He meets me here.

Summer.

Here, it's a season of thundershower evenings. A season when avocados, kineps and grenadia fruits (to name a few) grow in size and abundance... And so has the buzz around this campus. We've recently accumulated over 20 interns on the scene to assist with the hundred-plus team members visiting weekly in the next 2 months. It's exam time for our students, and soon graduation will wrap the year up with a bow and bring on the highly-anticipated VBS-palooza. Kids from the mountains to the coast will be swept into a flurry of sweaty silliness and gospel love. It's awesome. Not to mention our church advancement team, orphanage activities, and mobile clinics that are on the brink of new programs and big strides toward life transformation. Naturally, these also bring new summer staff and first-time full-timers merging into the action with ready hearts to pour out and serve.

This season, there is newness and acceleration happening just about everywhere you go. It's exciting and spreading rapidly across this campus, creating a current of passion, and drawing people in.

But for me, it's a different kind of season. My days, no matter how much I try to pack them full with fractions and vowel blending, guitar jamming next door, 3cord visiting, goat-trailing to mountain family sing-a-longs, smoothie sharing with neighbours, baby talking and report card editing, aren't going to last forever. With each passing day, I become increasingly aware that I'm not gearing up like the rest of this place. As much as my heart longs to fit in alongside these dear people and their upcoming plans, it's not the same as it used to be. The farewell gets a little bit more real everyday, and I feel my direction veering.

It's an awkward place. It's a foreign disconnect between my head and my heart. Because I want to belong and resonate here, but lately there hasn't been the same familiar connection.

And yet even in the discomfort of unknown whys and hows, He meets me here. He quiets my spinning thoughts with His love in the morning light that breaks over the backyard mountains. Yes, each day here is a gift! And He rejoices over me with lullabies in the flickering lightning over Port-au-Prince. He reminds me of His care in the dear ones who listen with eyes full of acceptance, even when I struggle to express the complexities happening in my head. His promises awaken me to new truth and trust as I tread on these new waters. And it's good. I hold my breath with each new step I must take, but His firm foundation holds me faithfully with every release.

Thank you for your prayers. That I may finish the year strong with my boys. That the hours in each day would slow enough for me to seize moments and breathe in the blessings of each God-given moment. And that I would find peace in whatever mix tomorrow brings.

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people and I will be your God.  

~ Ezekiel 36:26-28

These days,

These days, my fingers type a little slower on the keyboard. My thoughts and emotions tumble on a lower setting as I absorb my gradual release to this place. I know so many of you have been lifting me up and are curious about where I'm at, and what comes next. Thank you for your interest combined with sweet encouragement and understanding.
It's been a struggle to find words parallel to the feelings in my heart.

These days, I wake up a little earlier just to have an extra 10 minutes to sit still in my classroom until the boys arrive. I cherish every random question, every giggle, every boyish quirk I have with them, and grieve the day we will say goodbye.

These days, I call Mary Maude just to hear her chatter. I hold hands a little tighter with the Hope House kids. I make my market list a little longer just to savour the goodness of Haitian fruits for a few more weeks. I gather up barrettes and dinky cars to distribute as love gifts to those I will miss dearly.

These days, I purge bookshelves and find myself (hours later) buried in stacks of old letters and school planners, reminiscing and marvelling at each season of life in this place. I strategically pack suitcases with books and treasures gifted to me by past students and friends. I give my Christmas box and wall art to the girls next door. I wonder how much it would cost to ship my weathered velvet couch back to Wainfleet... I think I'm too sentimental for my own good.

These days, I dream about where I'll be a year from now. I get excited when Broc sends me Kijiji car ad links. I revel in the thought of being home to watch the leaves change this fall. I eagerly anticipate the moments that I get to soon spend with those who are held up by magnets on my fridge.

These days, I stand on the promise that it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. That even though my life may feel stretched and pulled and forever in a tension of where I belong, that it is Him who holds me together and keeps me rooted. These days, I covet your prayers as I spend one more month surrounded by rolling mountains and evening thunderstorms that take my breath away, Creole conversations and dear neighbours that keep my heart full, and a Father who quiets me with His love. May I live every day to it's fullest until it's time to say goodbye.

who He is.

You don’t know what you are going to do. 

The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. 

And it is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, 

because you don’t know what God is going to do next. 

So God does not tell you what He is going to do—rather, 

He reveals to you who He is” 

~ Oswald Chambers

New whispers.

Spring has always been a season of listening for me; a time to be intentional about waiting, fasting and praying for peace about the coming school term. In years past, it's also been an exciting time of connecting with parents and preparing for new students and grades. The Lord has been so faithful in giving me direction about my commitments year by year, and granting me with hopeful anticipation of what lies ahead...

The Lord said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

~ 1 Kings 19:11-12

I love this passage. It reminds me how God's word rarely comes in neon lights, but rather in the seemingly insignificant. I can look back and recount so many times throughout my life where the Lord has stirred my heart in the most wondrous of whispers. And so He has again...

He whispered it when the mountain families received their homes.
He whispered it on Micayel and Fania's first day of school.
He whispered it when Robenson received his driver's license.
He whispered it when Abigail Rose was born.
He whispered it when Rocky and Lily adopted Pierre.

I admit, at first I was ignorant to these clues. The thought of leaving Haiti was way too big for me to process. But nudge by nudge on His part, and denial after denial on my part, I became aware of a stunning realization:

That five years ago, as I sat at my small bedroom desk in Wainfleet, I faced these same whispers. Whispers that involved leaving a comfortable place. Whispers that meant change and newness and stepping into unknowns. Whispers bigger than I, that drove me to my knees praying that the only way they could come into fruition would be if He did it.
Eventually, I whispered back. Words of surrender and trust, and praises for peace beyond understanding which could only come from His hand.

And look what He has done! A journey which took me from a wide-open-spaces backyard view in a small town of loved ones to a foreign mountain village in Titanyen. A land where the most earnest desires of my heart and my greatest fears collided. A place where no one else could catch me but Him.
By His grace and provision, year by year, these strangers of a different race and tongue have become like my family. These 4 concrete walls crawling with lizards have become more than just a temporary shelter, but a home. Indeed, it's been a physical journey, but also a journey of the heart... And it's far from over.

Because, here I am again. Morning by morning waking to the same promises in His book, feeling my heart stir towards change that sends me spinning in a tension of dread and excitement. Little by little, I've whispered back words in my journal that resonate the peace I've found in letting His word be my lamp, even if it means I'll be led away from this beautiful place. And slowly but surely, my heart has rested in the decision that this will be my last year in Haiti.
Even though the road from here involves a painful letting go, and the future is still foggy, I find hope in my outward steps drawing me back to a familiar posture - surrendered with open hands, and eyes on the lookout for fresh glimpses of His presence and provision that can only be found by moving passed my comfort.

I thank you all, for standing by me, holding me close, and praying me through the past 5 years at Mission of Hope. Thank you for loving me so well and showing me glimpses of Jesus in the ups and downs. I am at a loss for words when I think about your generous sacrifices and encouraging words, not just in this season, but from the start.
I am beyond blessed to share the journey with you, and it's not over yet.

Seeking and finding.

I took a long walk down the hill tonight. The tropical blossoms awakened my senses and the sky shone another masterpiece. Little Jeremiah's satiny-chocolate cheeks brushed against mine and glowed from the sky's radiance. Up the hill a little further came the sound of his older brothers and sisters singing their evening chorus in the kitchen.

On nights like tonight, the air is ripe with His presence. It makes me wish I could stay here forever - marinating in the stillness and beauty. But Paul's words remind me that even when these evening shadows fade away with the light, and our world spins on, He is not far. May we live and move and have our being in Him alone.
Keep seeking, friends. 

Acts 17:24-28....

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,  for 'In him we live and move and have our being’.