Kindra's Blog: 2015

Though He Slay Me

"...yet will I trust in Him."

-Job

I grew up in a conservative Christian home, smack in the bible belt. These are not unfamiliar words to me. Yet they somehow seem to strike me anew each time I hear them.

"Though he slay me"

Though he allow someone to murder me while I'm sleeping in my bed. Though he allow me contract AIDS through my work here. Though he allow me to be burnt at the stake for my faith.

"Yet will I trust in Him."

To trust my Savior - trust that He's ultimately working for my good - in the midst of a raging disease or ravaging fire would be difficult. Especially if I was facing the council that Job faced from his friends and even his wife.

But I still believe that trusting him for my personal life must be miles easier than trusting him with the lives of those around me.

Though he slay those whom I love most.

Can I still say that, withholding nothing?

Though my little niece fights meningitis in another country, thousands of miles from me. Though I watch cancer wreak havoc on my mother's health. Though my grandmother is rushed to the emergency room, yet again, and I'm left helplessly unable to do anything to help.

Though the patient that I've poured my everything into doesn't make it. Though my friend that has been fighting an illness for months finally gives in to that illness.

Through it all. Can I lean on God's unfailing strength and never question why we need to face pain here on earth? I can't yet say that I've attained this absolutely, but I can say with every fiber of my being that it is one of my highest goals.

He is worthy. His arms are strong enough to hold me through the wildest storm. And He knows. He knows what's happening in my life right now, what's ahead, and what's behind me. And, if I can trust him enough to turn loose of a pen that's far too big for me anyway, he is fully capable of composing a far more beautiful song with my life than I ever dreamed possible. A melody that points people to Christ.

So I'm letting go. And I'm gonna stand back in awe as my heavenly Father takes full control of the pen.

Because I've seen the masterpieces He's created out of the lives of those fully surrendered to Him.

And I can't wait to see where He takes me.

-Kindra

6:59 PM
0 Comments

Toni

What do you say when you are staring into the face of raw, jagged pain? When a sister is crying out her agony, asking who's going to sleep in the bed that her brother always occupied? When a mother is calling for a child that is no longer going to answer that call? Locking eyes with a young man, and seeing the pain that he's trying to hide as he helps build his older brother's tomb?

Toni (To) was only twenty-six. A time in life when most young men are working on their houses, thinking about marriage, dreaming about the future.

To, during his time at the clinic.

He was our patient, but more than that, he was our friend. He had spent around a month here at the clinic with us, before we finally made the difficult decision that we really could do nothing more for him here than they could do for him at home, so we watched with teary eyes as they carried him away. Teary eyes, because we all knew what the end result of his illness was likely to be. To be honest, I never dreamed he could have made it as long as he did.

He was so happy to be back at home. We stayed in contact with him and his family, with us going to visit him, and his younger sister coming to us to pick up meds for him. And oddly, in the last few months, he seemed to be an almost entirely different person than the one that we knew at clinic. He would talk animately, telling jokes, and laughing with us and his mom.

He told her yesterday, that he isn't really hers; that he was going to leave her. Not to cry too much, and that God would send her another child in his place. He's a believer - she's not.

Her master is harsh and unforgiving - his gentle and loving.

Toni knew where he was going when he died, and he knew he was dying. But that death did not scare him. He was leaving his pain and troubles behind and going to join his father in a land far more glorious than we can imagine.

And I believe he is there now. Worshipping his Creator. Singing hallelujah.

So I cheer for him, that he got to go. And weep for the ones he left behind. My heart hurts for them. It hurts that I'm not going to get to go visit him at his house again. That I won't be able to tease him again, when he comments that whenever a girl is in front of him, he forgets what he wants to say. I won't get to listen to his tales of crazy people and zombies. To laugh at his jokes, and sing with him.

When we were leaving the last time I was at his house, I told him that I would see him again - if not here, then up There.

And I am looking forward to it, To.

I'll see you again someday.

-Kindra

8:31 PM
0 Comments

Dark Nights and Miracles

It is late, and darkness shrouds the group digging the hole intended to be the final resting place of the man lying bound on the ground nearby.

He is to be buried alive.

Not far away are people whom he's never met, begging God for a miracle.

Begging for God to intervene in the life of the man who is paying the price of his sins. Pleading for someone - somehow - somewhere - someway - to be able to reach into his life and show him Christ's love before it is too late.

And God - as he always does - answered those prayers.

But let me go back to the beginning...

There was a thief that has been robbing the homes of a nearby community, making it difficult for people to leave their homes unguarded for even the short time needed to go to church. They set a trap for the thief yesterday, using potatoes.

Needless to say, the trap worked.

After catching their victim in the act, they proceeded to debase him in every way imaginable. Then they forced him to walk to the kasek's (our local authority) house, beating him when he fell due to weakness from loss of blood and sheer exhaustion. I don't know exactly what happened there, but I do know that he was eventually turned back into the hands of his captors.

Sometime after, they decided to walk him to Petit Goave, and started off with the ever-weakening man in tow.

We'll probably never know the timetable exactly, but it was at some point around in here that Janell came into the room where Whit, Mali and I were talking and said that she couldn't get this thief that we had heard had been captured, beaten, and left in the hands of the people out of her mind. We had by that point all spent time praying for him separately, but she reminded us of the verse "where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be in the midst of them".

So with sober hearts, and the knowledge that by that point it may well have been too late (angry Haitians who do not know Christ can be absolutely ruthless), we bowed our heads and pleaded with God for his mercy on this unknown man's soul.

Out in the darkness of the night, the man was no longer able to walk by the time he reached the riverbed not too far from here. After dragging him a little farther up the trail, they apparently abandoned the idea of taking him the whole way out to to Petit Goave.

The grave-digging commenced.

I cannot imagine what that man must have been feeling, as he lay there and listened to the sound of his funeral. Knowing that he was to placed in that hole, and buried alive. Knowing that he was about to enter eternity.

Suddenly, and for no obvious cause, most of the group digging the hole freaked out and decided to go home, leaving just a few guys to drag the thief back to the biwo that serves as the local holding cell for law-breakers to spend the night.

Some would call it pure happenstance. Some would call it simply fate.

I say it was God, answering the prayers and tears of his children.

But it gets better. The next morning, both Donny and Mali were gifted the opportunity to shine our Father's love into his dark and empty life when we were asked if a nurse could come to bandage his wounds before they sent him out the trail on a moto.

We'll probably never find out exactly what happened in his heart when he felt their kindness in the midst of the hatred being showered on him. I doubt we'll ever see him again, and perhaps never hear exactly what becomes of him.

But this I know - I'll never forget him. The image of his open and incomplete grave will be with me until the day I die.

His memory will forever be a mixture of a dark night, salty tears, pleading, pain, Frederson Joseph singing "Delivrans Ou Nou Bezwen" (We Need Your Deliverance)...and then the realization in the morning that our Father had given us exactly what we had been asking for.

Darkness mixed with light. Despair with hope.

Our ever-present, never-failing Hope.

3:33 AM
1 Comments

A Midsping Evening's Musings

What's the point of it all?

What's the point of all the pain, suffering, anguish, and tears?

Yesterday I looked into the eyes of a woman coming to terms with the fact that she is dying, and my heart echoed the pain that I saw there.

Why could we not live a life free from pain and suffering?

A life where mothers lived forever, daddies never left their families, the good guys always win, children never have to pay the price of their parents mistakes, and hearts are never broken. A life free from heartache. One in which we know no evil.

This is the question that I find myself sometimes asking after tough days. Days when I see babies wasting away because their mommy ran away and left them. Days when grandmothers with tears in their eyes tell of watching their grandchildren die. Staring into the eyes of a friend held captive by alcohol. Listening to my friend's pain making its way down her cheeks, as she realizes that the one time she gave into temptation with her boyfriend means she will now be becoming a mother; less than a week after being forced to say a final goodbye to her own mother. Days when I find it that my mother is now fighting two separate types of cancer. When I find out about how, just a few days ago, two schoolchildren walking by someone's garden decided to eat a few mangos....and how the price they paid for that decision was their lives, as the man to whom the mangos belonged decided to take the law into his own hands. And how the schoolchildren's families retaliated by taking the lives of three more children belonging to the man. FIVE innocent children. My heart breaks for each one of them.

I find myself on my knees, asking the only One who has the true answers to all my questions one single thing - "Why?"

And the answer is always so glaringly simple.

"It's because of me, my beloved."

Because it's those hard times that force me to my knees, crying in pain and anguish, begging for help.

Because without it, I fear that I would live a happy and carefree life in which I would never realize my need for a Heavenly Father.

Because I would go laughing to my doom.

I'm not perfect. I still forget sometimes. But I'm learning.

I'm learning to turn my face up into the rain when it pours down, and praise the maker of the rain. To see the beauty of the storm, when viewed through the right eyes.

To hear the love song in the downpour.

Just me,

Kindra

6:40 PM
2 Comments

To Partake of Heartache

What does that mean? To partake of heartache...to share someone's grief. To take on their load of suffering and anguish and ease their steps for the time in their life that you're a part of it. To weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. To love your neighbor as yourself and feel their pain as your own.

Christ wept with and for his friends.

I look at the sorrow and suffering around me and fear creeps into my soul. If I allow them into my heart and their sorrow becomes mine, won't it overwhelm me? I have my own suffering to bear, after all. If anymore is added to the load, it seems like it will become more than I can bear.

But I can't harden my heart.

I can't, not just because it isn't Christ-like, but because if I do, I will miss out on the blessing that comes from sharing not just another's sorrows, but their joys as well.

Someone told me recently, after seeing me tear up when telling a patient who had stayed with us for an extended period farewell, that I'm going to have to learn to distance myself from my patients if I want to be able to last here. And I have somewhat. In cases where I know a person is dying, and I can in no way aid the situation by being there, I do distance myself. But if I see someone who needs a nurse, or simply a shoulder to lean on or hand to hold, I cannot stand back and ignore it.

I was called to this place at this time by a God who's grace is sufficient.

If I can't trust the One who called me here to supply what I need to do what He's called me to do - I might as well go home. Call it quits, turn in my nursing license, tuck my tail between my legs, and run for Tennessee.

I love my job here.

Yes, there are days where I hide in the storage room at the clinic because I don't want all my patients to see me crying. There are days when it feels like not a single one of the patients in the blood pressure program are doing what they are supposed to or are coming for their appointments when they are told to. There are days when there is nothing I would rather do than to curl up on my bed and ignore the knocking on the gate at some ungodly hour.

But then there are the good moments. The really good, joy-filled moments that remind me why I'm here. The friendships that I'm slowly but surely forming. The opportunity to pray for a badly injured man we were transporting out to a larger hospital (that was a day really deserving of its own post - if I'd ever get around to writing it). Eating the meal that a friend of mine had invited me to her house to cook with her, when she took pity on my decided lack of knowledge regarding Haitian cooking. Watching one of my Haitian "brothers" that I wasn't sure would ever be able to walk again take his first steps. Times of sharing our hearts amongst us staff. Seeing the neat scar that is all that remains of an once ugly wound. Being able to tell a person who's blood pressure was once totally uncontrolled that they no longer need to come for their "rendezvous tanson", since their blood pressure is now staying within normal limits without medication. Having a good friend of ours joining us at church. Seeing the old grandpa that lives across from the clinic and is totally blind sitting outside working on braiding rope, and watching his face light up when I stop in to say good afternoon - he's smart as a whip and knows all of us nurses by our voices. Joining in with the chorus of raised voices and hands at church....