Beauty

This Thing Called Hope

~ theharwerths ~ 1 Comment

Just write for yourself. It’s what I tell myself, sitting on the couch on Sunday morning. I put my headphones in, attempting to block the sound of Haitian church and screaming singers. Just write for yourself..

And so, I do. Free from the weight of expectation or the fear of judgement, I spill myself onto the pages of a worn-out journal with blank ink. 

It is hard to know what to say and how to write an update. There is a part of it that I love.. almost really, need. Because it’s in the words scrawled on paper and the letters typed on keyboards where He meets me, again and again. He whispers the things He has been trying to tell my heart a thousand times.. but it’s here, away from the busy of the day, that I finally listen. Here, where I finally pause and let His words sink in.

I find my perspective renewed, my gaze reset. I find myself amazed at the goodness of the Lord and the works of His hands, here in this place. And I also find myself deeply convicted and ever-challenged to be more of Him, and less of me. 

Haiti is a country I struggle to put to words. There is a sort of beauty here, in this land where children run the trash-littered streets, laughing and happy. You see it on the hike up the mountain, as you climb above Limbe -with its noise and trash and smog- until your gaze falls upon mountain tops and growing pineapple plants and rusted tin roofs. It’s in the morning sky that turns shades of pink as the sun brings the heat of the day. The beauty, when you choose to find it, breathes hope.

But in all honesty, it is hard to see the beauty here. It does not come naturally; what comes naturally, is just the opposite. 

All around me are a hundred reasons not to hope. Hatred, anger, jealousy, pride, and selfishness surround the little life we live here 3 months at a time. And those same qualities sometimes enter that life more often than we would like to admit. Such displays of darkness are everywhere– both great and small. And it wearies a heart. 

I can see it on the streets, where men cat-call and people bicker loudly. I see it in the eyes of the half-starved elderly, who sit in the house near the market. I see it in my own classroom, where anger has such a deep hold, three-fourths of the class wouldn’t talk to us for nearly the entire week. And just when you wonder how there could be any more, you see a facebook newsfeed full of more mass shootings and news headlines and friend arguing against friend. Every day, the reasons to lose heart stack higher and higher.

Desperate, I look for somewhere to hope. Surely in the Bible class our kids are doing this year. Or maybe in the older generation of kids. In the boy with the snazzy wheelchair that makes him grin ear-to-ear, and in the way his legs bounce (actually bounce!) in his jolly-jumper. Or maybe in that one-tooth wonder, who always has a big grin and a warm and sticky hug for you. 

But I find that those things, in and of themselves, still disappoint.

On Sunday morning I scrawl the words of Isaiah 40 onto an index card… those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. I find myself overwhelmed by verses 25-31, pausing to remember Who my God is. I’m humbled, my eyes opened to the way I fail to lift my head to the One who brings out starry hosts and has no equal. 

Why do we so easily forget Who we belong to?

I pray the words of Isaiah 40 over and over, desperate for them to take root in my life. Teach me to hope in You. Show me what that looks like, in any season or any land. I want to know that life promised in Isaiah 40– the one where His people soar on wings like eagles, where they can run and not grow faint.

It’s been almost a week since that Sunday morning, and the corners of that little index card are just starting to turn up. I’m not quite sure how to get there, to that life of hope in Isaiah 40. Somehow I think it’s a work He has to do, in His own timing. But in the meantime, I’ll start here– in remembering Who He is, and what He has done. 

-Anna

Season by Season

~ theharwerths ~ 2 Comments

The words aren’t there. I’ve watched the pale morning skies turn their bright blue, deep golden sunshine on the cacao and labape trees outside. I pour a second cup of coffee, my body, heart, and soul feeling the way we have been here nearly 3 months. At least the coffee wakes me up physically. 

My Bible has a literal layer of dust on it. How can you claim anything, write anything, live anything, do anything.. when you don’t even open this Book once a day? Shame runs deep, and I know its voice well. There are tears in the coffee, because I am running on empty. My prayers hit the ceiling and bounce off the cement floors and go everywhere except where I need them to. Verses are highlighted, written on flash cards to be memorized, read again and again from the page.. but I can’t make them make sense in my heart, no matter what I do.

Disappointment weighs heavy in my heart because where are You when I need You most, and I know I need You, and I’m begging for You.. and You don’t come?

The kids finish their last week of school. Wildaneise has passed onto her 6 times tables. We stand in the doorway, looking at our class of 7 working away at their Subtraction with Regrouping worksheets, no one needing help anymore. As I check the papers, I hear Mayline’s voice reading a short story reader. She’s so lost in the words of the book that she does not notice the class empty out at 12:00. I smile for the way she sounds out words, the incredible progress she has made since the fall. 

Mikey has become almost too heavy for me to lift. He’s in his bed, laughing and then screaming, and then laughing again. The kids are all outside for singing group, so we steal precious moments on the living room floor. He pinches my cheeks, and it actually hurts now. His arms are strong, pushing my hands away when he’s mad with me. He can put up a fight, this stubborn child who does things in his own time. But I think he has learned that I am stubborn too 🙂 He has my heart forever entangled, and I think Stephen’s twice as much so. We have watched his tiny person emerge. And while his screaming can drive me absolutely mad, I hear him shriek and inside I whisper, “Yes.. find your voice..”

Sadrack knocks on the door. “Can you sell me two lollipops?” Somewhere along the way, we became the shop for lollipops, Cheeko’s and Twizzlers. The chalkboard sign on the door means nothing, as knocks come whether we are “Open” or “Closed”.

Bello can do his 6, 7, 8, and 9 times tables now. He tells me of the way he can do the math faster in school because it. Sadrack reads smoothly through the short story readers now, and has read every book on the shelf. Every afternoon at 1:30 they come, and every afternoon when they leave at 3 or 3:30, there is always a thank you, a smile, and a little more self-confidence behind their eyes.

I walked to Digicel twice yesterday, Stephen out with the team and us needing to buy another phone. Past the tin shacks selling crackers and candy, past the women calling for the “blanc to vin achtey” their bread loaves and fried street food, past the men who catcall and want to know if I am married (Abel has no shame, translating for me), through the mud puddles of streets, stepping in things I don’t want to know, walking along the side of the road where whizzing motorcycles and enormous trucks aren’t even an arm’s length away. We stop to hold baby Waldo along the way. I wonder who he will grow up to be, touching his tiny toes and silky soft hair.

My despair grows, because where in the world is the hope in all this? I remind myself (my emotional, feel-deep-or-don’t-feel-at-all self) that things are not always how they feel. 

We have watched God provide for our needs in the most unexpected ways. The check comes once a month, and sometimes it is more and sometimes it is less, but it is always what we need. When we find out Alaska will cost more than we anticipated, a message ‘just so happens’ to come later in the morning, asking for information on how to support us. When taxes looked overwhelming, one phone call later found us a place in Florida to help answer every complicated question we had. Nate even comes with coffee creamer the day my powdered kind has run out.

This is not a plea for support.

This is God, reminding me He has never once failed to meet our physical, financial needs. He provides in ways different than we might’ve imagined, but He’s never failed to provide.

And if I can do that for you physically, do you not think I am doing that in every sense of the way? Spiritually, emotionally, mentally? He whispers to my heart, reminding me He has not left us.

We learn to trust; things are not always as they appear, even when you feel empty inside. God provides different than we might sometimes hope, but He always provides.

So I let myself feel the sadness. I don’t deny the despair. I let the Bible sit open somedays, unopened other days. The words on the flash cards hold little meaning right now. This country does look hopeless. But these things, I’m learning, are okay. Because God is still providing somehow, in ways I cannot see right now, for whatever the reason.

And it is somehow okay. 

-Anna

(We leave for Florida on Tuesday. Partly because of the visa situation, partly to get a little week-long break before being in for the month of April. So if you don’t hear from us for a while, we are enjoying paved roads, real coffee creamer, salads and red meat, and sleep 😉 

The Beauty and Why it Matters

~ theharwerths ~ 4 Comments

The alarm goes off all too soon. It’s another morning where the coffee isn’t strong enough. Seems like there are a lot of those kinds of mornings here. I choose to ignore the ants in the sugar, stirring a spoonful into my coffee. Added protein. We play our regular morning game of “so what did the rat get into last night?” Milk powder, flour, potatoes, crackers.. We add coffee filters to the ever-growing list, following the papery traces to the hole in the cabinet where they scurry to and from.

So starts another morning in Haiti.

Many times I’ve said “No more.. I’m done.” I look at the sheer need- the faces hiding behind crumbling cement homes, the disabled boy in the park, the fragile frame of the elderly woman, the men who catcall, the 34 children in the orphanage downstairs, a country plagued with deceit and darkness, the 7 little lives just in our classroom. And my usual hope-determined soul has spent the last month broken at the feet of the Lord, crying for the way it’s all futile.  

But God continues to whisper, “Not yet.. I am not done just yet.” 

So we stand up, again. For another day of school. For another round of smashed avocados and peanut butter oatmeal. For another afternoon of fixing and refixing bicycles. For another cold shower and slice of peanut butter toast. Each night I fall to sleep saying “No more, God.” And each sunrise comes sweet with His mercy and grace, beckoning. “Stand again, for I am not done yet.” 

Here is the part where the story should change, where Light breaks through and Love proves stronger; the people change, the corruption and deceit are no more, and fruit for the labor is plentiful. But the boy still stands in the park, fatherless homes still crumble, and now southern Haiti is devastated by a hurricane. I sit, asking Him to tell me once again, of the power and the love and the beauty. I ask, waiting to see a love that never fails, a compassion that does not end, and a mercy everlasting. I sit and I ask, until I remember why it matters.

How does one paint an adequate picture of life here? We struggle, unable to relay all the life brings here- both the hope and the despair, the discouragement and the joy. And the way it all walks hand in hand. So many writings have been left unfinished, for the fear of sounding falsely optimistic or overly discouraged. 

There’s Carl’s proud smile over his freshly painted bicycle. Mayline pouring over math papers, bound and determined to push through until she finishes every problem. There’s David running the compound bare-bummed with mischief in his eyes and spunk in his soul. Uno games that echo loud in the orphanage. Mikey’s giggles that show up in unexpected moments. Everything, laced with the frustration and the joy and the discouragement and the hope. A mess that can never be straightened, but the way He makes it beautiful. And, whether we get to see it or not, the way He makes it matter.

Each morning we stand, again and again. And each morning we give Him our day, again and again. Knowing the greatest and only thing we can do here is done when we are on our knees. Knowing on our knees is where He makes it all beautiful. And on our knees is where He makes it all matter.

-Anna