Every few weeks or so, I get an email newsletter from John McHoul, who is the director of Maranatha Ministries (see the sidebar). It's a blanket email he sends to everyone. What I enjoy about John, he puts it out there. His newsletters aren't edited, cleansed, professional letters. They are his diary of his struggles of living almost his entire adult life in Haiti and trying to serve people in sometimes lethal conditions.
Just because I need to stop thinking about my here and now life for a moment, I thought I would post the message I got from him two days ago.
GREETINGS FROM THE ISLAND NATION OF HAITI
I am sitting in a corner of a room off of the room where people eat in our house. It is nice to have city electricity this morning because we have not had much of it for the past two days. I am sitting alone, I often find myself alone even when in a crowd, and I am listening to those in the other room.
We have two visitors from New Mexico, a friend from Illinois and a lady from Switzerland who are staying with us. This is in addition to the Lynch family of four as they too are with us until they can move into the house that was to be ready on October 1, 2008.
Beth just entered the room and listed many of the things that we have to do today and wondered how we will get it all done. She also mentioned that we have a visitor coming in this morning and that someone has to get him at the airport.
There is much to do today. We have activities at the children's homes, stuff to repair at all the houses, adoption work, and we are still working on the house that the Lynches will move into. And tonight I have things to do at church. I as usual, perhaps too much so, wonder if much of what I do matters or really counts and as a sit here and consider the people talking in the other room I even think that more so.
Jothum and Rochelle the young couple from New Mexico are here in part hoping to adopt a little girl. Looking at them last night as they held her, I clearly, could see that they have a love for her that perhaps they themselves do not understand. They are hoping for a bright future for this little girl in their home and lives.
The Lynch family has been visiting Haiti for several years, but now they call Haiti home as they have left the States and moved here to Haiti. Wow, is it ever an exciting, roller coaster time in their lives as they have left the comfort and familiarity of their lives in the States and have begun new lives here in Haiti.
The others two with us are in the autumn of their lives. They both have given to Haiti many years and now are leaving the country that they have given so much to. Both are ill and perhaps a tad burned out from the challenges of living in Haiti. I with some sadness went through the boxes of tools that the man is giving to me. I especially felt sad when he looked at the tools and said, "These tools have served me well." People at different places in life. Some young and just beginning, others not so young but just beginning and others who are near the end of their journey.
Beth and I are no longer young and have been in Haiti since 1989. We are not so old that we are near the end but old enough that the end is closer than the beginning.
The Lynches, the new missionaries here in Haiti, have a family motto that I believe sums up what we all hope for. It is LIVING THE LIFE THAT GOD HAS FOR US.
At the end of the day or week or month or year or life I believe that if our lives can reflect the words in found in the Old Testament book of Micah, that we have journeyed well.
"6. With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7. Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8. He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
John McHoul
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