I'm with a friend I met the day we flew to Haiti. Sarah had stayed in Port-au-Prince to run a clinic set up at an orphanage after the earthquake. This is the first time we've seen each other since hugging goodbye under a mango tree.
"Part of it is closure," she says of coming to see our team in California. Like a book you can't put down, we struggle to close this chapter.
We went to the disaster zone expecting to feel the ache of death and despair. Instead, for some of us Haiti became a place of rebirth.
"Haiti awakened something inside me," our friend, Kezia tries to explain. "My life hasn't really been the same since."
Sitting under the mango tree at base camp, I'd told Kezia she was meant to be a storyteller, a desire she'd buried long ago. In Haiti she'd let it stir in her heart again. "I felt like I'd been given permission to dream," she said.
Closed doors. disappointments. failures...our dreams had become ghosts - until Haiti.
Sarah described Haiti as a place "where hugs were bandaids, hands became hope and a song bonded souls." It felt selfish to be with victims who lost so much only to find a song in our souls.
I, too, had abandoned myself to the song. At times I was a writer, at times a nurse's aide, at times an orphan's playmate. Limitations were removed.
I struggle to find words. Kezia does it for me.
"Not being able to express yourself speaks of something new happening inside you. You are letting His purposes be worked out rather than making it fit a model you've seen before," she says. "That is trust."
Walking along the shore, I want to ask Sarah, "It's ok to keep the treasure we found in Haiti, right?" But words are lost among the riches uncovered by the changing tide.
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wow...amazing thots.
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