Reality in this season.

I can no longer travel freely. 

I no longer feel like I have a choice on what I want to do. 

I can’t be seen on certain roads at certain times. 

No one stateside can come visit me. 

The gangs have spread out and their power seems to have grown too great for anyone to stand up against. 

The people are hungry. 

The hungry are starving. 

The churches are mourning. 

Willing to risk my life to serve here is now a higher cost if that means it’ll affect my children and their future. 

I hired an armored car service to take me home last time I flew in. 

Life as we knew it seems too distant to remember and the new season seems too much like a taste of hell on earth for the Haitians just trying to live. 

And yet I’m surrounded by the most selfless, God fearing, humble Haitians who even with a paycheck I know it’s still hard to make ends meet. 

The Haitian currency was about 40 gourdes to every American dollar when I moved here and now it’s 120 to every 1. Costs have risen. Help has fled. 

And if it wasn’t for the faith we have in the fact that God still holds all things together, we’d think darkness has overtaken at times. 

There are so many good people on this island. They want to work, feed their families, and worship their God… but so much of the good they do is stripped away by the gangs and their terror. 

Going to the grocery store is now scary because of the roads you must take to get there. 

We need a miracle. Haiti as a whole. The future for the La Limyè girls is scary because I no longer can see how one can live like this and still come out ok on the other side. And yet they are so much more stable than our neighbors. 

It’s dark times. 

We do feel safe inside our 4 walls for the most part. Our town has had its flare ups but it’s calm and functioning compared to other places. But the dangers and the poverty in arms reach keep us all on edge. 

And yet we press on. God is still working, I’m stillsurrounded by beauty, and serving Jesus to make His name known is still worth it. 

These people shouldn’t be forgotten and abandoned just because all we see on the news stations is the bad. There’s still hope. I see it with my own eyes. We all need Jesus. 

Please pray for Haiti. The women and men I’ve known for the past 10 + years don’t deserve to suffer like this. They weren’t born with the freedom and ease that I was raised with. And yet they have faith stronger than steel and they know how to calm my fears from their faith in God whenever I hand the devil the reins to my emotions. 

God be with us.