The Worst Best Day in Haiti - episode 1

Three weeks ago today Wednesday April 17^th our phone was stolen.

See the phone was on our shelf under our bedroom window and we had left it charging there overnight. Katie has a memory of taking the phone off the charger and lying it face down on our bookshelf before laying down with a headache Wednesday night. 

The next morning I awoke wondering where the phone was, but not being too concerned as Daniel seems to always run off with everything whenever we need it the most. However I started to search our house and after an hour realized that the phone was nowhere to be found. A strong surge of anger came over me as I declared the phone was stolen. 

We have community prayer each Thursday morning at the mission house and Katie was concerned with getting everyone there. My insistence that the phone was more important at the present juncture was an unwelcome addition to the morning. But I just could not let the feeling of mistrust and violation of our new home sit lightly. And a sense of doubt slowly crept into my mind that morning. 

Doubt as to why this object would be stolen, doubt as to what God was trying to say to me in this loss, doubt as to whether this was the right place for my family to be. The chain of escalation happened quickly and without the full consent of my conscience mind. I did not like the way it felt. At the same time there was a feeling of powerlessness to control the way this doubt crept over my being. 

“A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly,” - John 10:10

This quote from the Gospel of John was on the pillowcase that was waiting for us at Big Woods and which we have taken with us on this journey of faith. It proves so true in moments of theft, as I can rightly attest to in my moments of despair. I wish I could have so easily delved into the depths of its wonder and awe in the aftermath as I realized were robbed.

I wish I could say in the next moments as we headed down the mountain to prayer that I would fully enter into our community prayer and that a great peace filled my whole being and came over my heart.

In a way it did.

I would be amiss not to say that at certain parts of the praise and worship I did feel a sense of belonging and peace as His hand pressed upon my heart.

In a way it did not.

As the community prayers wrapped up, my mind started racing again and the fully human sense of dread re-entered my mind. Hindsight is so easy for me in this moment to tell my former self that I am letting the enemy win as I despaired. But the humanness of the moment still rings true to many parts of my human understanding and  I can still feel the burn of resentment at the crime having been perpetuated and committed while my own bride was asleep in the room where the device was stolen.

Our whole life was “seemingly” on that phone. Our path to the outside world. The ability to talk to other missionaries in WhatsApp (our preferred method of communication) our contacts, our emails, our bank info and our passwords. The ability to buy plane tickets out of here, the ability to lose myself in a world that was not HERE.

And yet somehow one of the biggest things that hit my heart was that so many of the memories from our new life were on that device. The family photos from Daniel’s time at Big Woods as an infant, to our recent move to L’Asile were all lost to the abyss.

“A thief comes to steal and destroy.” There was not a feeling of abundance in the loss of this device, but I knew there was something more to this moment that God was letting me suffer through.

It took a few days to realize we had an old iPhone that I brought along for the music it contained. Even saying these words makes me realize how wealthy we are and seem to be to those among us here in Haiti. 

We had the ability to use another missionary’s phone to request our old device be unlocked via the internet, and with a few lucky guesses at passwords online, our request was accepted. In a day or two it would be unlocked for use in Haiti. We got the phone operational on Holy Saturday, and were elated to just have a device back. I was starting to feel “whole” again. The next day would be Easter and we were buoyed by the seeming beginning of returning back to normal contact with the outside world.

 Easter Sunday was a hugely planned feast for the whole of L’Asile and in a special way for our community, as it would be the last large occasion the current missionary crop would be together. Our community leaders The Quinns were leaving, as well as Anna, a single missionary who had served here for the last year. 

What can one say about Easter Sunday in your first foreign missions post? 

It was AMAZING- the homily was only 25 minutes and the announcements afterwards a brief 10 minutes! In a moment blessed by God our Easter mass was only a brisk 2 hours, and then we were on to our feast! (fet in creole)