streams of mercy, rivers of peace

i almost forgot that today is wednesday.  that means that i have been in haiti for one week.  and i know it might sound weak, but i feel like that is quite an accomplishment.  not necessarily that i have been here for a week, but that i have been here, and that i have been okay.  i am okay.

i have wanted to live outside of the US for a pretty long time.  i have often felt like that was what i was really waiting for, that was my goal.  every decision i made was made in light of the hope that i would soon be leaving.  but when i decided to move here, to haiti, out of the US, i realized that my hope of leaving was more of a dream.  i am not sure that i ever really thought that it would happen.  and so when i began preparing (my mind really was all) to come here, it made me a little anxious.  

it is not really uncommon for me to be anxious.  it is actually quite common for me to be quite anxious.  i am not really sure about the history of my anxiety, and it isn't a medical condition or anything, but i think that i started being anxious during my senior year of high school.  which, coincidentally (or not) is when i think that i started actually growing spiritually.  i could spend hours talking about anxiety, but i won't.  it would probably make me anxious.  (that's kind of a joke.)  enough to say, for quite some time now i have been characteristically anxious.

it is raining.  i really like it when it rains here.  it has rained for the past three or four nights, most of the night i think.  i like the sound of the rain and the sound the river makes outside my window as it plays in it.  i like the cool breeze that it brings and the feeling that i am being washed.  but i am also reminded that for some, the rain brings fear.  for some, the sound of the river swelling outside their window is anything but soothing.  and i am reminded that i am safe, and that i have always been safe.  i most likely will always be.  

i think that explains a lot of how i have felt lately.  

we have a dog named bobi and a cat that is white and orangish and small.  i love them both very much, and they are thankful for my love.  sometimes i get the feeling that they have known more love in the past week than they have in the rest of their lives.  i don't think haiti is a gentle place for animals.  the four of us are home alone tonight, in this big house that is a fortress.  our friend menos came to lock us in earlier.  i think that they might be worried about us.  but i had to open the door a while ago.  i was planning on letting bobi and the cat spend the night with us, but when i went down to the kitchen to boil some water for drinking (we ran out of purified water, and propane, and diesel for the generator, and dish soap) i caught bobi in the trash.  she ran up to me while at the same time trying to cower to the floor, and it really broke my heart, because i know that she is used to abuse.  bobi is not used to mercy.  

i think that explains a lot of how i have felt lately, also.

i am okay.  i have been here for one week, and for one week i have not been anxious.  i have spent my entire life in a familiar land, one of comfort, one of security, and have rarely known peace.  and now i have been here, an alien in a strange land, and i seem only to feel peace.  and i suppose that God is only confirming what i have suspected for so long.  

[my Kingdom is not of this world.]