I think a lot of people question our involvement in Haiti. I’ve heard it over and over again, “We have so many problems here in our country. Let’s take care of our problems first.”
Yada. Yada. Yada. We can’t turn a blind eye to the world because our backyard isn’t perfect.
That rant aside. Stories like this are excellent reminders that outsiders come into Haiti with a different set of lenses. They see the forgotten and help call the church to act. Now if only outsiders would come to our churches from places like Haiti to point out the big planks in our eyes… that’d be something.
Years ago I memorized Philippians 4 as part of my devotional time. For me, I find Bible memory a great way to focus my sometimes unfocusable mind. And I find that I live out Scripture better when it is embedded in my head as opposed to plucked from a book.
You can memorize a large chunk of Scripture and then it just kind of sits there, on ice, waiting to be used again. So I was a bit surprised to wake up with this stuck on repeat this morning:
Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!
Exhortations
I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow,help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Thanks for Their Gifts
I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
It’s always shocked me that a man could write these words while in prison.Rejoice? You’re chained to a wall, dude! Peace of God? Are you freaking kidding me! Think about praiseworthy stuff? I’d be thinking about busting out! Your joy and crown? Are you blind! You can’t even see daylight from where you are.
And yet, that’s what Paul wrote as he closed out his letter to the church in Philippi.
Photo by Teresia via Flickr (Creative Commons)
The last couple of days have been filled with anxiety for me. It’s unexplainable and irrational. Factually, I have nothing to be anxious about! I don’t know if its tied to my re-entry or what, but it’s been driving me nuts. On Thursday, as I rode my bike home I just kept having this feeling that I was about to get hit by a car. Then as I sat on the trolley a silly thought came into my mind about a woman seated near me. She was wearing a big, heavy jacket and my imagination got the best of me. I couldn’t shake the idea that maybe she was a suicide bomber and I kind of panicked. The whole way home my heart and mind were racing. I was laughing at myself the whole time. But I just had a hard time shaking it, too.
Philippians 4 helped calm me down and brought me back to a rational state in that moment.
That little episode of stray anxiety reminded me that we live in an anxious society. Our nation is filled with people who are 99.9% secure but still filled with fear. We have access to everything at nearly any moment and yet we only think about how we can get more. We almost never suffer. We almost never go hungry. We almost never want for anything we actually need. So we become anxious for more security, less chance of suffering, more food, and more stuff.
Literally, we (myself included) are sick because we have too much. And we are still anxious for more.
Perhaps I am not alone in needing the truths of Philippians 4 to bring me back to reality in moments of silly panic?
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?
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:2-7
Influence without motivating others to action is a wasted opportunity.
That verse and that phrase haunt me. I want to live my life in such a way that leverages whatever influence I may have on this planet to move people closer to the heart of Jesus. As Paul says, I want to proclaim the mysterious Jesus in a world where the simple Jesus is all people know.
But how do you influence people with influence over others? For me, that’s the question. It’s one thing to have a role that puts you in contact with influencers. It’s another to influence those influencers.
Here are five quick ways I’ve found (this isn’t wisdom, it’s me stumbling towards figuring it out) to influence influencers towards things that truly matter:
Proclaim the whys. I’ve found that a lot of influencers are so busy that they need help connecting the dots and being told “why” something is important much more than how to do it. Influencers are smart and know how to get things done. But you need to have them own why it is important for them to do something.
Heart tugs. A person has influence over others because they have a huge heart. If I can expose that heart to the need… they can make mountains move. A challenge for me isn’t putting them in that situation, it’s finding out what will tug a leaders heart to action. What, you thought this was easy?
Biblical truth. Call me a crazy conservative all day. I don’t care what you label me– the Bible holds truth I cannot fathom. When I have the opportunity to bring up biblical truth, or remind a leader what the Bible says about the situation they are in, that moves them.
Appeal to pride. You thought I’d say humility? Heck no, I play dirty if it means that they will take action. Have you read the Bible? The Old Testament is full of examples of prophets and friends motivating a leader with a well timed rib shot. Why? Because it works.
Challenge them to take responsibility. I’ve noticed that highly influential people are very happy to disassociate themselves from opportunities. Surely, their plates are full. It helps to look them in the eye and challenge them– if not you, than who?
OK, so in order to really appreciate this video you need to know that Kristen has no moves whatsoever. She loves music. She actually likes to dance and clap to music. But the poor woman… well, she has no beat. And this has long held her back from sharing her dance-worthy moments with the general public.
But put her in an orphanage full of children filled with joy– no problem!
Saturday afternoon most of the team pealed off to go to do VBS and I just felt like I needed to make one more little trip to the Sons of God orphanage. I wasn’t sure why. It was just in me and I needed to do it.
So I did.
As we made our way through the series of dirt streets from Pastor David’s house to the orphanage I was just asking God… please, show me your forgotten child. I was praying for just a moment of connection with a child to let him know that Jesus is there for him. I didn’t have a clue how it’d work. But that was my prayer.
We opened the green heavy steel gate and wound our way through the Pastors house to the little courtyard the children hang out in. Of course, 3-4 visitors from America drop in and every kid just comes to hang out.
Within a few minutes I was carrying around a little two year old boy… the same one who attached himself to Kristen on her visits there. My heart melted as the warmth of our bodies created a silent bond of sweat. (Older kids, about 6 years old, put the younger ones on their shoulders to bring the babies to you to hold. It’s sweet and scary at the same time!)
As I held one boy, another would poke me in the back of the leg and go hide. He and I would lock eyes and he would run off to another place. And so, in this tiny little courtyard filled with children and carrying a two year old, I began to play a game of poke/chase with this older boy. (About five years old) It was cute to see his smile and the joy he got from being chased by a fat white man.
About 15 minutes of this go by. I’m laughing, he is laughing, the baby boy is laughing as I bounce him around, and my back is aching. Eventually I decide I can’t bear the pain of it any longer and sit on the steps leading into the main house.
The little boy who had alluded me while playing chase just sat down next to me and leaned against by big sweating body. He touched my head, bald and sweaty. He felt the hair on my arms. He kept leaning against me. It was a sweet moment. Then he took his t-shirt, filled with holes, and gently squeegeed off the sweat from my arms. It was tender and loving and I hoped a ball of sweat would land in my eye so I could release the tear building up.
As I rested and played with the antsy baby he and I just shared a moment where we were in one another’s presence. No words were shared… we just were together and silent among the swarm of activity.
Suddenly, he got up and went inside. We were sharing such a moment that I didn’t even think it was odd that he got up. He just got up. About a minute later he came back out of the house and sat right next to me… just like we were before. Except he had a picture.
When I saw the picture I lost it. Sure, I didn’t weep outwardly. But I wept inwardly and only allowed that one Cherokee tear to trickle out. I held those tears in for me. But maybe I also just held it together for him?
He reached out his arms and showed me a picture of his parents. It was worn and torn. It was faded. And whoever took the snapshot had somehow clipped off the top of his fathers face.
The photo was of his parents wedding day. The bride beaming, the husband standing proudly next to her, and the table before them filled with foods and a 3 tier wedding cake.
The boy made eye contact with me. Then pointed to his mom. Then made eye contact with me again. Then pointed to his dad. Then made eye contact with me again to make sure I was looking at his prized possession.
I understood. He understood. These were his parents. He was orphaned. His heart longed for a day when one of them would walk through the doors of the orphanage and take him home. And that day may never come.
And so, he and I sat, staring at the picture.
God answered my prayer in that moment. I don’t know why I felt like I needed to go to the orphanage that afternoon. But I did and this was why. As the little boy and I shared our presence he was able to know that he was not forgotten. Perhaps his parents had abandoned him or perhaps they had died… but he held onto hope.
The truth is that the orphanage scared me to my core. I never had it perfect as a kid but I always had a loving home to sleep in. My parents loved my brother and I. We never doubted it. And we both knew they would never abandon us. Through the toughest of times they took care of us before they took care of themselves. I never felt the way this boy felt. My empathetic pains were merely hypothetical. I couldn’t fathom his pain. But I could rest in the presence of sharing that moment with him.
One of the most biting things ever said about me was a pastor, early in my church experience, who said from the pulpit one morning, pointing right at me and asking me to stand up so he could use me as an illustration of his point, that he and the elders had labeled me a “spiritual orphan” in the church.
Those words punched me in the chest and I don’t know if I have ever recovered from that pain. I felt like I was part of that church community and they merely looked at me as an orphan. I knew those words didn’t reflect the words of Jesus… and yet I knew that I would never quite fit in again in that kind of church.
Perhaps, at the very core, that is the thing deep inside me that looks at the evangelical church and says… somewhere, deep at the core of who we are as a church… we need to reform?
You see, we are all spiritual orphans. We are all adopted by Christ.
Without the love of Jesus, we are all like that boy in the orphanage. We all are looking for a moment of presence. We are all holding on to an image of what a reconciled life will look like.
