A Pile of Trash

(Jennie Edwards shared this during our evening meeting.  I think we all cried...)

Praising and praying is how we drove in this morning.  The wild road that we have travelled to and from church is under construction and this morning there is a detour.  The detour just happens to lead us on a journey down the most incredibly nutso road.  A road where out our left window is shear paradise, blue water that looks like what we will see in heaven.  "He has made everything beautiful in His time."  (Ecc 3:11).

And out the right window, a man using the sidewalk as a bathroom and the worst slums you can possibly imagine.  A boy comes out of the ocean naked, just done with his morning bath.  We drive on. A few feet later a man dumps a pan of bathroom waste into the same water.  As we drive they stare at us.  And we stare back.  Clearly two worlds apart.

We stop for motorcycles to whizz by, or for a goat to run across the road. As we do, we are sometimes inches from these Haitian men and woman, strangers passing by.  On their way to collect water, find food for their family, or get their hair braided.  I can't always tell where they are going.  But they are going.  They all seem to be in motion.  Walking. Walking. Endlessly walking.

We pull down the road that leads to the church.  Day 2 of VBS.   So much awaits us.  So much for God to teach us.  "Father, what do you want me to learn today?  I'm yours." 

We have team conversation and prayer which I video on my iPhone while standing amidst a pile of trash.  Victoria keeps saying everything here is opposites.  I'm starting to get it.  She is right. As I am videoing on my cool iPhone, the men behind Wick are pushing a huge truck up the hill stepping through piles of trash.  Away from us. 

We start setting up and the kids start arriving.  They come in packs.  Cute little girls and their friends.  Boys and their buddies.  These children are starved for love.  Wilda, the prettiest little girl, eyelashes so long they touch her eyelids, with chocolate eyes that sing and dance.  A little mischievous and a lot darling, they love fist bumps and high fives.  They love to laugh. We start with songs. We act nuts and they smile and eat us up with their eyes.  They can't get close enough.  Literally.  When I walk, they are holding my arms, legs, waist, my soaking wet shirt is stretched out by a few inches from them hanging on it. We play in the sun until we literally can't do it anymore.  Then we march.

A line of sweaty kids with hands on the person shoulder in front of them seems to work well.  It keeps them focused and orderly. So we march.

Victoria has a slew of sweaty ones.  I have the other sweaty group.  We march.

I'm dehydrated.  I'm over extended.  I'm overwhelmed.  They each individually require more love than I have.  So I smile at one. Touched the head of another. Cup another one's chin. It's actually like popping open a bag of really salty chips.  Having one only makes you really want to have another, then another, then another until you are shoveling chips into your mouth unabashedly.  The kids are that way. I touch one. There's another.  I touch her, hug him, fist bump her, then him. Then I am completely swarmed and engulfed.  I'm glad I'm tall. 

So we march into the filthy pile of disgusting half-burnt trash.  When I came to Haiti I was so clean.  My clothes were clean, my hair, my phone, my shoes, my luggage, my backpack.  Now, just mere days later, I'm standing in a big pile of trash, that I NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS would have stepped in.  Or looked at...  Or taken a line of kids through.  But here we are, stomping, clapping, and singing in this pile of trash.  It was the only way to the shade.  And shade was what we had to have. An escape from the harsh brutality of one of Haitians biggest challenges - the blazing hot sun.

We are singing..."From cross to cross, my Jesus is the best, my Jesus is the best.  Nah nah nah nah nah."

Over and over in that pile of trash.  Everything here feels spiritual.  Everything here IS spiritual.  There's nothing else. There's just a big bunch of kids surviving. We're all dehydrated.  No one ever goes to the bathroom.  Not me.  Not the team.  Not the children. No one. So we are stomping.  We're clapping,  In the trash.  We're dirty.  The dirt sticks better when you're sweaty.  Like when I was a little girl and would sneak in and grab a spoon and reach for the sugar.  The second time in, the sugar sticks to the spoon.  All over.  A layer of white.  That was us, but it's not white.  It's brown, black, grey.  It's a mess.  I'm a mess.  And I like it.

The children are studying me so carefully. They wipe my dirty arms.  They can see my dirt so vividly on my white skin.  Dirt shows up.  And they want it off.  They move the hair out of my eyes. But I don't mind the dirt. The dirt is what alluring. The more I love on them, the dirty I get. I am changing.... At the end of each day, I wash it all off in a cold shower. But even in the shower I am thinking of my new Haitian babies. This dirt has stained my soul. And it's not coming off.