Monday, Day Four, 29 Apr

Monday (Day Four), 29 Apr

1254p...

Beljou (Beautiful Day)!!

Today's been a great day.  We just got back from the Bohoc weekly market and are getting ready to eat lunch.

This morning began with a devotional led by Ramsay where each of us were challenged to focus on one specific body part throughout the day.  I'd like to throw a big shout out to Stacy Williams of The 410 Bridge, who introduced the exercise to us on our first trip to Bohoc a few years ago.  Since then, we've done the exercise at least two or three times now, and, each time, we've discovered (or rediscovered) just how eye-opening (pardon the pun) the experience can be.  The premise of the exercise is very simple:  Throughout the day, work to pay much closer attention to the one body part assigned to you, be it your eyes, your ears, your nose, your mouth, your hands, or your feet.  For example, if you're "part" is "feet", learn to feel your feet and to feel what your feet feel...the warmth (or coldness) of the floor, how good a clean pair of socks feels, or the sensation that arises from walking barefoot across a field of wet grass.  Practice also being mindful of all the ways in which your feet serve you throughout the day as well as all the ways in which you care for your feet.  If your feet are aching, or if you've injured one of them in some way, pay attention to the affect such a thing has on you and on how you go about things throughout the day.

All of us, as parts of the Body of Christ, are indispensable to the function of the entire Body.  When one part hurts (or is missing), the whole body suffers.  When all parts work together synergistically, it's quite amazing what happens.  A good example of this is how much tastier your food becomes when your olfactory senses combine with your tongue's taste sensitivities.

Oh...lunch is ready, so I'm going to need to go for now.  CU in a bit!!

140p...

Lunch was fabulous:  Beans and Rice.  Well, there was some kind of stew, too, but I couldn't eat that.  It looked good, though.  Anyway, picking up where I left off earlier...

Each of us are relationally unique and valuable (and that's what makes us individuals).  And yet, we are all a part of something far greater and far more valuable than just the sum of our parts.  In the Body of Christ, you really can't separate our individuality from our corporateness or our corporateness from our individuality.  Both are critical.  A foot (whether it's attached to the body or not) is still a foot, but, if it's been severed from the body, it loses its function and cannot survive long.  In turn, the body, too, suffers from such a severing--not just from the amputation injury (which could cause the death of the body if it's not dealt with medically), but also from the loss of the foot function.  The question I urge you to ask yourself (and it's the very same question I'm asking myself) is this:  To whom or to what are you uniting yourself (basically, your "part" of the body)?  To yoke with anything other than Jesus and His body is adulterous.  Another question to ask (and, in many ways, it's similar to the former) is this:  What parts of the Body have you severed yourself from or sought actively to sever from the Body?  Attempting to eliminate or sever one part of the body from the rest is abusive and, I believe, tantamount to murder-suicide in the Eyes of God.  I believe such a thing to be that serious.

Regarding this exercise, I'm looking forward to hearing tonight about the individual experiences of the team.  Even though you probably won't see this post until sometime tomorrow, perhaps you'll consider joining us in the exercise by picking a body part yourself and focusing on it throughout the day.

Okay, I can hardly keep my eyes opened.  I'm going to go take my afternoon siesta.  See you in a bit...

329p...

I just got up from my nap.  Some of us are heading over to Kris Sel Espwa to play with the kids for a while, but I think I'm just going to stay right here and write for a bit.  If it's okay with you, I'd like to return to this morning's activities...

After breakfast and our team devotion, half of us split off to work with the community on cataloguing the children for a new sponsorship program being created by The 410 Bridge.  The other half (myself included) went out into the community to engage in more home visits.  I asked young Benjamin if he would be willing to write a short spot on his experiences with the cataloguing project, and he said he would.  As soon as he gives me his write-up, I'll insert that into an upcoming post.  As I did previously, provided below is a recap of this morning's home visits.  Again, as you read through these, I want to urge you to please pray for these dear people.

Mr. (Joseph) and Madam Inoson

Joseph, who's 65, has been crippled for many years.  Apparently, he suffers from hyper-tension and, about eleven years ago, suffered from a major stroke which left him shriveled and paralyzed on his left side.  As we listened to Joseph share a little about his life, we couldn't help but notice the joy that radiated from his face as a direct result of his deeply held faith in the love and grace of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Joseph asked that we pray for his healing.

Madam Inoson, who's 60, shared a little about her life as well.  She and Joseph married in 1970, when she was just 17.  Together, they've had eleven children, five of which died from (and this a direct quote [as translated by Ronald])  "various afflictions that put them down".  Even though their remaining children are grown, the couple is still surrounded by children, as they are currently taking care of two of their orphaned grandchildren.  Being in ill-health herself, Madam Inoson asked that we pray for her healing as we pray for her husband's.

Mr. Lesdi

Mr. Lesdi asked for prayer for his wife, who's been suffering from eye problems.  Currently, she's in Port au Prince trying to get in to see an eye doctor.  Mr. Lesdi aslo asked that we pray for him as he's been suffering from a fever for several days.

Mr. Soazim

Mr. Soazim is an elder in Ronald's church, and he asked for prayer to help him keep serving his Lord.  He said, "I've suffered much persecution throughout my life.  I want to be like Job and let nothing prevent me from serving God."  He also spoke into our lives by saying, "You are blessed, and God will continue to bless you."

It appears (according to Myron, who's a physician) that Mr. Soazim may be suffering from some form of diabetes, as his legs have been cramping up and his feet and ankles were quite swollen.  Mr. Soazim asked for prayer for healing because he wants to be on his feet and doing that which he needs to do to provide for his family.  Mr. Soazim kept saying, "I'm too young to no longer be able to serve the Lord the way I want to."

Mr. (Toma) Mezido

We were told that Mr. Mezido, who's 56 years old, has been bed-ridden for about six months, and that he's been given several medications to help him feel a little more comfortable.  While we were not told of Mr. Mezido's diagnosis, it appeared to most of us that Mr. Mezido is suffering from AIDS.  It has been estimated that approximately 2% of the population in Haiti are suffering acutely from AIDS.  Mr. Mezido asked for prayers for healing.

Mr. Angon

Mr. Angon shared that he is out of work and looking for a job in masonry.  He asked for prayer that he might be able to find a job so that he can live productively and provide for his family.  (You may not know this, but it is estimated that nearly 2/3 of the Haitian population [children under 18 excluded] do not have formal jobs.)  Mr. Angon asked also that we pray for his four children who are all preparing to take their national scholastic exams.  Performance on these tests are extremely important as how well you do can affect directly how much farther you're allowed to go in school.  In the U.S., poor performance may just result in a student being held back.  In Haiti, more often than not, it results in a child not being permitted to advance to secondary school.

Madam Josez

Madam Josez recently had a cancerous breast removed in order to prevent the cancer from spreading to other parts of her body.  She asked that we pray for her recovery and that everything will heal up as it needs to so that she can fulfill the will of God in her life.

Okay...I'm going to head over and play with some of the kids at Kris Sel Espwa for a while.

Nap we' pita (C u later)...

30 Apr, 406a...

The other day I wrote how I'd like to take a few minutes to write a little about some of the ways in which I've been praying into the redemption of Haitian culture.  Since I've been up for a while and have a couple hours before the rest of the team is up, I'm going to redeem the time and write for a bit.  (Forgive the length of this!!)

As I shared the other day, those who suffer from material poverty, while, when asked, they will mention their material lack, they tend to focus mostly on how their condition makes them feel.  Unseen words such as shameful, hopeless, inferior, powerless, humiliated, terrified, depressed, socially isolated, abandoned, voiceless, and taken advantage of are all apt descriptors of ways in which the materially poor say they often feel.

As I wrote, too, life is all about relationships:  One's relationship with God, with oneself, with others, and with the physical world.  The fall of man, unfortunately, damaged all four of these relationships.  Poverty, when viewed systemically, is really the result of a breakdown in all four of these relationships.

My heart truly breaks for my Haitian friends as many of them feel trapped and see no way out of their impoverished conditions.  The question I have to ask myself is this:  How does the gospel of Jesus Christ salvage and transform their lives in the here and now?  This is something I've been thinking about and praying into for some time now.  What I'm beginning to conclude is this:  While reconciliation in all four of the above relationships is, of course, needed, two specific arenas of reconciliation are beginning to feel paramount to me:  (1) Reconciling with themselves; and (2) Reconciling with their environment.

Reconciling with Themselves

As strange as this might sound, for many of my Haitian friends, I believe a complete revamping of the image they hold of themselves is required.

In Genesis 1:26, God is recorded to have said (possibly, within the context of the conversation taking place continually within the Godhead), Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.

To be created in the image of anything is to be fashioned in accordance with that thing, much the way a world-class artist might reproduce a Monet original, such as Autumn Effect at Argenteuil, or the way a skilled artisan might reproduce a Stradivarius violin.  What strikes me about God's creative endeavors, though, is this:  (1) That He Himself is The Original; (2) That everything He creates is a masterpiece in and of itself; and (3) That His masterpieces appear to be "asleep" (or partially asleep) until awakened, much the way a brilliant piece of music awaits a musician or an orchestra to add personal energy and creative interpretation to it.  In other words, it's as though God desires continual, almost "outside", input to complete, personalize, and, in a sense, bring to solid form (or maturity) that which He's created.  For some reason, the participation of others in the "awakening" of His creative works is something God seems to find extremely delightful.

In the Old Testament, one of the principal ways in which God reveals Himself is through the unveiling of His many Names, each, of which, represents a different facet (or, perhaps, several facets) of His infinite Personality, Character, and Nature.  The loftiest of all the names with which God identifies Himself is found in the four-lettered Hebraic Tetragammaton:  Yud Heh Vav Heh.  Known in Jewish culture as "The Shem Havayah", YHVH can be translated "The Name of Existence", "The Eternal One," or "He in Whom All Existence Finds its Source and Continued Beingness".  Most English versions of the Scriptures translate The Shem Havayah as The LORD or by the Personal Names, Jehovah or Yahweh.  While I prefer the personal name Yahweh, I believe Jehovah to be an equally valid linguistic rendering of the unpronounceable YHVH.  The Shem Havayah is, indeed, the Name above all other names, and it is reserved only for the Supreme God of the Jews:  Jesus, the Almighty and the Creator of the heavens and the earth (see John 8:58).

From Genesis 1:26-27, it seems clear to me that mankind was created by God and that we were created and fashioned after His likeness, and His alone.  God, and God alone, was (and still is!) The Original Proto-type after which we were originally fashioned.

It is more than just interesting to note that throughout Genesis 1 (including 1:26), the Hebrew word translated God is NOT YHVH, but, rather, the less specific (and masculine plural) Elohiym, pronounced EL-oh-heem, which, in its most literal translation, means "Masters (plural) of Strength" or "...of Forces."

In John 4:24, Jesus said, "God is spirit…", meaning God is a being without bodily existence.  As such, for us to have been created in the image of God, most likely, does not mean we were created to look like God in terms of our physical appearance (because, of course, God doesn't exist with a physical body).  Rather, I think it means we were created to be a manifest representation of God's Spirit, so that aspects of Who God is could be beheld and observed directly.  Who we are, as body-spirit beings, represents God in His ability to be in relationship—within the unity of the Triune Godhead and also with the entirety of creation.  It is this ability to relate to others that, in many ways, defines God's Personhood.  Being created in the image of Jesus the Person means also that we possess many of the same capacities, powers, and endowments He possesses.  By capacities (and this is not an all-inclusive list), I mean His ability to receive, to absorb, to exchange, to retain or contain, and to forgive and release; by powers (and, again, this is not all-inclusive), I mean His ability to control forces and to exercise dominion (or mastery) over Himself, creation, and the principalities and powers in the physical and heavenly realms; and by endowments, I mean His ability to observe, to think, to dream, to feel, to desire (generatively), to self-reflect, to be grateful for, to love, to desire goodness for another (and to participate in the bringing about of that goodness even at great risk or cost to Himself), to exercise judgment, to express Himself creatively, to act (in His humanness) above and outside of primal reactions and drives (see Luke 22:42), to contemplate, to adore, to value, and to be devoted to another.  My friends, the ability to be in relationship with others and to possess the many capacities, powers, and endowments illuminated above are of God and, by the touch of His Hands and the life in His Breath (see Genesis 2:7), they are of us, too.

As startling and as controversial as this might read, we as human beings comprise a race of elohiym (little "e") created in the image of the Elohiym of all elohiym (see Psalm 82:6 and Jesus' Own Words in John 10:34-38).  If this is the case (and I believe it to be so), we human beings, in our relational abilities and in our other capacities, powers, and endowments, so closely resemble God in these things that, at times (and by design), it can be difficult to distinguish between us and Him, Him and us.  This, my friends, is what I believe God had in Mind when He made you and me.  He desired a family (and an army, too) of loving, powerful beings who could think, feel, act, and relate just the way He does and who could exercise dominion and mastery not just over themselves but over the forces of the physical and spiritual worlds.  Jesus as a human was this way (see Mathew 4:23-24, Matthew 9:1-7, Matthew 14:22-36, Matthew 17:14-21, Mark 1:29-34, Luke 7:11-17, Luke 8:22-25, and John 11:38-44), and it was He Who said that we would do even greater things than He did (see John 14:12).

Now, of course (and quite obviously), there are significant differences between us and God (YHVH).  We are NOT The Shem Havayah.  No.  God, and God alone, is "The Eternal One".  He is, has been, and will always be the Supreme Creator, the Breath of Existence, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, and the Elohiym of elohiym.  We, on the other hand, are creatures begotten of and made by God, and there was a time when we (as created mankind) did not exist.  Even though God (as The Shem Havayah) is so infinitely beyond us, it is my belief that, because we bear the image and likeness of Elohiym, we resemble and emulate God about as much as any created beings can.  As such—and in submission to Elohiym, because we have many of the same qualities and endowments of Elohiym, we are empowered to act just as God might if He were the one doing the acting.  In fact—and I find this intensely fascinating, even though God wishes for us to act and to represent Him as His agents (and to do so freely), the ordered arrangement He's set in place, paradoxically, places Him as the middle-source, or "hub", of all life and power (see acts 17:28).  This divine order, which was initiated before the beginnings of time, has not changed, my friends.  Much of what God has been doing in the affairs of mankind (even from the very beginning) has been geared toward restoring such order completely.

The path of reclaiming God's image is, I believe, found in following Jesus, and, through such a following, reconciling with our own humanity.  As paradoxical as this might read, I am convinced that the more we become like Jesus in His humanity—especially in His relational abilities and in His endowments, the more truly God-like we become.  As I wrote above, our humanness is intended to be one way through which God wishes to manifest Himself uniquely in the universe.  In creating the human soul, God added a physical dimension to the divine that was almost impossible to behold by those created prior to us.  As the Scriptures read, The angels long to look into such things (1 Peter 1:12).  In a nutshell, we (as relational humanity) are a metaphoric expression of Who God is in His Beingness and Trinitarian Relatedness.  Our love for God and others, the humility of our dependency in relationship, our creativity, and our physical labors echo God's lovingly creative and relational work and allows those who observe such things to have a finite example (one that they can wrap their minds around) of the infinite relatability, loving-kindness, humility, and creative work-ethic of Almighty God.

When asked to describe God's character and nature, many will use words like "loving", "just", "holy", "all powerful", "all knowing", and "everywhere present".  When describing His positional loftiness, many of those same people will acknowledge that He is Lord and King over all, that He is the Master of the universe, and that He is the Shepherd and Husbandman of souls.  How, I ask, are these qualities manifested in mankind?  To answer this question, we must begin to look to Jesus, for, as I wrote above, He is our Prototype, and it is He, Who, in His humanness, models for each of us what it means to be an image-bearer of Elohiym.

In the Scriptures, we read in Hebrews 12:2a, Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith; and, along those same lines, we read in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (NASB), But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.  To reclaim our true humanity as image-bearers, we must look unto Jesus intently and see Him as He is.  As marvelous as it might seem, we become like that which we focus upon.  Unlike any other machines or organisms on earth, we can, by choice, service ourselves, evolve, and shape how and why we operate the way we do.  The key to this shaping (or reshaping) is found in Jesus, and, more specifically, in our seeing (or beholding) Him as He is.  For, as the above verse in 1 Corinthians 3 indicates, transformation occurs as we behold Jesus in His glory.

So, where does all of this play-in to my prayers for my Haitian friends?  Good question.  I think it all boils down to their reclaiming their true and rightful position as image-bearers of the Most High.  As such, my prayers have begun to focus on their complete reclamation of their humanity through their focusing on and becoming more like Jesus in His humanness.  This, I believe, is absolutely critical.  As such, it's my plan to pound on the gates of heaven and plead with God to expand the oasis of His very kingdom within the hearts of my dear friends here in Bohoc.  It's very interesting to me how so much about a culture is reflected in the language of that culture.  I've been spending a lot of time recently in the Haitian Creole New Testament.  Recently, in working to memorize The Our Father Prayer in Creole, I discovered that the second part of Matthew 6:9, which reads, Nou mande pou yo toujou respecte non ou, quite literally, translates as follows:  "We beg of You (almost to the point of a demand) to let all creation abide respectfully in Your Name."  As such, it's my specific intention to begin begging God to enable my Haitian brothers and sisters to do just that.

Reconciling with Their Environment

The rainy season in Haiti has been declining over the last several decades.  As such, it's become much shorter, and the individual rain events have become far more intense, resulting in much greater runoff (which creates significant surface erosion as well as flooding) and far less soaking of the earth.  This appears to be a direct result of what I would characterize as the systemic deforestation of the entire nation of Haiti, and it is this very thing that has further poisoned their water and literally stripped the herbaceous landscape of the fertileness it once had.  As I pay attention to what's going on around me, it appears to me that the Haitians are caught very much in what I might call a Catch-22.  They need wood to cook their food, to boil off the poisonous parasites in their water, and to help them make a living, but with each tree they fell, they propel themselves just that much closer to the precipice of total environmental catastrophe.  As much has been written already about such things, I will limit my thoughts to just this:  I believe that (conscious of it or not) the Haitians are at war with their environment; I also believe that they're losing.  The peace (harmony and wholeness) of God is needed to not just end the war but restore order.  But this will only come about as the men and women of Haiti begin to surrender to God and allow themselves to become conduits of that very peace.  Pray with me, will you, that God will raise up a generation of peace-makers in Haiti, for as we read in Matthew 5:9, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.  Thinking on this whole concept, I find it very interesting how Paul, in Romans 8, writes that all creation groans in agony as it awaits the revealing of the sons of God.  Again, may God raise up and "reveal" a remnant of peacemakers here in Haiti, and may He use them to bring about the healing of their land (see 2 Chronicles 7:14) and the reconciliation of this particular created order.

I know I've written about a lot of things in this post.  For those of you who made it to the end, thanks so much for hanging in there with me.

God's peace, and have a great day!

More later...

Dave