If you pay attention to my Facebook, you may have seen the song “The Story I’ll Tell” by Maverick City Music pass through my feed recently.

It was one of those songs that I heard once, and it immediately became one of my theme songs. Here are the lyrics of the chorus:

Chorus:
Oh Oh Oh My God did not fail
Oh Oh Oh it’s the story I’ll tell
Oh Oh Oh I know it is well
Oh Oh Oh is the story I’ll tell

From my limited personal experiences along the timeline of history, this current time feels dark. Among the jokes and memes of the trauma that has been the year 2020, there is an acceptance that this time is different than what we have collectively seen before.

And I’m living in this time in Haiti now. And pandemic-wise, things are relatively calm here. But it has complicated life. And made it more unpredictable. Made it slightly more dangerous.

And so I sweat through a mask and limit my time in direct contact with our elders and limit how often I’m moving between communities. And I have spent more time in quarantine than serving since being back.

But yesterday was one of the rare days where I was able to traverse the streets in Cite Soleil pretty freely. I visited some elders with the pastors of Hope Church and one of our Haitian directors and one of my unofficial security guards, a young boy who hangs around Hope campus.

And those reunions are incredibly sweet. There are still many elders in our programs that I haven’t seen in months. I’m grateful now for each encounter.

I was invited into the home of one of our married elder couples. I stepped down into puddles of water and trash inside their cement home. The recent tropical storm has exacerbated the flooding problems in Cite Soleil.

The wife has mental health issues along with physical ailments, and had to be calmed down by a neighbor so we could hear the pastors pray. The husband broke down crying saying he hadn’t slept in days and was in too much pain to walk to the clinic.

Among their possessions was a tray of clay cookies, either for selling or eating.

I hesitate to share stories like this because I want to respect their dignity. I want everyone to see their wonderful souls and the resilience of the people in this community. But it’s important to also represent their reality and struggle.

This community has seen months of prolonged gang violence and years of unrest and a lifetime of injustice, instability, and lack. And the people here are suffering. And still God does not fail.

So I will stand ankle deep in trash and worship where God has called me to worship in this moment. And I will worry for my family and my city back in the states and learn to surrender those worries in prayer. And I will do what I can to protect those I serve from the spread of viruses. And I will embrace and enjoy the experiences of days where I have freedom to spend time in community.

A few photo updates in the recent weeks:

Grace Village has been selected again (but for the first time since I’ve lived here) to receive a group of children in an urgent and temporary placement situation.

We don’t know much about our new residents yet, but there has been a scramble of activity in preparation and reception. The morning after the first 16 of them arrived, a rainbow appeared over the village. We are expecting 34 children in total! Please pray for our incredible staff, along with all those kids and teenagers in this time of transition.

I got to play Snow White with a couple of baby birds who fell or were blown out of their nests. No, I didn’t keep either one captive for more than a few overnight hours to protect them from the Grace Village cats, and I can only hope they have survived since.

While I was in the states I was given some cash donations for our elder care program. Our elder care staff in Titanyen told me one pressing need for a few of our elders was mattresses, but budgets are very tight right now.

With those donated funds, they were able to purchase three box springs and three mattresses. In addition, a few elders received new bed sheets.

This girl. I can not write her story here for her protection and privacy. But I pray for her each morning and had not seen her since early March. We were both so happy to see each other!

And since you have read all the way to the end, your reward is the full lyrics of “The Story I’ll Tell” (but do yourself a favor and listen to it on YouTube on repeat for a while…)

Verse 1:
The hour is dark,
And it’s hard to see,
What you are doin’,
Here in the ruins
And where this will lead,

Oh but I know,
That down through the years,
I’ll look on this moment,
See your hand on it
And know you were here

Pre-Chorus:
And I’ll testify of the battles you’ve won
How you were my portion when there wasn’t enough
I’ll sing a song of the seas that we crossed
The waters you parted
The waves that I walked

Chorus:
Oh Oh Oh My God did not fail
Oh Oh Oh it’s the story I’ll tell
Oh Oh Oh I know it is well
Oh Oh Oh is the story I’ll tell

Verse 2:
Believing gets hard
When options are few
When I can’t see how you’re moving
I know that you’re proving
You’re the God that comes through

Oh but I know
That over the years,
I’ll look back on this moment
And see your hand on it
And know You were here

Bridge:
All that is left is highest praises
So sing hallelujah to the Rock of Ages

Song by Maverick City Music Feat. Naomi Raine

Writers: Naomi Raine, Alton Eugene, and Benji Cowart

“What is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18) This verse keeps reappearing in my daily reading. I’ve probably even blogged about it before.

Over the past months, I think we have all learned a thing or two about the unseen parts of our lives. Most things closed down or were available at a reduced capacity, and people went into their homes and stayed there. We learned more about our families, more about what we do with actual free time, more about finding creative solutions for necessary work, more about loneliness and more about what motivates our daily lives. And it went largely unseen. But it all mattered.

What has been “seen” recently has been difficult to watch. In the States, we have seen political ugliness and brutal racism and protests turned to riots and pandemic outbreaks and closed borders and economic devastation and petty social media disputes. But we hold to the promise that what is seen is temporary.

I am just coming out of two weeks of keeping myself as quarantined as possible since arriving back in Haiti. I am beyond excited to visit the elders and reconnect with friends. It is wonderful to be back in the communities where I feel the Lord has called me to serve.

There is inexplicable joy as people I never expected to love so deeply great me as “Manman Kah-tee!” in the street. And there are medical emergencies and meetings with pastors and playing with kids and new vocabulary to learn and never ending laundry and never ending emails and transportation issues and security concerns and all the random things that make up my days. There is sorrow and frustration and beauty as I adapt back to life here.

In Haiti, we are seeing repeated fuel shortages, devaluation of money and increases in prices, gang activity, and political and economic insecurity, alongside misunderstandings and fears attached to the spread of COVID19. But those things are seen. Those things are temporary.

What is unseen is eternal. Whispered prayers, neighborly kindness, faithful perseverance, shared hope and sacrificial love; these patiently cultivated assets are eternal. I have had the honor of glimpsing some of the unseen moments of other people’s lives in the past couple weeks.

I watched a woman this morning, from the comfort of the inside of our tap tap, wading in up past her knees through water, garbage, and sewage. She carefully balanced a heavy plastic bag, likely filled with drinking water pouches to sell, on her head as she navigated the flooded streets. There was determination and resilience in her cautious steps, and I realized I was probably witnessing one of the unseen moments of her life. Because many times, it’s our struggles that go unseen. For her. For me. For all of us.

So don’t belittle the struggles you are in. Use unseen moments as powerful offerings of worship. Choose forgiveness. Encourage others. And succeed or fail, remember that unseen moments matter.