We’re often asked -whether by random strangers, family, or Haitians-how long we’ll be Haiti. I wish I could answer that. There is something unsettling about not knowing how long you’ll be in a place for. Until now, I have never really understood people like my sister, who bless her heart, always finds a way to throw into any conversation that veers towards her heritage, background, or family, that she is a California girl. Even though her address has been Virginia for the last eight years, her heart will always belong and relate to the place she grew up. And she always hints about coming back, someday. While I have always thought it was just a mean tease to get me off her back when I’d hound her about moving back to California, she really thinks or even hopes that one day she will indeed find her way back to the west. And she isn’t alone. I have another dear friend, who experienced a similar thing. She moved to California the day after her wedding, thinking and hoping she’d go back to Colorado, and soon. It was a rough first year, as she realized she was actually not going back anytime soon.  She was always caught in this weird place of “When are we going back? Are we actually ever going back? If so, when?” (Mind you, five years later,she is now back in her beautiful Colorado where when we visited last Christmas I finally understood why she longed to go back so much!!)

Thus she was always caught in this strange place. And I finally understand that strange place, because I am there. A place where you want to live life to the fullest right where you are, but because those thoughts are always in the back of your mind, it effects many little and big decisions. Decisions like ‘should we join this club or that thing if we might leave soon?’ or ‘how deep should I allow my roots to grow if I’m just going to have to uproot them?’ or ‘should I even bother getting deep with people if we might leave soon?’ or ‘should we spend money on this or that if we might be moving someday soon?’ and on and on it goes.

I am here to tell you that yesterday we cross a line in the sand and I’m not sure if it excites me or terrifies me. We bought furniture. Here we have lived here for a year and a half, and have only recently begun to dig some roots. Why has it taken so long?  I think it started because when we first moved to Haiti we lived in a tent. It doesn’t scream permeant when your bed is a blow up mattress. The next place we moved we rented from the organization we partnered with. It was clearly not our own, and we weren’t really allowed to do much with the place, even painting it.  And, because we didn’t have bedroom furniture, we lived out of our chests that we brought with us when we first came here. Again, you don’t feel like your staying a while when your clothes are in a foot locker, and your food is in tubs. So here we are now, and for the first time we do feel more settled. Right now, we are renting a house that is mostly furnished with the owners stuff, so it still doesn’t really feel like our own place, but we are getting there. Worth mentioning, is the fact that we signed a loose two year commitment with Living Water, so we do actually have a loosely vague idea that we might be here another two years. (you like that non committal wording?)

Now we are moving for the third time since first moving to Haiti. We were in Port au Prince all this week-for meetings with LWI of which I will share later-and we had a truck that had just cleared customs. We need many things for this new place, since almost all the stuff here needs to stay with the house.  And so we went shopping. A task I normally would relish, but seeing as how we had a list of about 20 things, that meant we going to be making 20 different stops. The day turned out pretty good, surprisingly, and we only had to stop at about 7 places. But there we two amazing discoveries we made along the way-sratch that-three. One, Port au Prince has just about everything and that makes me jealous. Not jealous enough to live in the craziest city ever, but a little green. Two, we found a furniture store, and I walked it with my wind blown hair and hot crusty self to utter a soft cry of, ‘it’s an oasis’. It was a Jeromes in the middle of nowhere, with air conditioning blasting, complete with mock room and fake flowers. We spent the next half hour walking around in a daze, with eyes bulging and mouths open, feeling each piece of pretty furniture, sitting on every single couch. Of course everything was about double what you’d pay in the states, since it was all shipped in. So as we passed the $4,o00 couches, I resigned myself to the idea of just drooling, no buying. However, we spotted a set in the corner that was on sale. It was reasonable. We chatted, debated, and left to think about it at the next store. You can pry imagine which way we swung-me wanting it, Brandon thinking it was a bit too much. Him thinking we can just continue to use our folding chairs, me envisioning lounging on something comfortable. But after doing some more errands, and more thinking, I actually came around all by myself. I wanted it so bad, but when push came to shove, and we pulled back into Oasis Land Furnature Store, I couldn’t do it. I was too practical. Back to the question, ‘how long will we be here for’? If it’s ten more years -and no I would not be ready to hear that, so God continues to only reveal a little at a time!!!! -let’s buy that and a few more things. If its two more years, why waste the money?

We sat in the hot truck. Silent. We weighed the pro’s and cons over and over. Folding chairs and patio furniture inside wasn’t that bad, I could do that.And suddenly Brandon blurts out,”let’s do it!” Surprised, I jumped down and silently walked in behind him. I hadn’t even turned on the charm, or pleaded my case. I didn’t even try really. As we were waiting for the guys to load it on the truck, I turned to Brandon and asked what swung him the other direction, what changed his mind. He looked straight at me and said, “I don’t want to see you sitting in the one semi-comfortable chair we have here anymore, you tough it out enough here already.”

I have the best husband in the whole world.

 

I can’t quite explain to you how dark and scary the new house was. It is all concrete, which we didn’t realize how dark it made everything, until we got a few coats of paint up. And wow! What a difference a few bright colors made! I can actually say after a solid week of painting, it no longer looks dark and ominous… but rather bright, cheery and inviting!

It was so wonderful to have help, let me tell you. Charl and I did all the painting, and after just one day on our own we got smart and hired Claude to help us out too. He did all the ceilings, bless him, and we three sure made a great team! Charl trimmed non stop, I rolled with a massive roller the size of door, and Claude craned his neck to do all the ceilings. I will say though, as much as I needed Charl’s help to simply get all the rooms done, her help, advise and expertise in the art of mixing sure was wonderful. Turns out, we are a regular ol’ pair of mixers, making all sorts of fun colors for each room! Did you know that with just three colors-white, yellow, and red- you can make a lot of fun colors?? And of course it was important to have another woman, who actually cared about the colors! It was so annoying cause we’d ask the boys what they thought,and they would just mumble something and move on. So, because Charl was here, I actually got help and input about something as silly as paint colors-which if you ask me is a serious thing. Who wants just boring white? And you also don’t want scary mixed colors either! Thankfully, Bob shipped in tons of excellent quality paint, which made the process go much quicker-Haitian paint soaks in so bad to concrete, that you usually have to do three or four coats to get a nice even look. Not this stuff-one coat and we were off to the next room!

 

 

 

While Charl and I were busy with the very important painting, the boys were off playing around in the water. Okay, not exactly-they were working hard to figure out the maze of pipe that we call ‘plumbing’ to try and see if we would actually be able to get water all throughout the house-and they did it! HOOOORRRAAAY. Running water to all bathrooms and the kitchen, what an amazing thing that was.

 

My mom gave me a few little gifts as we set off this most recent time  to come back to Haiti. One particular item she gave me is a devotional book. I have to admit something here, something I didn’t dare tell her at the time, but I don’t really like those little books. You know which ones I’m talking about, where they have a paragraph or two-a devotional- of reading for every day of the year. I’m not sure why I don’t like these books. I think it stems from years ago, when I wasn’t really reading my Bible regularly, I would just open one of those up, spend a minute before God, and check it off my to-do list. It didn’t sink in, my heart wasn’t in the right place, and so I never really got much out of them. They were a crutch for me, a way to meet God without taking up too much time in my day.

She gave me this book as she and my sister drove me to the airport about two weeks ago. They both, in typical ‘Schmid’ fashion, had put together cute parting gifts for me to take back to Haiti. Yes, gifts for no reason, completely unexpected, which are the best kind if you ask me. They showered me with books, movies, candy, sweet loving notes, even a pair of cute flip flops! (oh, how they spoil me!!) I was a bit worried, because my two bags were already packed to full full full, and I couldn’t imagine how I could find room for these extras. So, in the parking lot at a gas station, the three of us worked hard to get each little treasure into the nooks and crannies of my bags. When it didn’t seem like anything else could fit, I secretly thought “the devotional book doesn’t have to go”. Ha. I know, some missionary huh? It’s the ugly truth! Of course I would never say that out loud, and watched as my sister made room for everything. Hmmm.

Out of respect for my mom, and the fact that I was now lugging it all the way to Haiti, I thought I should probably at least crack it open so I could honestly say I opened it. As a side note, she did tell me that she started reading it about four months prior and it has deeply affected her and her walk with the Lord. I smiled thinking and wondering how just a few little paragraphs each day could do that. And she proceed to tell me that it was written by a young missionary-which of course made her think of me, and did peak my interest a bit.

Well, I started this little book about two weeks ago, and man oh man, it was the devil the himself who didn’t want me to have this book. No lie. I made a deal with God that I would chat with him before opening it, asking Him to soften my heart to what he might want to say to me, through this book. If I was going to try the little devo book, I wanted to do it right!  In addition, I’m trying to only read it after I have spent time in His word or doing a devotion so that I won’t fall back into bad habits of a quick read to ‘get through it’.

I have wanted to share almost everyday with you. With someone. But for now, I just read, and re-read them, meditate on them, and chat with the Lord about them. I am amazed at the way her truth and honesty come off the pages, and how she conveys they heart of the Lord through her writing. So, I just have to share today with you…

“Expect to encounter adversity in your life, remembering that you live in a deeply fallen world. Stop trying to find a way that circumvents difficulties. The main problem with an easy life is that it masks your need for ME. When you became a Christian, I infused my very Life into you, empowering you to live on a supernatural plane by depending on Me. Anticipate coming face to face with impossibilities: situations totally beyond your ability to handle. This awareness of your inadequacy is not something you should try to evade. It is precisely where I want you-the best place to encounter Me in My Glory and Power. When you see armies of problems marching towards you, cry out to Me! Allow me to fight for you. Watch Me working on your behalf, as you rest in the shadow of My Almighty Presence.” Rev 19:1 and Psalm 91:1

Instead of boring you or complaining by listing all the ways in which we are overwhelmed by the huge obstacles that face us, just know how deeply those words and promises affected me. Just know that most situations that we face here seem impossible. Haiti consistently reminds us of our inadequacies, and really does deepen our need for Him on a daily and minute by minute basis. But how encouraging to read and remember, that in those places of weakness, and encountering obstacles, we can more fully see the Glory of the Lord and His might power.

PS The name of book, in case you’re wondering is “Jesus Calling” by Sarah Young.