Changing My Mind.

       This is Yvenante.



 







 She just turned 24 this month. A few months ago she lost her job, lost a place to live, and now can't provide for her daughter, Stesse, who is now living with other family.

     She is one of my very best friends.

      Close to every week, I go with her to visit her daughter. Every week I watch them together. Every week I watch her bring Stesse what she scrounges to find. I watch her bathe her. I watch her feed her, and hold her, and look at her.

                                                               I watch her love her.

             As I watch them together, I imagine the way she looks at her daughter when she has to say goodbye- say goodbye to the baby she can't take with her. I imagine it, and then I watch it. I watch her say goodbye.                                                                                           

        And then we leave and jump on a tap-tap back to Delmas. I squeeze her tightly, and she walks away, while I ransack my my mind for the answers and call upon my God for his promises, trying to trust in who He is, and in what He does. 

What is it to trust Him?

         Ever since I boarded that plane back to Haiti, I have been asking myself that question. Asking myself how I can continue to trust Him above all other things...as my contacts build, as my knowledge grows, as he instills more relationships into my life. Things that all seduce my trust to other sources. How do I keep my trust in Him and not in man, or myself, or in resources?

      "I'm just trusting God with this" a lot of times sounds so hopeful, like people are just hoping on God, but aren't actually trusting Him. Hope that's not assured at all.

  I feel like trust is this thing that Christian circles tend to throw out there when they are out of options, when it's their last resort.
        I started asking Jesus to teach me. To teach me how to trust Him undoubtedly, to have my trust lie in Him before and above all else, and to teach me how to trust Him, even in my untrust.
        And He has.
                    Gently. Fixedly. Surely.


     
          The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
                                                                            1 Corinthians 2:14-16

                          In the three months of living at the orphanage, God changed my heart fiercely- what I cared about, how I began to love, what I started to deeply desire for the world. And now?
              He's changing my mind. Changing how I think, how I see and look at things, how I make decisions, why I make choices. He is taking over my mind. And it is absolutely terrifying.
             Sometimes I feel like he sits beside me, baffled along with me, as we watch as I wrestle to give Him control over my mind. It's like he asks in a whisper, "Why are you so afraid to give up your mind, when you have let me come in and take control over your whole heart?"    
       
         I have heard a lot about Jesus renewing your mind, and have been reminded of that verse we all know that coincides with it in Romans. I have felt Jesus renew my mind over the years, have experienced Him changing how I see things and think through things.
             But never has it been like this.

          I feel as if my arms are high above me, clinging to nothing but the One above me- watching from the back of my mind as He thinks for me in the front, watching, wincing, and saying, "okay", as he chooses for me.
         Turn down the things that would make you trust in them instead of me. He says that to me, and everything about a single day will change. And suddenly Im turning down job offers, and things that make perfect sense, and am making choices that I know will lead to sickness, heartache, and trouble.

       
         Jesus was being Jesus, and was preaching and healing and doing superhuman things, so much that the crowds were almost crushing him in the attempt just to touch his robes. There wasn't even space for him to eat. They kept following him and following him, and when his family heard of it, they went out to seize him, saying, "He is out of his mind!"

       
Jesus has made me into a fool. He continues to strip me of the things I take pride and solace in. There are times when I don't feel smart, or healthy, or beautiful. I think of Jesus, naked, exposed, and shamed on the cross, and begin to start accepting those parts of life that I have agreed to by choosing to follow Him- accepting those moments when people tell me that, "I am out of my mind." When I feel embarrassed over sickness, when I feel shame for choosing what looks like the uneducated and naive decision, when I feel hurt when someone rebukes me for getting myself into messy situations.

           Sometimes I don't realize when the intensity of my driven spirit can start to take over my life. So much so, that I will be so focused on all the things I need to do, to figure out, all the things that I need to learn in order to live here, and do in order to serve my friends here, that I forget to enjoy it.I forget to enjoy the life Jesus has called me to, and all of the beautiful moments He lavishes upon me every single day.

            Like realizing when you hit a new level of understanding in the language, or how it feels to make someone smile here and to feel like you somehow gave them some hope, even if it's just for one  day. What compassion and real, unutterable love feels like to run inside your own body. To be blessed with opportunities to hold and give love to malnourished babies that weren't cared for, or to cross into the Domincan Republic and visit a new country, or to live on an island where mountains steal the air from your lungs and the ocean brings rest for your weariness.
             I forget to laugh along with the life Jesus dreams out for me- one where I can laugh with him, as rats fall out of trees next to me, and red ants invade all of my prized nutella.
              It is overpowering not knowing what to do when your friend misses her baby, or you find out she's on the street, and it is exhausting to leave the kids after weekends or days spent with them, and your heart is ripped from its place over and over again.
             

                I spent the weekend at the orphanage the other week, and there was a moment when Tanya ran to me outside while everything was a total chaos with running children, soccer battles, and bath time. After holding her for a while and watching it all, I set her down and looked at her, taking all of her 3-year old self in.
         












         I memorized every curve and feature of her face, and said to her, "I love you, do you know that?"
             She smiles at me, and says, "Wi (yes)."
            "Jesus loves you, do you know that?"
            "Wi!"
            "Do you love him?"
             "Wi!"
            "Why?" I ask her.
            She looks at me, and grins her huge grin, "Paske li zanmi m'!" (because he's my friend!)

            Moments like those are worth it all, and are when I learn much about Jesus, by learning who He is to another human being. And to my little three-year old in the orphanage, He is someone who loves her and is her friend.

           God comes forth and breaks into moments of this life and restores, and heals, and makes beautiful that which was full of darkness. He is a friend to the orphan.
           He is a friend to Tanya.
           And if that isn't enough reason to trust Him with not only my heart, but also my mind, then I don't know what is.

                *If you are interested in getting involved to help Yvenante, please contact me.*
                                     

Foxes Have Dens

    I tucked them in, squeezed them each tightly, and whispered love into the creases where I kissed their little cheeks before bed. 

       I crawled into the bunkbed with my oldest girl, Lindia, and watched through my mosquito net as they fell asleep. Soon the dim candlelight withered and the room fell to the night, and I was filled. Filled to the upmost with contentment deep in my being.
       
      I was home. With 19 children that hold shackles to my heart. Home in Chrislove and Wood falling fast asleep against my chest, home in the constant buzzing of Creole and no hints of my first language to be heard. Home in being surrounded by little people, and with the distant kompa music as night falls. Home in leaning against Richard, in tickling Micheline, and in being tangled in a mess of tiny limbs and brown eyes every hour of the day.

        Joy nestled itself against the walls of my chest and threatened to unleash my heart from its place.

        But then the night wore on, and on, and the conditions threatened to make me miserable. The rancid smell of urine coated the beds, their clothes, and the entire house. Utter filth covered my entire body and I couldn't distinguish between what was dirt, or sweat, or mosquito bites. Mosquitos screeched next to my head, but most of all, it was HOT. With ten bodies in a little unventilated, equator-weathered room...I laid there with my body soaking with sweat and my skin feeling as if it were being burnt by the sun itself.
          I must have laid there for hours. But for hours full of a longing and parched soul, talking with Jesus in my sweat-drenched sheets. 
          He was with me in the way I so wish I could form into words. I was home in the truest meanings of such a word. I had returned to a place of communion with Jesus that was intimate, sacred, and full of desperate neediness for Him. I had returned home, where I look a whole lot less like me, and much more like the one who is able to form such places inside of me.

        

        "Foxes have dens, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Matthew 8:20

          This scribe came up to Jesus and said, "Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go." And yet, this is how Jesus responded to him. I say this to Jesus all of the time, and just as he knew, this is what I constantly find myself wrestling through.

         Home is something I find myself thinking of quite often, maybe because I have been transitioning almost nomadically over the past three years, or maybe because I can't really call any place "home." When I lived at the orphanage, I began to understand, to intimately know, what it means for Jesus to make a home inside of you, and for that home to be the truest meaning of such a word. But now that I'm not living at the orphanage anymore, I'm learning how to reach that place again, even when I don't feel desperate and needy and lonely.

         So far, my experience in Haiti this time is drastically different from when I was living at the orphanage. I am seeing new parts of Haiti, am on the go constantly, and am experiencing new things every day. It's strange to be living with people who know my own language and culture. It's even stranger to not be waking up every morning to nineteen kids calling my name. Strange isn't the right word for that, it's hard. 

                                                                                                         It's hard to be so close to them, and yet unable to see them every day, but thankfully, I am able to spend more time with them than I had anticipated coming down, thanks to Jesus making the way. 

       

       I'm learning and seeing so much, that I'm finding it almost hard to process and retain everything. From learning basic everyday life skills, to different legal processes, to experiencing riots in the streets against the capital. So many of my questions are being answered, and yet, so many more questioning are just beginning to form.

                  But I am eager and excited, as I consider what possibilities may lie ahead for the kids, and as Jesus whispers more and more about what He may have planned for me to do here.

   It was overwhelmingly hard for me to leave the states this time. The month leading up to my return to Haiti, I felt the weight of what I was actually preparing myself to do- of what it meant to give up my entire world, of realizing the extent of what kind of sacrifices I would be making in my future. To leave my family, my friends, and my community. To be ushered into a life with so many unknowns- void of a culture I was born into, a language I was filled with, and people that I dearly, dearly love. 

        "I bet you're so excited!"

         Over and over I would hear those words, but little did everyone know, that a deep warfare was upon my soul, where my flesh and deep wanting for Jesus collided. I was excited, but more so, my being was heavy with mourning all that I would be sacrificing. 

        This rich young man runs up to Jesus and kneels before him, as I did, and seeks life, seeks life in fullness that lasts forever, and longs to know how to follow him more deeply.

         "And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "You lack one thing, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

         But the man walked away in sorrow and made the choice to keep what he had.

         I was excited, so excited as I looked into Jesus' eyes, and as he opened his hands and beckoned me forward, invited me to renounce what I had, so that He could give me what I really wanted and asked for, which was to know him more deeply.

         But I felt it. I felt all that He was asking, all that He really meant. 

         I guess I had thought people, were the one thing Jesus would never ask me to give up for him. Because Jesus is about people, and community, and a kingdom. 

         But he did. He looked at me and loved me, and asked me to give up the one thing that would actually produce real sorrow and turmoil in my heart.

         I felt the sorrow of that rich man, but the rich man did something I could not, he walked away. Instead, I carried all of my grief, fell hard on the feet of Jesus, and my king somehow put me on that plane.

        This is where I am supposed to be. That is the overwhelming truth in my heart. I am filled with excitement, readiness, and relief. Relief of feeling it all again- of a place so sweet, of knowing that I am exactly where Jesus has asked me to be, and that as much as I stumble and clumsily chase after Him, I'm there, right close to his heels.

         I have never been more scared, baffled, and hopeful in my entire life. 

         He's doing it again, healing my human heart. The past nine months have been full of beatings as He overthrows my heart and tethers more of his ravaging love and inhuman being to my lowly body.

         I am both feeble and strong. Torn by my mourning and ignited by my hope. Scared of just what He is asking of me, and so longing to surrender everything at but a word. I feel both small and unlikely, and yet emboldened and competent. 

       

 This must be what it feels like to be both incredibly human and sinful, and have a Spirit of the living God breathing and living inside of you.  

         "...but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."
          Following Jesus...it's beyond painful. It is to welcome discomfort and sorrow into your life, and to not have a a place that is home. And yet, it is beautiful and full. He loves us that much to not let us back out or choose otherwise. He is a chasing, pursuing, and forever beckoning God that jealously holds us tight against him. He doesn't leave me to myself or abandon me in my struggles with my flesh. I am not alone. And He proves that to me over and over. He is here. Before me, beside me, within me. He unravels the ground beneath my feet to lead me toward Him, towards home.

         And so I look at the sorrow and sacrifices in my hands, and toss them to the wind. And I start running, running to the Lord of all that I am, and ever hope to be like.

        

Returning to Haiti!

       It's happening. It's actually happening!       After seven months of living back in the states- processing, asking questions, seeking God, and stilling my heart- I'm returning to Haiti!











   
     I'm not sure that I could find the words to describe all that it is that I am feeling as this reality sets in. I'm excited. Anxious. Tears come to my eyes as I realize just how soon I will be seeing the kids again. That I will be hearing the familiar hum of Creole around me, and will be reunited with all of the friends and people I built such deep relationships with while I was there.    
         But instead of going on and on about all of the excitement in my heart (which I know I could definitely do), I'm just going to get right to it.

   
       Many of you have been following my journey for a while and know me, know who I am, and what God has been doing in my heart with the Haitian people, and with the children that I lived with and helped take care of in the orphanage in Santo.
   



   



This time, when I return to Haiti, I will not be living at the orphanage. Although I would still very much like to live consistently with the kids, I know that I need to spend time educating myself, learning, and wrestling through some things so that I can hopefully begin to better bring lasting, real change into their lives, and to understand what my role needs to look like with this orphanage, and in Haiti.  

   So after much prayer, seeking God, and discussion with people that I trust, I am excited to be pursuing an opportunity I have been given to shadow a woman who I met during my time spent in Haiti, who is an advocate and lawyer for an adoption agency. I am so excited to tap into the pool of wisdom and knowledge that she holds. Whether thats learning how to run a non- profit organization in Haiti, to how the adoption process really works, to just how to do normal, every-day life skills in the country, there is just so much I am so excited to learn from her.
   


      I am hoping to shadow her for around two months, beginning on October 8th, and I will need to raise $3500 to cover living expenses (as the cost of living is higher in the area I will be living in, Petionville), to cover transportation costs to travel back and forth to the orphanage, and to various other locations, and to covers costs so that I can help pour in to some projects we will be assisting some partnering ministries and friends with.
     
     
       I am trusting that during the course of these few months, God will further direct and lead me concerning many things, especially with that of my role at the orphanage. Unless led otherwise, after job-shadowing, I will then be shadowing at Operation Love The Children of Haiti, which is a larger orphanage in Leogane, where I will be observing what a healthy-run orphanage looks like, and what kinds of things work, and what do not. I would be aiming at raising $1,000 a month to shadow there for a month or two. This would cover living expenses, and to help with needs of the orphanage.
        I am in the beginning stages of serving overseas- of just starting out, and figuring out how all of this works. It can be overwhelming. I am young, with limited resources, and a small knowledge of how to raise the means to do all of what I am feeling so called to.
      And I am young. But with a big call on my heart, an incredible community who urges me forward, and a faithful God who incessantly proves his faithfulness and gives me every reason to always trust that He will come through.
        I am not only looking to raise those one-time support costs, but to begin raising monthly support so that I will be able to continually live and serve overseas. In whatever way you might be feeling led to support me- whether that's by these specific costs, or monthly support, or even by faithfully praying for me as I return to Haiti- know that it encourages me beyond reason. I deeply appreciate all of the ways God provides, especially those in which He uses His people.
        If you feel led to financially support me, please send any checks or monies to:
                                               

   1410 Oregon Hill Grace Chapel

                                         Morris, PA 16938

              with an attached note designating the support to my name. 

          If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to contact me!

       
         Thanks for continuing to walk alongside, and journey with me as I return to Haiti in October!
                                                                  Much love,
                                                                         -Courtney
                                                         courtneydibble@gmail.com
                                                         570-463-2847