Doubts

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 😉 

A Day In the Life

~ theharwerths ~ 2 Comments

It’s the fifth time I’ve tried to sit down and write this post. 

Life has been busy.

Some days, I ache to find words I do not have. Other days, just as the words come, there is a knock on the door, or the clock strikes a certain hour and it is time to go. And at other times, I’m afraid of the words that would come if I sat for too long. 

Music has been blaring in the next-door soccer field since 3 o’clock this afternoon. Literally 5 hours and counting of blasting loud Creole music with a slightly obnoxious drum beat. It sounds like the same song on repeat. I just found a dead cockroach underneath the couch I’m now sitting on. The shower has left me feeling clean- a feeling I’m thankful for after being covered in sweat and dirt and who-knows-what-else all day. The sound of the fan helps drown out some of the music. My good ole “Shaggy” (the kid’s nickname for Stephen) sits at the kitchen table grading yesterday’s quizzes. 

It’s been a busy few weeks. 3 weeks of school beneath our belts, 2 teams, and 1 stomach bug later, I’d say we are into the ‘swing of things’ here in Limbe. This week in school we are working on contractions (you + are = you’re). And I am praying one of these days we will make it past subtraction with regrouping (please, Jesus, please). School is a continuous up and down ride- the child who doesn’t want to listen one day is a grade A student the next, but yesterday’s grade A student then decides it’s their turn to make your morning miserable.. and on and on the game goes. But we are learning to roll with the tides, to Quit Taking It Personally, and to recognize what the struggle is really about (because it’s really never again the flesh and blood).

Stephen has taken on the role of being the teacher/supervisor/grader/test-giver for the oldest classroom at the orphanage. They started a new virtual school program last month, and needed someone to keep track of tests and scores, and just keep tabs on how things are going. We sat on the kitchen floor this morning, tearing out georgraphy tests from the booklets.”So did you ever imagine yourself doing this?” I asked Stephen. He just laughed. But now he sits at the kitchen table, with a stack of answer keys and pile of papers, furrowed eyebrows and pen and all.

Since being back, I have found myself asking the Lord again and again, “Is there really any chance that a lasting impact can be made here?” I struggle with my own cynicism, quick to judge or point out the hundred reasons why cerain ideas or dreams would never, ever work here. It has been a struggle to view the world I see realistically, yet not belittle the power of my God. It’s a balance I’m not quite sure I will ever get a handle on. Some days I feel overly optimistic, and other days I’ve become such a pessimist I hardly recognize my own self. 

My prayer through it all has been that God would instill His heart into mine. That I would see with His eyes, and hear with His ears. And in certain moments, what He has laid upon my heart is simply this.. it’s not the people or the culture. What you hate is the evil at work within the people, throughout the culture. 

And I pray He continues to remind me of that, especially in the moments I forget it..

Mikey continues to be my little sweetheart, and dare I say has even gained some weight lately? Every time I put him in the bouncer in our apartment, the spring seems one step closer to bottoming out. He’s a little rascal, that boy. Eating macaroni noodles for me one minute, and the next spitting them out all over. But he’s got a killer of a smile and a tickle spot that simply melts my heart. 

The girls favorite afternoon activity has been knitting. I ordered in a kids knitting book, full of projects and beginner techniques and stitches to learn. They’re working on washcloths right now. Finding the time and energy to sit and fix mistakes and explain things proves difficult. There is never enough time.

Sadrack (one of the orphanage boys) comes up every afternoon at 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, whenever I finally go to find him. First thing I am buying when we get to Florida in March is a watch for that little boy. Haha. So many afternoons I call him my saving grace. He comes up and practices reading with me (pretty sure I can recite all the words to “Little Critters: Just Helping My Dad”). Tigers, sharks, whales, and lions are little Sadrack’s obsession. So we end up reading about animals, and watching short youtube videos about lions vs tigers until the power goes out, taking the Internet with it.

And on that note of losing power and internet, Stephen has gone to switch the generators. Which means now is probably a good time to post this and sign off, before I’m rewriting this blogpost for the 6th time.

-Anna

The music in the soccer field is going on over 6 hours here. But at this point, who’s even counting? 

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

Inadequacy and Bicycles

~ theharwerths ~ 6 Comments

There were a lot of things I meant to do this morning. And here I find myself at 10:30, drinking yet another cup of coffee, still in my pajamas. 
It is hard to believe a week has come and gone. School started on Monday, and I suppose all we could say as we locked the classroom door on Friday was, “Well, we survived.” 

The most trying three-and-a-half hours of our day happen between 8:30 and noon, when 7 high-energy and strong-willed kiddos are ours to teach. I’m pretty sure we tried all the bribes in the book, every reverse-psychology method known to man, and any kind of consequence-and-reward system we could think of. And they all backfired. 

To be totally and completely honest, on more than one occasion this week we were ready to say we were the wrong people for the job, pack our bags, and pray until our knees blistered that God would send us back to the States. But we are still here. Our bags are still unpacked. And we are still inadequate. 

We take each day as it comes. Somedays, this means staring blankly at the wall while we eat our lunch and try not to think about the summer of normalcy we left behind. Other days we revel in the rain that thunders on the tin roof, we chase children around the yard until we are out of breath, and our joy overflows as laughter rings loud from the boy who lays in the hammock every afternoon. Each day holds its own. And we are along for the wild ride.

In the afternoon, Stephen has spent a lot of time helping some of the boys fix their bicycles. The depot is a mess of tools and parts and little boys here, there, and everywhere. Carl and Stephen spent a good 3 days fixing up Carl’s bike, and no sooner did they have everything working when Carl broke his bike, yet again. In the same day, 3 hours after Stephen helped Abel fix the chain on his bike, I found Abel walking his bike back to the depot. After asking him what happened, he showed me the massive rip in his tire where he ran over something in the soccer field.

As people, we long to see progress and evidence of the fruit of our labors. But if you do that here, you will quickly find yourself in a place of deep discouragement. We talk about it as the night grows dark and the mosquitos bite at our ankles. How can we make a difference here? The spelling words, the broken bicycles, the math lessons… Everything you do feels like emptying the ocean with an eye dropper. And that’s on a good day. 

It takes a morning of coffee, classic hymns, and 3 hours of sitting on the dirty cement floor at my Savior’s feet before I can realize… If this labor is in and of myself, it is in vain. But this labor is for the Lord. And though we know not His purposes for it all, there is a peace that comes when you surrender it to Him. We can rest in knowing that this labor is not ours. It is His. And whether we see the fruits of it or not, He will use it.

Anna

The Undeniable Beauty

~ theharwerths ~ Leave a comment

“You know, for a while I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with that garden bed..”

I look across the room to where he stands at the window. Evening quickly encloses us with deep blue storm clouds. “Yeah..” I say, the memories rushing like the tide, “I know..”

On a miserably cold weekend in May, we spent 2 days building a raised garden bed, digging up dirt, and dreaming of cucumbers growing in the heat of summer. We planted our fragile little seeds with great care and precision, excited for what the future held for our little garden bed. Then, it rained. Hard. And we walked outside to find a garden bed with not enough drainage and a rock-hard crust of dirt suffocating the life out of our plants.

I may or may not have cried at one several points. We may or may not have fought at some point too. Although it felt futile, we tried again. Much to our surprise, after days of looking out the window, we found sprouts. Strong and resilient, we continued to watch them grow. And throughout the coming weeks, our hope grew along with them.

IMG_0766As the summer went on, the sprouts grew to withstand the Nebraska wind, the scorching hot sun, and the multiple hail storms we’ve had. Hope has been a very delicate thing this summer. Just as we become confident and sure, the clouds bring hail, or the wind whips harder, or the forecast calls for heavy rain once again.

Every time, I hold my breath. Every time, my hope dangles by a thread. Every time, I doubt.But every time, it continues to flourish beyond my imagination.

Now the garden bed literally overflows with life. I have come inside the house hands full as green beans and tomatoes cover the countertops.  And God continues to whisper, “When will you trust me?”

Sending out support letters made this decision all the more real to us, and while we are excited, we are taking the biggest step of faith we have ever taken. IMG_0783This journey has left my hope dangling by a thread on multiple occasions. When the rain clouds come in, I worry that He won’t protect. When hail the size of golfballs pelts the ground, I doubt that He sees. When we are faced with raising monthly support, I wonder how He will provide. When the details are still left unknown to us, I panic that somehow He has lost control. When “what-if’s” plague my mind, I fail to remember His perfect sovereignty and grace for every season

All the while, the garden bed sits smack in the middle of the big picture-window in our living room.

There’s an undeniable beauty in the way I cannot help but see it on a daily basis. To every day hear Him whisper, “Trust me, and let me grow it beyond your wildest expectations..”

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