{rice, beans & love}

I am finishing up a two and a half week trip in the US and to say it has been a whirlwind would be an understatement. My first week was full of just adjusting and seeing friends. I was able to get away with my sister for a couple days and go shopping and to a college football game, where we met up with some of my friends from college. I got to eat my favorite pizza with my aunts and drink a beer with my best friends from high school. I love all of these things and I love being with people who reenergize me, but the longer I am in Haiti, I have realized, the harder it is to “fit” back in.

And as hard as it may be, I would not have it any other way. My wish is that more people would struggle like I do. More people would wake up in the sleeping church, remove their blindfolds society has slapped on us, and allow our hearts to shift from wanting more, needing more and succeeding more to less and less of us. If only we could have a shift in our hearts and focus on what is at the core of God’s heart: the poor, orphaned, widowed, needy, naked, and hungry.

Jesus says in Matthew 9:37, “the harvest is great, but the workers are few.”

If only we could rise up and take care of the people in our world. The harvest is great, but the workers are few.

America just amazes me every time I come back. The restaurants, the casinos, the stadiums, the malls. All the events, concerts and fairs. The clubs, gyms and activities. What amazes me more is the people in all of these places.

I ate in multiple restaurants the past couple weeks, went to a brand new Hard Rock Café casino to watch a band, went to two different college football games, and walked down all the aisles of the mall. All of these things at my disposal, realizing these are very normal things for any of us, but concepts so many people around the world will never see or imagine.

And, I watch all the people at all of these events and wonder how many of them know what the rest of the world looks like? Do they know of the suffering? The hungry? The orphaned? Do they know how great the harvest is? Do they know what their potential in changing the world and becoming a worker?

I surely don’t think we do. Not in this society. Not in this America. Not in all the wealth. Not in all the distractions. We have all the resources, money, education, creativity and technology we could ever need to make us the generation of workers God is calling us to be. In our homes and families. In our communities and school. In our world full of darkness and sin.

I head back to Haiti tomorrow and every bone in my body is anxious to see my husband and children. I miss the kids at Tytoo and my little ones in the village. I miss morning prayers at ViBella and all my friends in the village. I miss speaking a different language and the Caribbean heart. My life is in Haiti and although I won’t ever be able to figure out America, I sure do feel grateful for where I come from. But, more than that, I feel blessed to have been able to travel back and share with so many people what is on my heart and share with familiar and unfamiliar faces about Jesus’s works and miracles in my own life.

Tomorrow, I leave for the home where my heart is. A place I feel destined to be. Today, though, I say yes again to Jesus. I say yes to the calling and purpose God has put before me. I say yes to being his worker and gathering the harvest.