Ready to Fly

Even though we may not have the channels nor bandwidth to keep up with the Olympic momentum back home, we are still cheering on our home country over here in Haiti. Last Friday we kicked off the opening ceremonies with a torch race, and ever since, Grayden has been keeping our class connected with Canadian achievements each morning. Ana and Mina have been charting our medal accumulation on our Olympic wall that Leeann created. Yes, we've got the spirit! It's kind of ironic to think that as the world joins in Canada (our true north strong and free) to celebrate the winter games, the world also unites in Haiti as more and more countries band together to help with the efforts in bringing relief. In my most recent trip into Port-au-Prince, I continued to marvel at the diversity of flags from all over the world marked on the backs of all-terrain vehicles, flying high from their base in the airport landing field, and scattered throughout medical personnel gear at the city's general hospital. It is so inspiring to know that people are rising up across the globe and sharing the burden. It's enough to believe that across language and culture, we are unified by the belief that hope will come.

The picture above has been on my desktop for a while now. Every time I see it I can't help but get the Mary Poppins tune in my head: Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height, let's go fly a kite and send it sailing!

It's a snapshot that I took nearby the water source in the village of SourceMatelas. This little boy was completely enthralled in making his makeshift kite fly. He didn't need much to get it going - It's amazing the creations that Haitian children come up with... They find bits and pieces of string, twigs and torn plastic and put them together to catch the air and soar. I watched as the little guy waited for the breeze to come and then slowly he would unreel the string between his fingers letting the air take it higher and higher. Once and a while, the wind would let up and the kite would plummet downward. He would whip his arm around and do his best to recover it enough to stay in the air before the wind would take it again. It was certainly giving him a work out!

The symbolism of this picture has been a bit of an object lesson for my own understanding this week. I've been thinking about how I am the kite... We are all makeshift kites. Bits and pieces of nothing that have been hopelessly abandoned. We're nothing until our Father picks us up and creates us into His design. It's not because of anything we have done, but only His grace to pull us out of the dust and turn us into something beautiful for His glory. It isn't always an easy flight. The winds and tensions may falter our strength, but He doesn't give up on us. He stays faithful. He believes in what we can become even when we don't.

I think about the people of Haiti, and about how easy it is to see hopelessness in these difficult days of starting over. As humans, it's easy to write the country off as an impossible situation. But that doesn't mean God does. He is greater and His ways are higher. High enough to lift His people out of their brokenness and teach them to fly again. That is my prayer for Haiti. That those who feel broken and forgotten will have the faith to believe that they can still fly. I believe that His power is enough to raise His people up and soar on His strength.

But those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall lift their wings and mount up close to God as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. ~ Isaiah 40:31