Filed under: News, From Haiti, Haitian Rap, sustainable community haiti, steph forster, films haiti, humanitarian aid, orphanages haiti, nehemiah records, nehemiah vancity, steph leigh limage | Tags: many things, plastic cards, security blanket, starbucks
starbucks,text messages and meetings , for the past 5 years it seems to be my life, trying to accomplish things so quickly as if my life were ending and for the first time i am slowing down and being forced to discover who god really is to me and if i really trust him. i have done many things in faith but always wanting a security blanket. i have always wanted to find the fastest way to do some thing and do it well to try to prove my self to god as if i needed to earn his love and acceptance and now god is showing me through the love of my husband how much he loves me and how calm he is. god is calm, god is peace and god is never shaken up, god is emotional like me, gets angry like me but he doesn’t ever change.
god today i am writing to you and asking you what you want from me here in haiti. where do you want me to step, where do you want me to go next and how do you want me to do it, i want what you want and have been stripped raw and bare like a naked baby. i am learning that you love me and even when i am sick and smell bad, i know this because of how you use my husband to care for me.having no water was scary at first but now i am getting used to waiting for it and appreciating it.not having electricity when i want it and appreciating it. not having my plastic cards that gave me power to get what i want when i want in my old life and now just having a few dollars and prayer to know when we can have enough to buy food again but being grateful for the food we do have.
today i was supposed to go to the bank and open a new account so my mother could wire money from our canadian account into our new haitian account but last night i got sick again. i was up all night in and out of the bathroom and for most of the day today. david got some leaves from a tree that you make tea out of to calm my tummy and it means more to me knowing it came from a tree here rather than the store, seems more holistic or some thing . i have spent the past week feeling rather lost and like a bit of a looser and i realized it was only because i cant have what i normally have when i want it,like access to money we know is there in our account but cant get yet..at least not with out much effort and brain storming.
i have dirty feet now most of the time and don’t go out with my nice purses and high heels but it doesn’t matter. my husband works hard to get us what we need to make sure we are okay, that we have water each day ..you know at least back home if you have no money you can buy a box of cereal to eat but here cereal is a fancy food for people who have extra cash, even going to the super market is a place for the higher class..when i go there i feel like a douche bag who thinks she is better than the people on the street selling food.
when you are in the super market here and see other white people they don’t speak to you especially when i am holding hands with my black husband. everywhere i go people seem to stare and i am trying to forget about it and not notice. even the locals laugh at me when i take public transportation with my husband, yesterday they laughed for half of the trip and even took a photo of me in the bus but my husband said to ignore it because they are not educated and don’t understand. in canada if i were in an interracial relationship no one would turn their heads at us but here its different.
my husbands friends are kind people who have done their best to make me feel comfortable , like us they know and see god in a way that dosnt fit inside religion which give some hope when we work together because they are not trapped in a box of religion like lots of people i have met over the years that i seem to annoy. his friends are all artists and famous people here who are generous and care about us helping the kids and are coming along side our work and vision.
i want to share god with the artists we know in a new way not like the christians that live here and are very traditional, that doesn’t fit for gangsters and rappers from the streets who have done jail time and make a living shooting music videos or making music. at least my rough edges are accepted by these people and i am not judged but instead i am supported and welcomed. some of them speak a bit of english but it still feels lonely when i cant have a conversation with anyone other than my husband but i know in time i will be speaking the language.
on monday we are making a short documentary about our street outreach here with the kids and the vision we have to help people understand the need, i am putting it online for free download and will have it done in 2 weeks if not sooner , unlike the long long documentary i have been filming here for 2 years i need some thing now that i can show you so you understand.
i am hoping tomorrow i recover from this virus i have been fighting so we can get to the bank and try to get some of our money so we can buy food and get back to work. its hard to think i am here to help people when i feel like i need help my self right now but my husband says its all a test from god and i am starting to believe him.
it must be a test because how would god use me and show me his real heart and vision for haiti if i was still behaving like a snob who cries when she doesn’t have running water or electricity, how would i possibly understand what the people here need or are going through unless i had to suffer my self to build my character and shed my old skin . i have been coming here for 2 years of my life and have had to deal with some issues regarding conditions and camping in tents,washing in rivers and having no power but it was different because i always knew i had a big fancy bed to go home to , but now i am here and i know i belong here but i have been fighting my self and some of the things i see inside of me are ugly and selfish.
the other night i was at a big birthday party for a famous DJ here, it was like being in a rap video. anyways i was going pee and here the toilets in public places don’t have seats because if they did more disease and infection would spread around..anyways i was squatting over the open toilet and there was piss and dirt all over the tiled floor and this beautiful young girl walked in and started trying to fix her make up with out a mirror, she looked up and saw me half naked squatting over the toilet and the shock of finding my white ass in front of her made her drop her makeup on the piss covered floor.
the makeup was broken and stuck in the piss so i reached in my bag and started to fix her make up for her and her bra that had underwires sticking out all over, you could tell she was trying really hard to look and feel beautiful at the party but didn’t have much and when i wasn’t looking ( or so she thought) she started picking up the pieces of broken make up off of the ground and putting them back in the powder case to use again. it was then i realized how stupid i was for fussing over the things i didn’t have when i could go home to our place and find 5 tubes of lipstick and 3 cases of powder if i needed them.
i wanted to give her some money to buy a new powder case but she left before i could find my husband to ask him to give her some money. when i got home i laid on the couch and cried thinking about her, i thought about how she could be a nurse or a teacher but instead she lived in the hood and was picking up make up from the piss covered floor while i came home to my nice home with my beautiful husband and our big bed. so i told my husband about how it was bothering me and we prayed for her .
i seem to cry allot here, everything is making me cry, at first i thought it was because i was getting my period but then i got my period and i was still crying so then i realized it was god working in my heart changing me and making me a better person so i could really help people here. the god i know and love doesn’t yell at me, he doesn’t judge me he just loves me and has me suffer so i can be who he wants me to be and i know what he wants me to do here in haiti is really big but it also scares me , i cant hide from him. all i want to do is make art right now, make paintings ,music and express my self so i can find my self again here.
i don’t have to prove anything to anyone especially not god, i did what he said and i moved here to the poorest country in the southern hemisphere and he knew i wouldn’t have done it if my husband wasn’t here or haitian. i need to take this step by step and just let god change me because right now i am letting go and i am glad i ate that weird cheeseburger yesterday and got sick or else i wouldn’t have had this revelation while i was forced to stay still today and would still be where i was in my head and heart.
the way people advertise and go about humanitarian work doesn’t sit well with me thats why i moved here because i have a hard time respecting people who just come and go because there is no way you can really understand what is happening in a place unless you live in it. i don’t know how to tell people about our work here and am not the type of person who would write some thing about how many people we led to jesus that day so we get more donations, i don’t even know how to get donations and at this point just don’t care because i know god is helping us and we will have what we need when we need it and it will come from unexpected sources because we are walking with him and doing what he says.
my husband gets work just when we need it and the same goes for me, it is what it is and i know if i pass this test all the things we need to get going on a large scale will happen but first my character needs to be tweaked so i am not such a prissy tripped out white chick looking for starbucks in haiti.i am going to go now i feel really crappy from this virus that sucked my energy and every last bit of water out of my body…and am in the middle of reading a book a pastor friend gave me so i can learn more about how to care for orphans because i don’t know how its just some thing i have to figure out, but my husband is an orphan so he is teaching me things but the main thing is that my heart is for the orphans of this country,the forgotten ones that no one sees and just like in vancouver i am going to use art and music to bridge the gap and meet a need. i have this feeling that god is doing some thing for my husband and i today and that me being sick at home was so he could do some work for us and we could rest in his love together while he is busy working on some plans for us …divine appointments are about to take place and a shift is going to come because my heart is finally in alignment with Gods.
just breathe
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