces somewhere else tomorrow. It seems the solution to every problem here itself is problematic. One thing that fixes something inadvertently breaks something else. Or so it would seem at times. One must not get discouraged or disheartened by the setbacks. I ordered ten tent straps to replace broken ones, I took a stab in the dark, Rob told me a few were broke, when I finished the 'Social Media' class I got my first chance to canvas the scope of the damage to the tent, it needs all new tie downs. So now I'm reworking my plan, I'm not sure how it will turn out, but we don't work alone. As I sit here typing a mom who we have helped across the years came in for a visit. Beth has been teaching a women's class on praying for their husbands. This dear woman's husband has been out of country for 14 years, is not a Christian, and she has suffered unbearably raising her children on her own in a country that is savage on widows and orphans without the added duress of a failed relationship. She was praying for him based on the teachings and she reports tonight he has just given his heart to God. She is now praying he will come home to where he belongs with her. 14 years. The only thing not problematic here is leading these beautiful people into relationship with God and seeing the restoration He affords their lives. What He does is never problematic. Even us being here can be a problem. Cultures collide at moments, and the fallout is painful. Don't get me wrong as many do and Media seems to relish, the Haitians don't hate Americans, not even close, but the way we do things and the way they do things is at moments a gulf too great to even comprehend. I pointed this out to the people gathered tonight for the Social Media class. I attempted to show them how to be cross cultural, but isn't that phrase itself problematic. Cross cultural? Can I be truly ambivalent on matters of conscience and be okay with myself? How does one do that. How do you balance and reconcile the accounts. Before the class was over the struggle pushed to the surface. Social connectivity comes with a price, for as universes different and vast try to come together it's a lot of square pegs in round holes. Time will be the judge of the digital highway, when the screens fade and the batteries die, what will be left? I told the people that's why I'm here, face to face, no digitizer. I want to see into their eyes, to behold their desperation, to feel their pain. To understand their culture. . . why they laugh, why they cry, why they struggle to smile, to feel to my bones their pain. Let the roosters's crow, let the problems of the problems come, no need to panic or run or hide, just stay the course and do our part, the rest is up to God. Blessings from St. Marc.