Nothing Back...

(8.10.12)

I wasn’t ready to leave Haiti but I never imagined I would be staying for the reason I am…

This is what Mark Stuart, Hands & Feet president, posted on facebook this afternoon….

It is with heavy hearts and deep emotion we are asking for your prayers. Today, August 10th, one of our precious little ones was involved in a tragic accident. Junette Jules, age 6, was pulled under the waves and dragged to sea while visiting the beach during a weekly outing. She has been missing since 1pm CST and is now presumed deceased. Please pray for our children and staff in Haiti as they cling to Jesus through this time.

~Mark Stuart

This afternoon Matt and I, along with our group of four women, took 14 pre-school aged kids to the beach as we do most Friday mornings/afternoons.

The water wasn’t too bad, the waves were a little rough but nothing that caused us to think it unsafe. We’d spent just over an hour in the water, running, playing, “jumping” waves, etc. I went for a walk down the beach with a couple of the kids, which turned into 12 of the 14 : ) and as we came back to where we were swimming Matt was handing out a snack of sour gummy worms. Since everyone was out of the water and seemed to be winding down I thought it would be a good moment to walk back down the beach and take some pictures of a beautiful scene had noticed on the first walk.

As I came back two of the kids ran to me and were saying what sounded like, “gade, anpil banans” (translation: look, a bunch of bananas), and I was kind of confused so I looked down the beach and saw all of our group gathered around near a little restaurant on the beach so I figure someone has a lot of bananas… Then they ask, “kote, Junette?” (where’s Junette?), again wasn’t really sure what was going on. As I get closer to the group one of the ladies ask me if Junette was with me, “no. no one came with me.” And then I get to Matt and he looks a little frantic and asks me “do you have Junette? Where’s Junette? Cadet almost just drowned. Where’s Junette?”

Already long story short we spent who knows how long searching the water, walking up and down the beach in case she’d wondered off. Cam and Craig showed up and the beach with a bunch of our Haitian construction workers, Stephen and Carrie who had been out swimming at a local hotel pool with their kids came out, we were all searching… Matt and I along with one of the ladies came back to campus with the kids and had to face our nannies and children who were waiting for us to see if we’d found Junette. There was wailing and weeping like I’ve never heard before.

The military, and UN eventually came out and were helping search, and to keep the Americans safe as the Haitians who had gathered on the beach were getting mad at us for losing a little girl.

The last of our staff didn’t come back to campus until after 5, so needless to say we are all physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.

We are all telling each other it’s no one’s fault, it was accident, but then we are all beating ourselves up and playing the “what if” game.

What if I hadn’t walked down the beach? What if I had been there? Maybe I would have seen something no one else saw. Maybe I would have been with Junette when she saw Cadet needed help and jumped to action.

What if when Matt asked which beach we should go to I would have say Raymond (where we usually go) instead of agreeing upon Timiage?

What if I’d suggested we leave after having snacks like I was thinking since I was nearly 1?

What if? What if? What if?

But then I have to think about all these little things like the fact that I somewhat “randomly” started reading Job literally two days ago. 

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 1:21b

Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad? Job 2:10

Maybe not so random…

Little things like the fact that I’d already pushed my back to work date back a week; death is not new to me, I’ve experienced the death of loved ones, and though this is completely different I feel a little more equipped to deal with it if that’s really possible.

Over the last few weeks I was re-introduced to a song called Nothing Back, it was not new to me but I hadn’t listened to it in a long time until we sang it at church on the beach a few weeks back. We sang it this past Sunday and last night I listened to/sang it about five times in a row and just said, “God this is my prayer. This is my prayer. Let this be my prayer.”

Here are some of the words to that song…

All I’ve got
All I am
All my dreams and
All my plans
I’m holding back
I’m holding nothing back from you
Whatever it takes
I trust you completely
I’m here in your hands
If you need to break me

I surrender it all
I lay it before you
For all of my days
I’ll give you the glory
You caused me to see
My heart is divided
Lord , take all of me
‘Cause I have decided

I’m not so sure I was ready to be broken in this way.

Something else is that picture I walked down the beach to take... Thinking it was going to be my last beach trip I was taking pictures of the shoreline right where we were swimming. So beautiful with the palm trees, ocean and clouds, but as I was walking back towards our swimming spot on my walk with the kids I looked up (I’m usually watching kids or looking at the ground for cool shells and sea glass) and down the shoreline I saw an amazingly beautiful scene! When you take a step back you don’t only see the palm trees that are right there, you see the majesty of the mountain range, the different levels (for lack of better words, sorry). Anyway, as I looked up and saw that it was as if God was saying, “you thought what you could see right in front of you was prettybut when you step back and see the whole picture it is even more beautiful than what you see close up. You can’t see the big picture but I can and it is beautiful. You see what you need to, but I’ve got the big picture.” I was walking back so I could get a shot of “the big picture” as a reminder of that… And now I cling to the fact that God see “the big picture” and it is beautiful even if I can’t see the beauty right now.

I’ve also already had the opportunity to talk about salvation with two of our kids (on separate occasions) who said they didn’t know if they would go to heaven or hell so I let them know they could know for sure. Pray for the hearts of our children as the next week their hearts will be heavy, hurting, confused, but also fertile soil for planting seeds. These children have already been through so much…

So many thoughts going through my head so there may be more posts to come because I’m sure I haven’t shared everything I was wanting to.

 The close up...

and the big picture (though a photo doesn't do it justice).