Mission Moment from Haiti

Back from Haiti

-Lynn Twitchell

I arrived in Port au Prince and met other team members at the airport. We learned there was a team of engineers going to the same project so we waited outside the airport with them for the rest of our team and to be picked up by Grace International representatives. I learned fast why I was told to wait inside the airport. There were “porters” anxiously waiting for a tip by “helping” us with our bags – whether or not we wanted their help. After a rather long, hot wait and much confusion, our guide and guards arrived with our transport, which we later referred to as “the cage,” picked up 15 members of my team along with 16 members of the other team and our luggage and took us to Carrefour: an hour and a half ride only about 10 miles away.

We pulled up to a locked, metal gate, honked the horn at which the gate was opened and we drove in to see our home: a hospital, still under construction. We stayed on the second floor. I shared a room with the 7 other women on my team. 

The view from our window was of the tent city which was non-existent before the earthquake. It’s hard to imagine 15,000 people living in an area of less than 10 acres in size. I don’t have to imagine it, I have seen it. I do still find it hard to believe.

Grace International is an impressive organization. They have accomplished much, especially when you consider all the obstacles they face being in Haiti. (You may check it out and see for yourself by going to http://www.graceintl.org) Our guide and security guards brought us through the tent city at Grace. Tents? Most were tarps (stamped with the organizations that had donated them: USAID, Samaritan’s Purse, UNICEF, etc….) folded over wooden frames. They are quite well organized: there is a “council” which sets the rules for the “city” and deals with infractions of the rules. There are designated areas for showers, toilets, gathering water, washing clothes, and emptying garbage. This all helps with keeping things clean and disease free. This particular tent city has walls all around it and one has to show an ID to the security guard to enter. This has helped with safety in the “city.

On Mon. we started work. We were loaded into “the cage” along with our tools, and security guards, 2 of them armed, and drove to the site: a 7 acre plot which will have duplex homes for 70 families. Our first task was to move dirt from where a truck had dumped it (in a dry area) through the mud and close to the house. We learned to work as a team right away. We set up a line, some shoveled dirt into the buckets, others passed them to those in line and the person at the end emptied them. Sounds easy right? Did I mention that dirt is heavy and we had to pass through thick mud? Just to give everyone a chance at each task, we had a system to move the line and switch every 15 minutes. Rotate has whole new meaning. Thank goodness we had translators to explain to the Haitian volunteers what we were doing. My stomach muscles should be lots stronger from lifting and laughing.

Moving dirt seemed to be a constant need during the week. We did use wheelbarrows when the mud level decreased so we could put down some boards to walk on. We put fill in the house to level the floor and spread gravel that had been dumped on the “road” so the truck could get closer to the house. (It got stuck during one unloading.) 

Yes, some of us got to use our carpenter skills. When the supervisor found out we had a “carpenter” on the team, he was put to work making a template for the trusses. That would probably be a straight forward task in the US. In Haiti, it’s a bit more challenging. No electricity, no power tools and no wood. Through a lot of negotiating, Jonny, our coordinating contractor found some plywood and enough 2 x 4’s to make a “table” and one truss. It took all day to measure and cut the wood. We only bent a few saws. It is a great accomplishment when one actually gets through that wood. On Wed. the team put up the first truss. HURRAY!!!  That evening we found there were skill saws and a generator that another volunteer team had in storage. We must have looked pathetic after working, as they were very generous and let us borrow them. Boy did that speed up the process. I think we had 8 trusses finished by Fri. (Each home needs 20 so the next team will have plenty of work to do.)

I mentioned we had guards with us everywhere we went. At first this was unnerving, but as we got to know them, and realized they were there to keep an eye on us and to keep us safe, we relaxed and enjoyed getting to know them. Because Haitians are so poor and we have so much, it is easy for people to want what we have … this would include our tools, our water bottles, our cameras, our food and anything else we might bring to the work site. With our guards looking after us, we never worried.

Because the new community is a distance from “Grace Village” and no one lives there yet, we didn’t have much interaction with the future residents. Our homeowners Antonio & Cynthia and Rigaud & Jennette worked with us every day. This meant they were at “the cage” ready to go in the morning as they lived in tent city and were transported with us. Knowing they were working hard to create a new home for their families certainly gave us inspiration to work through the heat of the day.

Our team also was there one day for “The Lord’s Kitchen,” the feeding program where rice and beans are cooked outside in huge pots and over 800 children come with a container and wait patiently to be served their 2 scoops of mixture to take back to their families. For many, this is their only meal of the day. It is not easy to watch the responsibility of a toddler prodded by an older child (of maybe 6 or 8) stand in line so their family may eat.  

I had an absolutely wonderful team. We came from all over the US and Canada and ranged in age from 20 to 72. We worked well together and enjoyed each other. Everyone pitched in and did what was needed. Laughter could be heard much of the time. It is amazing that one can work hard, live in conditions with minimal comfort and feel good about it. Of course, it helps put things in perspective when one looks out and sees how much better we had it than the people who live there. It made it difficult to complain about the lack of water or pressure in the shower when one only had to look out and see “tent city.”  In comparison, we lived in a palace and ate like royalty. I feel so fortunate for the opportunities I have had to go to other countries and experience all I have. I am already thinking about a trip to Haiti next year to see the progress.  My hope is that the people there will have some hope for the future.

For more information about the Fuller Center check out http://www.fullercenter.org/global-builders/haiti  My team is in the pictures. If you look very closely (probably using a magnifying glass) you can see me sawing a board.

What am I clinging to?

So I'm thinking about John 15, Christ the vine & us the branches.
Here's the thing about the branches attached to vines. We need support. We cling to the closest surface:  brick, wood, we'll even wrap ourselves around metal when the opportunity presents itself.
When a vine starts to reach in a new direction, though, the branches either have to go along, often stretching toward a new support system, or find themselves stressing out, breaking off from their source of nourishment on the traveling vine.

Could there be a better metaphor for churches? We get lovingly attached to the places where we've encountered Christ, places whose very walls are saturated with years of spoken word and silent prayer, hymns sung well, and, if we're honest, not so well.  We love the places where we've been challenged and comforted by the Holy Spirit. That attachment can make it hard to see when the Spirit is moving in a new place, much less a new direction in the world.
And our loving attachments  can separate us from those Christ's own heart longs to reach. Remember what the Israelites went through in the desert?  Here's a humorous walk down that memory lane with 1970s Christian pop-rocker Keith Green:

Its amazing how tenaciously we can hang on, even when life starts moving out into the desert, especially when manna is all that's on offer.  Do you remember why they wanted to leave Eygpt in the first place? Now that consumerism defines us, we should at least have a choice, shouldn't we?  Word is that an awful lot of people were finding their church experiences to be more like salvery in Eygpt than freedom on the road. Its the funniest thing, how God seems to beckon from the strangest places just when we're getting comfortable. Have you ever heard of the frog whose pot of water started to get hot?

In the early 1630s, Japanese Catholics were executed, renounced their faith, or were forced into secrecy by the Shabara Rebellion.  When the Mejii Restoration began a couple hundered years later, strange practices began to come to light:  statues of Mary and her child that looked like bodhisattvas, prayers that sounded like Buddhist chant with remnants of latin, Portuguese and Spanish.  When anthropologist Christal Whelan discovered two surviving priests they weren't seaking to each other for some reason.

A new generation found a new way, in the light of freedom to practice their religion. The old ways of the Kakure Kirishitan  (hidden Christians) died off.  They weren't bad ways.  They weren't where the vine was going.  That's an extreme example.

Phyllis Tickle, former religious book editor for Publisher's Weekly, says that about every 500 years Western Christianity has a "yard sale." We pull our traditions out of the attic, dust off some that we've forgotten, set aside some that don't seem to inspire us anymore.  Would it surprise you to learn that we're well into the "uptick" for this 500 year cycle?

What we know and love about our worship isn't the same image held by many who've lef tthe church, or only seen it in movies.  I once had a student who was quite certain that none of his musical interests could possible have any connection to the bible.  He was astounded to learn that one of his favorites, "Let us Pray," by Lil Wayne and Juelz Santana, was based on Psalm 23.  And it was a stretching experience for me to learn that those same words, "Yea though I walk through the Shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me....." were tatooed in their entirely on his chest.  ( I assured him that I trusted his word and didn't need to see for myself).  The music carrying the lyrics moves from the chaos of sin through the wrestling of repentance, and into the peace that abides in assurance of God's love.

Could hip hop songs and tatoos really show us places where Christ the vine is leaning?  Can spoken word express a fresh experience of the gospel.  (find out by seeking out Fred Lynch's beautiful rendition of John 15 in "A Hip Hop Devotional through the Book of John." (I'm happy to loan it out locally.)  Or check out the Christian punk band, The Devil Wears Prada, whose heavy metal, Hey John, what’s your name again video is one of the best theological interpretations of John's soteriology, means of grace by which we are saved, that I've ever encountered.  These are a new support system for a new generation, pointing to why our churches have alot of dwindling congregations meeting in chilly church basements. 
Perhaps this Lent could be a season of stretching toward the Easter light we long for, even if it draw us to explore strange places.  It may be the difference between life and a breaking point for some congregations. 

Children's message

In worship this morning we watched (part of this) with the children's Sunday School question in mind, "who is my neighbor?"  The internet is really slow on the hill this weekend, so we weren't able to finish the video clip.  So for those who saw part and those who saw none yet, here's Sermon Spice's "Set Service."




Thou shalt love the lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself.
The morning message is available at the pastor's blog.

See What? Say Who.

Thoughts on John 3: 1-21

For 2 weeks we’ve heard two powerful healing stories. They're stories that put newly empowered people immediately on the defensive. Local authorities demand they explain themselves.  What happened?  

 To add insult to injury, both the once paralyzed man(from John 5) and the man born blind (from John 9)  are called on the carpet because they were healed on the Sabbath, the holy day, the day of rest.

Here’s what I’ve been wondering this week, 

why do we still refer to them as the “paralytic” and the “blind man”? 

If I’ve been healed, I want to be “the one who can walk.”

I want to be “the one who can see.” 

Are we so focused on dysfunction we can’t quite let it go. 

Labels do seem to linger, don’t they?

Maybe that’s Nicodemus’ problem.  Maybe he and his Council colleagues are so focused on avoiding dysfunction they’re blind, or at least blindfolded, unable to see health and wholeness.

Maybe they really can’t see what’s right in front of them.

Just one, Nicodemus, the teacher who’s supposed to know it all, comes knocking after nightfall.  How embarrassing.  Nicodemus wasn’t exactly living in the era of “lead learners,” after all.

Is he who is supposed to know enough to judge

really creeping in after dark to the house where Jesus invited his first followers to “come and see?” Those followers sought Jesus in the open, in front of God and everyone.  But Nicodemus looks for answers inside, afterhours, when the teacher is alone.

I don’t think he’s using the “royal we,” Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

 Maybe all the leaders of the council really know, on some level, that Jesus is a God-sent, blessed sign, and they just can’t come to grips with what they should do about it.

But I think Nicodemus is part of group of wonderers who are starting to understand their handicapping conditions.  He’s the one brave enough to limp out at night.

Things are different at night. 

In our overly ordered minds,

in the simplest of nursery stories,

day is for wake and work,

night is for sleep and rest.

Even in the age of electricity, these categories guide our expectations,

our body rhythms, our children’s songs and prayers.

Night is time for hopes, and fear, dreams and tears.

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Night is when the desperate, foolish, and cruel enter others’ homes.

Night is when firemen are called out.

In her most recent book, Kate Braestrup talks about this prayer’s origin in an era when pneumonia struck at night.  A child might lay down to sleep and not rise up again in the morning.

Night is when it’s quiet on the hospital ward,

just machines ticking and whirring

interrupted by an occasional siren growing nearer,

a few watchful nurses guarding their patients,

Night is when the veils come off,

when lovers whisper,

when voices whisper instead of shout.

Night is when conversations behind closed curtains

plan protests and shake hands on it.

Night is when candles emerge in public squares,

one, two, twenty, hundreds, thousands,

until they become a mass witness to

the Spirit unwilling to tolerate totalitarian regimes.

Night is when fireworks spray human joy across the sky crying,

yes, yes, yes!

Night is when Nicodemus asks all the right questions

and gives all the right answers,

but does get that he gets it.

[He says], "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it."

 [and Jesus says], "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to—to God's kingdom."

Jesus is not telling Nic he has to be born again

so he’ll be able to process it all perfectly in his mind. 

Jesus is telling him he has been born again;

he sees the signs,

he walked to the right door.

Christians have spent decades asking the wrong question,

“Have you been born again?”

as though it were a ticket to the big show

or a get out of jail free card.”

What Jesus wants to know is

“Can you see what I’m doing right before your eyes?”

“Are you going to take up your bedroll and get going with me?”

Because if you can see me, Jesus says, you can see God.

And if you are coming with me, you are on the path home.

Jesus doesn’t ask Nicodemus what he’s looking for,

Jesus doesn’t make him say what he wants. 

Jesus doesn’t ask Nicodemus what he’s done for God lately.

But there is an important question underlying this conversation. 

It’s a question that lingers when Nicodemus goes back out into the night,

a riddle,

how is Nicodemus like the once upon a time paralytic,

like the once blind man?

Answer, we don’t know.

We don’t know,

because we don’t hear

what he says to those waiting for him at home, at work, at school.

The once immoveable man walked out in the light of day

and said to the leaders of the temple, 

“Jesus did it. 

Jesus made me well.

The once blind man dragged not once but twice, to tell his story,

twice given the chance to justify himself

in the face of growing pressure to disown t

he rule breaking, trouble making Jesus,

looks them right in the eyes and says,

“I don’t know what he did to make me see.

 I do know who did it.”

Is Sabbath for rest that atrophies and immobilizes?

Or is Sabbath remind us of the power God intends to heal,

to find feet,

 sight,

and voices? 

The miracle of the once-blind man isn’t really that his eyes were healed.

 It’s that now he can see. 

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist, writes about patients whose eyesight has been restored, but whose brains can’t process the information now coming to them.  It just doesn’t make sense, the neural pathways are infant, unformed.  They are born again. 
Nicodemus eyes are wide open. Who will he say he has seen?

Brian shared this wonderful poem as the 2-6-11 Call to Worship:

by A. R. Ammons

I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth
and go on out
     over the sea marshes and the brant in bays
and over the hills of tall hickory
and over the crater lakes and canyons
and on up through the spheres of diminishing air
past the blackset noctilucent clouds
          where one wants to stop and look
way past all the light diffusions and bombardments
up farther than the loss of sight
     into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark

And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth
inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes
trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest
     coelenterates
and praying for a nerve cell
with all the soul of my chemical reactions
and going right on down where the eye sees only traces

You are everywhere partial and entire
You are on the inside of everything and on the outside

I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum
has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut
and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark
chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down
and if I find you I must go out deep into your
     far resolutions
and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves

Do You See What I See?

This week's readings in John chapter 2 bring us into two uncomfortable conversations.  One begins with Jesus talking back to his mother (John 2: 1-17).

But this domestic scene is just an appetizer.  The real action begins when Jesus’ get to his God-Father’s house, the temple. (John 2: 18-22)

These two stories cast Jesus in a different light than we are used to seeing him.

We want Jesus to be the good and readily obedient son. 

We want Jesus to be the one who never gets angry. 

We want the powers that be to “get it.”

During the recent holidays, Andy William’s version of the Christmas classic lodged in my inner ear:

From the night wind to the little lamb, do you see what I see?

From the little lamb to the shepherd boy, do you hear what I hear?

From the shepherd boy to the mighty king, Do you know what I know?

Said the king to the people everywhere

Listen to what I say

Pray for peace people everywhere

Listen to what I say

A child, a child, sleeping in the night

He will bring us goodness and light

He will bring us goodness and light

Do you hear what I hear?

I’m propbably not the only one who finds “Little Drummer Boy” more pleasant to sing than the song another king, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, wove into his “I have a Dream Speech.”

            Mine Eyes have see the glory of the coming of the Lord,

            He has trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored…

King declaimed peace that day on the Lincoln Memorial Steps,                  

My people, my people, listen! The battle is in our hands.... So as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before committed to the struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you there are still some difficulties ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering.... I must admit to you there are still jail cells waiting for us, dark and difficult moments. We will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power transformed dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. We will be able to change all of these conditions. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society  at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.... I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again.                                                                          How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
 How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
 How long? Not long. because the arm of the moral universe is long and it bends toward justice. How long? Not long,'cause mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,                      trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.                                           
He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.                                          
His truth is marching on.                                                                                                 
He has sounded forth the trumpets that shall never call retreat.                                       
He is lifting up the hearts of man before His judgment seat.                                            
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet.                                     
Our God is marching on.[i]


Hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic in the context of this speech that changed the world, that changed my world, that changed your world, brings out a whole new meaning in the words. The wrath is not anger for anger’s sake or for entertainment’s sake, or to make a buck or to fill in some emotional vacuum.  

It's only when I hear these words in the voice of those who fight for justice, that I can hear these fighting words as holy words. It's only as we hear Jesus words in the voice of those who fight for justice, that we can hear fighting words as holy words.

When Jesus’ anger pours out in the temple the glory of God is being revealed as the glory of justice.

When John's Gospel was being put on written record, it was seventy some years after Jesus’ crucifixion and death, after the splendid failure of his project in their grandparents’ time,  It's some seventy years after Jesus’ resurrection that reframed the project entirely, Judaism was being forced to recreate itself.  The Romans had driven them out of the temple and taken the place down behind them.

If God was in the temple,

where is God now?

Where do we worship now?

How do we worship now?

Jewish Communities reshaped their sacred centers. Some regrouped in the synagogues planted in the last crisis, the Diaspora.  They met in homes and places of business and simple meeting halls.

Some regrouped around the one who revealed the Glory of God to them.

John’s community, the one forming this gospel wrestles with a fundamental question.

Is Jesus Human, or  is Jesus God?

If Jesus is human, life is so much easier.  They don’t have to endure abuse and charges of blasphemy from their neighbors and family or torture from representatives of the Roman Empire.  They can just say, he’s a great teacher and let it go at that.  Sigh of relief.But then, what did it mean when Jesus said, “the temple will be rebuilt.” Why is that they saw their God, saw their lives so differently when Jesus showed up?

So, is Jesus human or is Jesus God.

The answer was then and is now, “Yes.”

Jesus is the glory of God.

Jesus is a human being having a fully human experience.

Yes.

So how do we live with that yes?

How do we live with a man who got up and walked out of his own tomb, who keeps asking us to see the glory of god revealed in what he says and does?  How do we do that well?

What is success?  That’s a sacred question.

Is success taking on responsibility for the life of the party (and overstepping your role as guest to help your host when he runs out of libations)?

Is success doing what your mother tells you?

Is success the number of projects we manage to finish, the sheer momentum of tasks accomplished?

Is success numerical?  Is more merrier, bigger better?

For Jesus, it seems, success is when the people around him sees what he sees:  his Creator, infusing all of creation with compassion and beauty, and a hunger for justice, a thirst for mercy.

The Prophet Isaiah says (9:1-4)

 But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. ….The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.  For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, …

Do you hear what I hear?

Do you see what I see?

Asks Jesus.

---

[i] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World (Speech given at the end of the march from Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 25 1965)

Do you hear what I hear?

(Hear what I hear, hear what I hear?)

Said the night wind to the little lamb

Do you see what I see? (do you see what I see?)

Way up in the sky, little lamb

Do you see what I see? (do you see what I see?)

A star, a star, dancing in the night

With a tail as big as a kite

With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear? (Do you hear what I hear?)

Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy

Do you hear what I hear? (Do you hear what I hear?)

A song, a song high above the tree

With a voice as big as the the sea

With a voice as big as the the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king

Do you know what I know? (what I know, what I know?)

In your palace warm, mighty king

Do you know what I know? (what I know, what I know?)

A Child, a Child shivers in the cold

Let us bring him silver and gold

Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere

Listen to what I say! (what I say, what I say)

Pray for peace, people, everywhere

Listen to what I say! (what I say, what I say)

The Child, the Child sleeping in the night

He will bring us goodness and light

He will bring us goodness and light .

collecting comments on John

Your Pastor here, scratching her pea brain to re-collect the great comments made in worship on January 16.
They came in three categories.  Help out by filling in what I"ve missed or adding more. (Use the comment box below!)

First impressions of John:

Memorable characters in John:

Questions provoked by the Gospel According to John: