I’ve noticed that we are beginning to redefine the term rivals and that is puzzling.It’s even a little bit scary as extremism continues to destroy the fabric of our nation.
“If you are from Michigan, you are born hating the whole state of Ohio. Go Wolverines!”
“I’m a Mac person. If you don’t rock a Mac, your are stupid. I mean it.”
That church over there, I really can’t stand the way they do ministry. They steal sheep and stuff. Pisses me off.”
A rival is a person, team, company, or other organization competing against another person or team, etc.
Please notice this is a neutral term. You can be rivals and be friendly. You can be rivals and have a similar goal. You can be rivals and both strive for the same goal on the same planet without animosity.
Example: I’m a Notre Dame fan. I grew up in a time when Notre Dame football was dominant in college football. And every Fall we played Michigan and USC… our rivals. Now, I never really cared much about USC because they were so far away. But the truth was, outside of that one game, we all wanted to see Michigan do well. Because if they did well and we beat them, that made us look better. To this day I consider Michigan State and Michigan to be some of my favorite teams to watch on Saturday.
An enemy is a person who hates or dislikes another person, or is nasty or mean to the person he is an enemy to. The opposite of a friend.
You see, an enemy and a rival are two different things completely.
Competitive rivals make everything better.
Enemies seek to destroy you, your reputation, your organization, and your relationships with everyone you know.
Having a rivalry for your ministry, organization, church, and even yourself… is a very good thing! We are hard-wired for competition. To deny that is to deny something intrinsically human about yourself.
But to label a rival an enemy? That also reveals something deeply disturbing in your heart.
Activity: We walked everywhere. I was constantly playing soccer with the kids. Even though we all took a siesta from 12:30-2:30 every day to avoid the heat… we were all exhausted at the end of each day. Just imagine how much I would have lost if we’d done a construction project?
Heat: There was no escaping the heat in Haiti. Air conditioning is not a luxury many Haitians enjoy and our team was no exception. Each day was 100+ F and the humidity hovered between 80%-99%. I lived on water and Gatorade. (Drank on average 320 oz. of liquid per day, went pee about one time per day…. you just sweat that fast.) When we did visitation or even just walked around the neighborhood, my clothing would be soaked to the core within minutes. Thank goodness for shirts that wick away the moisture. Those with cotton t-shirts looked miserable.
Food: We didn’t starve. In fact, I think we ate very good. Mornings we had oatmeal. (Not what you want to eat when its so hot, but it was all about calorie loading.) Lunch was PB&J and Pringles. And dinner was provided by a Haitian cook. That always had a rice element, a non-lettuce salad element, and either chicken or goat. In fact, the food was delicious.
Wrestle with this
Kristen and I both felt physically great during our time in Haiti. We were tired by the end of the day and we were constantly thinking about hydration. But overall, we were 100% fine. No gastro distress. No travelers stomach. No cramps. No upturned noses at disgusting food.
But since we’ve been home. Neither of us have felt good.
The reality is that we ate better quality food in Haiti than we buy from stores and restaurants here. I’m thankful we are in the middle of our harvest season so that we can feed our family fresh, organically grown foods. (90% of our produce is now from organic sources like our CSA and our own garden) If anything, this last trip has proven to me that the GMO grains and sugars that have taken over the American food supply are making us all, collectively, sick.
Two points of thought:
I don’t think I’m done leading trips to Haiti. While the work is shifting from relief to rebuilding, its a slow culture and re-culturing the nation will take time and outside encouragement. The reality is that I feel strangely awake and alive there– it’s beyond explanation.
I am once again re-examining how/what my family eats. I think it may be time to try a food experiment. It might be time to eliminate high fructose corn syrup, GMO grains, and non-organic trickle down products like dairy.
We were very encouraged to find a decent soccer field and some team practicing. We came back the next day and played a U18 group. It was fun to play… while we had some valiant plays we eventually got creamed. I will let you know that both Joel and I scored goals though. His was legitimate and mine was a fluke. (You don’t score many goals off a goal kick. But I did!)
This was one of the many signs of health we saw at this tent city. Plenty of commerce. Lots of organization. Clean water, showers, and toilets. And organized sports for various ages.
Sidenote: The guys were lobbing passes across the field while we were filming thing. You’ll notice that about a minute into the video there’s a little disturbance. I guess one of the Haitian guys thought it’d be funny to try to snipe me while I was filming. I never saw the ball coming at my head from about 40 yards. Thankfully, Josh stuck out his arm and blocked it. Otherwise… this would have been my ticket to $10,000 on Americas Funniest Home Videos. Er, maybe that’d be the Haitian version?
