I'm spending a few weeks with my sister and niece in Philadelphia. It's a good place to stop and process a summer in Haiti. Every year my heart and mind go through a kind of grieving process as I leave my summer home. I think about silly habits like using a flashlight to check the floor for roaches before getting out of bed at night, or the ways we conserve water with such care. I dream about Haitian mangoes and bananas. I even miss the sleep-interrupting, all-night church services and the constant choir of human and animal voices that echo around the city. I miss the street markets and the sounds of chaotic and genius traffic patterns on those dusty city streets. I find myself missing these kinds of things because they represent a place that is very dear to me. It has been seven years since I first visited the school and children's home in Delmas, Port au Prince and I don't think my heart will ever feel completely at home in any one place again.
This homesickness is something I think we can probably all relate to - maybe your first sleep-away camp as a child or when your family left you for your freshmen year of college, or when you said goodbye to a loved one at their graveside. It's hard to have planted your feet and started to grow roots only to be like a tree that's being dug up and replanted elsewhere. It's shocking and painful and can either help foster growth or can cause the tree to struggle and wither.
I'm reflecting on this familiar homesick feeling and wondering if it's more than just feeling the loss and separation from a beloved place and people. When I'm in Haiti I have flashes of the same feeling, longing for familiar places and people back in New Hampshire. Or sometimes, I'll be going through everyday life and I'll pass by someone who looks vaguely like a loved one who is gone and my heart twinges with the same ache. It's like my heart never truly is able to take root because whenever it starts to feel settled, it's time to be transplanted again. It's time for change. It's time to feel homesick again - for a time or a place or a person that's not here and now.
This summer I was given the opportunity to lead morning devotions for my teacher friends at Christian Light School. They are the dearest people to me - we share a common faith and a common calling as teachers. It was a treat to start each morning together singing and praying and sharing God's good news with each other. With the elementary teachers, we talked about what it means to live as a Christian in this world. We know that we aren't Home yet, not in the fullest, most powerful, most beautiful sense of the word. Our home is with our Maker and Sustainer and Redeemer. Our home is at peace with each other. Our home is free from the brokenness of pain and death and fighting and mourning. For now though, we have a home and a people we are called to live in the midst of - as sojourners and exiles (1 Peter 2). We talked about how we are called to live in unity and diversity as "the body" - the church. We are called to love, as we have been loved by God. We are called to live with generosity and welcome for one another and strangers. We are called to live humbly, with self-forgetfulness and without pride. And we are called to live speaking truth to each other.
Each morning the teachers shared about their experiences in this life of faith and I was consistently encouraged and inspired. They are living with roots dug deeply into this not-quite-home land. They are reaching neighbors by extending welcome and generosity. They are caring for their students with parental-like love and concern. They are strengthening their communities by empowering young minds to excel. And they are faithful to trust God even when life is uncertain. The faith of these teacher friends makes me want to live this life so differently. To live not ruled by fear or pride or regret or worry. To live instead by faith.
And so now, I'm praying for God to show me how I can live each day in these same ways. Whether it be in Port au Prince or New Hampshire, to live like I'm home and to take each moment and each opportunity to live out grace and truth. I don't have any clear vision of what this will look like next week or next month or next year, but I think that's okay...
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." - James 4:13-15
For now, in this "mist" of a life, I'm going to dwell in this homesickness for a while - homesickness for my friends and my kiddos and my life in Haiti, but even more than that, homesickness for God. And I'm praying that this homesickness might allow me to live more faithfully and more fully - with love and truth and grace and peace now.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. ~ C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, Book III, chapter 10, “Hope”
Thank you for following along with me on another summer in Haiti. I'm so thankful to be able to share this journey! Much love in Christ, Jessie
