Daddy said that since today was Mother’s Day, I should write you a letter.  Now, since I am only 2 years old, I only know what 4 of those words meant.  So, Daddy said that I should just think about all the things that I like about you and say “thank you” for them.

So, thank you for taking care of me when I was sick and for letting me wipe my nose on all of your nice work clothes.  Thank you for cleaning me up when I make my pants all stinky.  Thank you for being so patient with me when we are having dinner and I won’t eat (it’s so hard to decide what I want!).  Thank you coming to get me when I have bad dreams.  Thank you for always remembering to bring me a snack and juice when we go out.   Thank you for all the times you have to get me in the middle of the night (especially since Daddy is sleep-deaf and won’t wake up without a foghorn).    Thank you for making Baby Sister’s room so pretty because I know that you made my room really nice, too (but I was just a baby so I don’t remember).  Thank you for all the times you get down on the floor and play with me, ‘specially now that Baby Sister is so big.

Most of all,  thank you for being THE BESTEST MOMMA EVAARRRR!!!

Love, Amos

PS Daddy wanted me to tell you for him that he is so blessed by how much you love me.  He loves watching you smile when I do silly things, and he knows how proud you are of me.  He said that he could never do everything that you do, and he is sorry that you do more than your share.  And, he is so excited to see how much you will love Baby Sister.

Seeing your tiny little fingers made it real, just like your big brother Amos’ fingers did.  Someday soon, they will be wrapped around my finger.  Then, as you grow, they will be holding my hand.  And far, far into the future, they will be holding on to my arm as I walk you down an aisle between two sets of people who are there to celebrate with the most beautiful girl in the world, and your fingers will move to hold the one person who will love you as much as your Momma and me.

Just promise me that you will still hold my hand sometimes too.

Love, Daddy

Skip ahead a few days, and I’m back at work.  One of the first things I heard my first day back was that someone was complaining about the taste of their water.   I nearly quit my job, dreaming of walking out in a bizarre Steven Slater fashion (flinging half-eaten entrees back at the patrons who were too overstuffed to finish while calling out everyone who dared to purchase their water).

Needless to say, it has been a long, weird adjustment period.

It is hard to claim to be concerned about the plight of the hungry when cleaning spoiled, expired food from my refrigerator is a monthly–if not weekly–chore.  It’s hard to claim to be concerned about the poor when it is the season of the Christmas demands list.  It’s hard to claim to be concerned about the oppressed when said list includes so many things constructed out of precious metals mined by African slave labor or assembled under terrible working conditions in Asian factories.

All of this sounds so reactionary at best.  At worst, it is poorly-worded hipster groanings.  I’m well aware.  And yet, I still can’t shake this completely unsettled feeling that all of this doesn’t matter.  I hate that I’m not ready to say “don’t buy me presents”.  I hate that I’m in debt to my car loan and my mortgage and my credit cards and my appliances.  I hate that I am starting to forget what it was like to hold a child that hasn’t been held in days, to see babies crawl into the arms of everyone on our team and just fall asleep.

And yet, I’m so thankful that my church is raising money to build a well.  I’m so thankful that my wife and my son and my unborn baby have food, clothes, beds, and a house that doesn’t leak when it rains (well, mostly).  I’m so thankful that I have family and friends that like me enough to buy me presents and that I like so much that I want to buy them presents too.

At the end of the day, I hope I can find the beauty of the challenge of having what we need and being excited for the extra and the excess, for it is because of this excess that we can give and sacrifice for others.

Hopefully.

Momma and I have something to tell you; you’re going to be a big brother! Right now, there’s a little baby growing in Mama’s belly just like you once did!

it’s a great and important thing to be a big brother, although you won’t always think so. Your little sibling is going to break your stuff. He or she will embarrass you in front of your friends in countless different ways (and for point of reference, ask your Uncle Timmy). He will often get their way over yours. Sometimes, you’ll think that Momma and I loves her more than you. Probably, he or she will get away with more than what you are allowed to do.

The thing to remember is that they will always be your family. Your friends will come and go. You’ll have a couple that last a lifetime, but for the most part, they will move out of your life like you move out of theirs. Your Uncle Timmy is my best friend in Seattle, and your Aunt Carrie is just the best sister ever. Both of them have come to my rescue over the last few weeks, and I have been able to come to theirs sometimes, too. Not often, of course, because your Auntie Carrie is about the smartest person I know and your Uncle Timmy knows more stuff about more stuff than I could ever hope to learn. But that’s the beauty of it; we are here for each other in ways that other people just won’t always be.

Most of all, I cannot emphasize enough that we will love both you you equally. Not only that — we will not love you any less. Before you were born, I loved your Momma with all of my heart. When you came into our lives, I didn’t love her any less; I just realized that my heart had the capability of loving more. When your new brother or sister takes that first big lungful of air and promptly lets out that beautiful, wan little newborn cry, my heart will realize its capacity to love even more.

You’ll always be my little man. Until you grow up bigger and stronger than me.

Love, Daddy

Hi – I’m your Daddy and I CAN’T WAIT TO MEET YOU!!!

Your Momma and I just found out about you a couple of days ago, and you should know that we both cried.  Of course, with everything, there’s a back story and I’ll try to be thorough but brief.  It may shock you to discover, but your older brother Amos was a good baby and is a good boy.  He’s my little man and the light of your Momma’s life.  We are very, very happy and content with our family, but we knew that something we wanted was for Amos to grow up with a sibling.  It’s just better for everyone, even when he steals your stuff or won’t share his candy vegetables or is mean to you.  In the long run, you two will love each other for the rest of your lives.

We also wanted you to be fairly close in age, since that makes for more fun while you’re growing up.  When your older, it doesn’t matter nearly as much, but as kids, we know that the two of you will have more fun and more in common this way.  We figured it out and we knew that we wanted you to start growing inside of Momma by November of 2010, since that would put you two years behind Amos in school.  Well, we tried and tried (that’s something you’ll learn about much later) but to no avail.  So, a few days ago, we went to your Momma’s special ladies-only doctor to get some medicine to help you come along.  As it turns out, God was already on top of it (as He often is) because before Momma could even get her medicine, we found out about you!

We don’t know how big or old you are yet, so that’s why this is a super-secret letter for now.  But know these two things: you’re an answer to prayer just like your brother, and you are already blessed beyond measure.  You are blessed because there is a whole crowd of family and friends outside the warm confines of where you are now just waiting to love on you and watch and help you grow.

I love you already more than I understand -

Daddy

We didn’t know what we would find, but we expected nothing like what you gave us. We came with the idea of bringing life and love to a broken land and a hurting people. Instead, we leave broken ourselves, humbled and challenged by what we have seen and who we have encountered.

You are a lovely, gracious, beautiful, strong people. You are survivors in a way that redefines the world. You exist in community, lifting up each other up. You endure, always moving forward, always persevering. And you smile. You smile beautifully, with your entire being. Even standing on rubble, even while hungry or thirsty, even in the face of hardships that we will never understand, you smile.

Haiti, we love you. We love you deep in our souls in a way we cannot understand. All we know is that we will not forget you. We cannot and we will not; this we promise, for you have a piece of our hearts. we commit to you that we will pray for you and advocate for you and fight for the justice you deserve.

Jay Louis, Sylvester, Jelin, Odney, Sam, Markins, Darriot, Ben, and Claudel: you challenge and inspire us to keep moving, to hold on, to endure. You are not alone! Pastor Gaetan, you showed us how to care for the fatherless. Pastor St-Cyr, you taught us to get down, to get our hands dirty, to truly light the darkness. And Pastor Jean-Alix, you showed us how much God can use one person to change lives and improve communities all over Haiti. you are not alone!

Haiti, may you be blessed! May you find grace for today and hope for tomorrow. May your joy change your country. May you hold on! Hold on to God’s grace, mercy, provision, strength. Hold on, our brothers and our sisters, for Jesus is holding on to you tightly. The winds, the rain, the earth cannot take you from His grip and cannot change who is our God!

From all of us — Chris, Blanca, Stacy, Kaitlin, Karen, Becky, Savannah, Lisa, Rebekah, Emily, Stephanie, Susan, Sage, Scott, Jason, Chris, and Ken — we love you and we will be together again, this life or with our Father.

And it was a good thing we did! When the cars rolled up, there were already over 80 people waiting for the doctors. The dental team pulled anywhere from 1-5 teeth from from 38 people, our eye doctor ran nearly out of eyeglasses and did run out of sunglasses, and the doctors worked from the proverbial sunup to sundown. All told, we lost count after 200 people crossed through the doors of the clinic. The team was just weary, and it was only by God’s grace that the medical staff was able to see everyone.

Today also marks the last full day of our real hard work here in Haiti. Tomorrow, part of the team will be gathering information at JP-One for HELP’s Help One Now campaign in the morning, but in the afternoon, we’ll be spending time at a local art market, having a good local meal, and generally having a good, solid cool down time. It will be great to have a final meeting with everyone to process and talk through the ups and downs of our trip.

Whenever you visit a place like this, it is easy to feel like we’re not doing enough for Haiti. When you take a panoramic view of the land, the information overload is nearly crippling. It feels like we were trying to fix the Leaning Tower of Pisa with some Silly Putty and a toothpick. In the dark. The challenge for us is to remember that we were not called to fix the entire broken nation; we were called to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the individuals we encountered.

So please pray that we will not be discouraged by the work left to do but that we will take joy in what we have already accomplished through the seeds we have sown and the lives we have touched.

First of all, thank you for your prayers! Today was a great one and we really can credit your love and support for helping to make it happen.

Our team was split into two today. A few of us went to a little community called Drouin, which was about 4 1/2 hours away. It was the site of the cholera outbreak last month, so we were taking every precaution heading into the area. Drouin was a totally different Haiti than the one that we see in the cities. The terrain was beautiful but the location was *remote*. It reminded me of driving along the canals in South Florida, but instead of nice water, it was just brown and filthy. Cholera was keeping the residents from their normal routines of bathing, washing, and cooling off in the river, but life has to go on. If there was no other water, they were still forced to use it for their basic needs.

The purpose of our visit was to meet two local pastors. They were in charge of both a church and a school for the neighboring children. We were able to spend some time with them and found them to be as beautiful and shy as the city kids. However, they were children marked with tragedy. We noticed a few of the children wearing black instead of the cheery blue uniforms of the others. We asked why and were told that meant that they had recently lost someone close to them. One girl lost her 21-year old sister to cholera. Another just lost her father to a different disease. Even in their tragedy, they were still able to laugh with the others. One other thing that we noticed was that as we were taking their pictures for our Help One Now initiative that when we asked them to smile, they didn’t seem to know how — really! If we could get them to laugh, they would beautifully. But several of them just couldn’t quite get their faces to do this very simple thing; it was like they had forgotten how from lack of practice. Of course, the life they lead does not create many smiles.

The medical team spent their time in Kinscoff ministering to the community there. The dental team pulled over 50 teeth, and Jason was proud to declare “there were no screamers!” Altogether, they saw 180 people today and the list seems long for tomorrow. The Haitian people live with pain on a daily basis because they have no idea of anything different, so it is always amazing to see someone’s face after they are given medicine or one of the doctors can fix what is not working.

We always set up a prayer corner where the patients can go after they are treated if they so desire. The stories that emerge from those are always challenging, but there was one 81-year old woman that really blew our team away. She lost every single family member in the earthquake. Savannah found out that she had been a believer for a long time and asked if she was ever angry at God for what happened like many of the people we see. The woman was surprised and responded “Why? My God is no different today than he yesterday or the day before.”

I do not know how to relate to people that have had to dig their family out of rubble or have had to watch a family member die of a disease that would be treated in a matter of hours in any decently-equipped modern clinic. Nor have I any way to understand the concept of forgetting how to smile. But, my God is no different than theirs and I hope that one day I can trust Him the way that they do.