On fear and trust...

It’s an unwieldy mix of emotions, those feelings that surface when I set foot on the land. You see it’s not just a wide open space anymore. The clock is ticking and the space of time before we're "operational" is growing smaller and smaller. There are buildings now and where there are not buildings I see a thin white thread tied to bamboo fragments outlining the soon-to-be buildings with halting finality. I should be bursting with excitement but instead I feel an unpleasant shade of fear.  

And then there are the walls which continue to make me a bit anxious. In Haiti walls mean rules. Rules decide who comes in and who stays out, and when. Being in charge means that all of this falls under our discretion. I’ve never much cared for walls or rules. This complicates things.

Where was I? Oh yes, my feelings...

"the gallery," an area in the clinic set aside for waiting and learning

(mostly learning while waiting and maybe some praying too)

As we put money, your money, into tangible things like cement blocks and gardens and consultation rooms and toilets and chickens I can’t help but feel the pressure. Will our compound really be able to accomplish all that we’ve set out to do? There’s a goal. Yes. And we have experience with the sorts of things that prevent families from "making it." It all makes sense on paper but.. will it work? Will the buildings be adequate to serve the functions we’ve assigned to them? Will moms get to keep their babies and will lives be changed?

* * *

The discussions are endless as we corral our ideas, turning decisions over and over until they are refined into something that makes sense. The prayer has been the same from the start. God help us to hear you. We trust you and we want to dream and believe on your level of awesome, not ours.

Trust is an amazing thing. I can’t claim to be good at it all the time. But one thing is for sure, it puts things into perspective. To say God you’ve got this and really mean it means that not only do you trust that He is capable but to also trust in the way he is using you and making you capable.

I look at the land and am astonished by how much has been accomplished in just four months. I can’t help but grab Jenn by the shoulders and tell her I’m proud of her. I’m proud of her for trusting in the way that God has equipped and empowered her to face each day and tackle the decisions at hand. She doesn’t have the background, the training, or any sort of former experience that would lead one to believe that she’s the director of operations behind this project. And that’s just it. God's got this.

Earlier today, when those feelings of fear were bubbling within me I took a long hard look at the nearly finished clinic, the perfectly straight cement block walls that seem to stretch on forever, and the bamboo and wood post fences that enclose what promises to be a field of delicious life. It is all more beautiful that I could have ever imagined. The degree of awesome reflected in the finished work points directly to Him. 

We can relax and enjoy knowing that ultimately he is in control…of every detail.

details

scaffolding

the bamboo barricade 

a temporary structure that keeps cows and goats from participating in the block making

and separates the garden area from the rest of the land

help us by praying for the future of this space, might awesome things happen here!

 Proud of her. 

Thank goodness there is someone much bigger and wiser that seems to want this thing to succeed.

So we trust and watch and expect [great things to happen].