Life After Haiti

How am I? Happy to not have to live in Haiti, some people assume.

Some days there’s so much going on with family life that it’s like we’ve been back for a while. I did live in America all 26 years of my life before moving to Haiti so eventhough it’s a difficult transition and we’re experiencing "reverse culture shock", my experience is probably nothing like what my kids have going on in their  heads (they left for Haiti as newborns and lived there most of their lives). Then again, in their naivety and innocence, they don’t comprehend the weight of having left the thing we gave all of ourselves to for years. The past couple of months we have done some activities that the kids have never even heard of before (apple picking, hayride at a pumpkin patch, a carnival, etc.) so that’s been fun. 

But then there are the days like today, that my heart hurts so bad and I can’t handle the fact that we are no longer in Haiti. And I cry randomly thinking of all the beautiful faces of Madian, Haiti, many villages worth of people that we invested in, most of whom have no idea how much we miss and care about them. We try to keep in touch but there’s so many people and it’s just not the same. When our kids break out into Creole when they are playing or talk about friends they might not see for a long time, the ache gets a little worse. 

As I hear mostly silence right now (aside from the washing machine) as background noise and all of the kids are asleep,  I miss the roosters crowing at the wrong time of day, our neighbor’s babies crying over the fence, laughter from different directions and going outside of the house once the kids are asleep to hang out with friends and visitors (the closeness of homes and the fact that life is very much lived outside allow for that, don’t call DFCS). 

I am at peace with our decision to leave because I know it is the right thing for our family at this time. We are pruning away at ourselves and going through some much-needed healing and recovery; letting the Lord do His thing. But it still hurts to not be in our second home and to feel out of place in a way that will probably never go away.  When people ask how we are doing I know they care, but I have no words that can really describe how I’m doing. And not much to say that others could relate to. 

We don’t know what the Lord has up His sleeve because he has surprised us time and time again. If we have our way, we will live and serve in Haiti again some day. Until then, I’m going to talk about Haiti every chance I get. 

~ Anna