Updates - From July

      It is time to catch up on some blogging.  I have worked on some but have not posted for a time.  Life seems… I don’t even really know how to explain it.  I think I was in a dream, a haze.  About a month has passed now since I married Raphael.  Just saying that seems still very hard to believe.  We had been working on him coming to the U.S. for over a year and a half.  When it finally happened it felt unreal.  Having him here was surreal I would sometimes look at him and be amazed we were together.  And then the wedding… I think I can say I have finally had an out of body experience.  It was like um, here it was my wedding day (?)  I just really never really thought it was going to happen.  And now people say things like wife and husband and I think- is this my life? When did this happen?

 

I have been waiting and wondering what God has in store for us next… not getting a clear response and waiting.  I have been missing Haiti more than I would have imagined and yet life here seems pretty wonderful right now too.  Which way do we turn, now?  Which direction?  We have been working out at Storm Mountain Center (a United Methodist Church Camp nestled in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota).  I have been cooking and Raphael doing maintenance work.  Before starting the jobs here, I had started settling into what will be our home for a year in Vermillion, SD starting in the middle of August.  I accepted a job with the 1^st UMC there working in Campus Ministry.  This is the work I was doing before I went to Haiti.  But I have been impatiently wondering, what does life hold after this year.  Where shall we go?  Are we in Haiti or are we in the U.S?  Patiently or really not so patiently waiting for answers.

            These are the thoughts that had been running through my head.  Then a week ago – bam! I slipped on some stairs.  One moment, one fleeting bleak of an eye and my fibula is fractured, torn ligaments, and surgery coming Monday.   How, What, Why? I have been frustrated, angry, pissed off, determined, depressed, and even grateful.  I said to a friend I was feeling some of these things and she suggested maybe this is God’s way of saying slow down, you aren’t superwomen.  It has had me thinking.  I am of the people that bad things just happen – God doesn’t cause them, will them, or support them.  But, this incident has humbled me even more.  It has made me realize how blessed we are.  How precious life is.  And maybe sometimes things do just happen.

 

I thought I had learned patience in Haiti.  I thought I had learned how to let others take care of me in Haiti.  But now I see maybe I just tolerated it. 

I do think I have a lot of patience, and I really did learn more in Haiti – but again being tested.  I always struggled with letting the family that cooked for me do that for me.  I have always been the helper, I am the one in the kitchen getting things ready, I always pinch in a helping hand and have to stay busy.  In Haiti it was a struggle this new role of having someone else bring me my coffee.

I arrived at Storm Mountain and I was in my element –cooking for others and taking care of others!  Yes, again good.

And now – I am stuck in a cabin.  I have to have someone drive me to meals (because of coarse it is my right foot).  I can’t even grab my own cup of coffee from the dispenser because I have crutches.  I find myself back to my dependence in Haiti.  What does this mean?  What is next?  Well I know one thing – it is a time to catch up on some much needed blogging.  So here we go.  I am going to first post some I had written in the past and not got around to finishing up and then we will start telling some stories that have been left out of the picture.  Hope you enjoy.