Growing Pains (Rachel's First Trip Begins)

I dropped Rachel off today at Park Valley Church for her first trip out of the country and her first trip to Haiti with Helping Haitian Angels.  We’ve both been talking about this trip for months and all of sudden, I’m watching the church van drive away with my heart in it.  

I could tell she was a little anxious.  She doesn't really know anyone on this trip yet and social settings are awkward for her.  I am fortunate enough to know more about who she’s going with and that she will have a great time with them once she gets to know them a bit.  But Rachel doesn’t have the luxury of having that insight, so this is going to be a stretch for her.  

And it didn’t help that we had an ugly argument last night either.  We have our share of disagreements, but for the past few years, they rarely turn into anything dramatic, so I was very upset with myself for allowing such a thing to escalate the night before such an important event.  I think we were both a little more stressed than either of us realized and it all came out in a matter of minutes and ended with tears.  We spent some time apart and then talked it through and got it resolved but it still felt like bits and pieces of hurt were lingering this morning.  You can’t usually just make that go away with words, so I had to just accept that sometimes, I just fail as a mom and she may be going off with some angst still directed at me.  I’m okay with her not always liking me or understanding where I’m coming from.  That’s not her job.  As I look back on last night, I know I wasn’t being fair to her and I was glad to see that, even though she respects me, she did not accept the irrational place I went to.  It was not her job to understand that I was feeling a lot of “maternal” emotions over her taking this trip.  She was busy with her own emotions and, for a few moments, I was too busy thinking about my own when I needed to be thinking about hers.  Despite the many things she may have been feeling, she was strong enough to challenge my actions while trying to manage her racing thoughts about everything that is coming at her right now.  I am reminded that this is a young lady who can handle herself and honor and defend herself when she feels she has been wronged.  It is just like her to leave me a fortuitous gift at the bottom of a meltdown…even if I didn’t deserve it.  She is always leaving gifts for me and she doesn’t even know it.  Just by being who she is, she leaves petals of beauty and truth all around me.  She causes me to stop and think things through a bit more, to dig a little deeper, look a little longer or listen more intently.  

These are priceless gifts and I wonder if I could ever give her what she gives me. I don’t think it is possible.  I would just be happy right now to be a fly on the wall so I can watch the highlights of this week play out from the front row of her life.  She is going to find parts of herself in Haiti that she would not have found anywhere else.  One week from now, she will not be the same person.  There will be something different about that anxious girl, hiding her face in a book from the eyes and minds of people who want to know her.  I don’t know who she will be when I pick her up but I know that this trip will at that time be a landmark in my child’s life experiences all because she said yes to being uncomfortable. In doing so, she also said yes to a deeper, richer life.

But, for now, she and I will just have to let that patronizing little bitch named Comfort know that she can drop and in and say hi now and then, but she’s not welcome to hang out.  She’s just passing through and the guest of honor is right behind her.  Yeah.  We’re saving the “good china” for Growth.

Agreeing To Bloom

Monique when she first arrived at Kay Anj

She had only been at the orphanage for a few weeks when my trip to Haiti began.  I had seen her picture when she first arrived there.  My passport lie in a drawer waiting for its first adventure while the iron countenance of a newly rescued Restavek stared at me through my computer screen from across the Atlantic Ocean.  As we pulled up and the kids crowded around to see Debbie, one of the founders of Helping Haitian Angels, and her entourage of the month, we were all welcomed with warm hugs and kisses.  I immediately got the message that, despite the language barrier and the borders that separated us, there were no strangers inside the fence that cradled us all within those 40 acres of sacred ground.  

Monique was one of the first to approach me…or should I say my hair.  If her hands were not gripped around mine, they were swimming in the multi-colored neurosis dangling from my head.  I was amazed at how most of these children were so comfortable embracing total strangers.  It was like being a child again myself. I recalled the days before we all get conditioned by the bane of rejection and judgement…when our differences were not used against us…when we were just people on the playground of life and we were all there for the same thing - just to play.  I’ve tried hard to live my later years like that child who can walk right up to anyone and say “Hey…Wanna be friends?”  It becomes an amusing challenge when people are already looking at you as though you just sprouted a big white horn from your head and a long, pink tail from your rear.  But here, it was easy.  So Monique and I became immediate friends, along with so many other beautiful, unique beings, with child-like hearts, including the adults - the teachers, the mamas and staff.  

As we played on the playground, I began to notice all the marks on Monique’s little body and wondered about the stories her insides could tell that her memory may have chosen to forget.  I wondered how many of her hopes and dreams were shoved down and silenced in the midst of the madness she lived under after the death of her parents.  I wondered if she had any idea what she was about to face when her sister had agreed to “take her in” after losing her parents, but instead found herself a slave and a punching bag for her sister to take her frustrations out on.  What must have spun through her mind when she was forced to hand over what little she had left of herself to those who were supposed to protect and love her?  What lies did she have to tell herself in order to make each day more tolerable?

On that first day, a group of us went on a prayer walk around the property.  Monique walked along with us, taking turns holding all of our hands.  As I observed her movements and paired them with what little information I had about her, I saw a girl who had been cracked open like a seed that had been removed from the desert and replanted in a garden brimming with life.  She tried to run away several times that first week or so at the orphanage.  She didn’t know how to adjust to her new surroundings at first and I would imagine that she may have been terrified that her “family”, assuming she ran away, would find her and subject her to grave consequences.  One can only imagine the things that have plagued her developing mind.  But here she was, just a few weeks after her rescue, learning how to smile, sing, pray, laugh and trust.  I saw a girl who was beginning to extend herself beyond that oppressive shell, clutching the rich soil she was now enveloped in.  It takes courage for a flower to bloom.  The life force inside of it has to decide to take root, to be nurtured by the sun, soil and rain and to rise up from the safety of the ground and face the elements that will both challenge and support it.  Beauty doesn’t just happen.  Before it becomes beauty, it must be cultivated with courage, truth and love. It must agree to “bloom” into something more. I didn’t yet realize it as we were walking, praying and singing along the borders of that 40-acre Eden, but I was witnessing a former slave shed those first layers of oppression that kept her big spirit locked away inside a tiny husk.  And she was just getting started.

Monique "agreeing to bloom"

As the week continued on, I had the honor of dancing and drumming and goofing around with many of the kids.  I consider myself one of the most fortunate human beings on the planet because my work affords me the luxury of watching people get free through creative expression and movement.  I see it happen all the time in the faces of brave, beautiful souls of all ages and walks of life.  I get to witness a glowing expression that no problem, no disease or evil force can touch.  I am humbled every time I see it and it feels as though I’ve been invited to the most sacred space inside of that person’s soul.  It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever encountered and, the deeper the person’s pain, the more bright and beautiful that glow will be.  So you can imagine what it must have looked like when some of these children gave us a glimpse of their soul’s riches from a concrete church DanceFloor in the poorest country in the world.  I can tell you what it didn’t look like - I saw no traces of poverty or slavery anywhere to be found.  All I saw was FREEDOM and streets of gold for miles.  

It has been an adjustment coming back to the DC area after a trip like this.  I was beyond grateful to be with my own children and other friends and family, but my heart aches to see the faces of this band of angels again.  It does my heart good to whisper prayers and thoughts of beauty to their photos, but I long to dance with them and make music with them from drumsticks, wheelbarrows and bricks.  I will be going back.  I knew that before my feet left American soil.  I knew it when so many supportive loved ones funded me double the amount of what I needed to raise for one trip!  I’m hoping it will be sooner, rather than later so I can again stand in the light of that “Glow” they shared with me.  Regardless of how long and how far, I am reminded that there are just some places in our lives where borders do not exist and language is not necessary.  Where there is music, where there is dancing - that is where you will find the glory of the human spirit in the shape of an infinite God.  That is where one can find the courage to agree to bloom.  That is where I’m going, regardless of where I am.

To learn more about the incredible work that Helping Haitian Angels is doing, go to:

www.helpinghaitianangels.org