Pain is weakness leaving the body.
This is one of my favorite quotes. One obvious reason may be
because of my brother, Steven. He is a Marine, who has gone through all sorts
of training. Whenever I feel discomfort on the race, I imagine him. If he can
trek through mountains in weather equivalent to the heat in Haiti – in full
gear, than I can do it in a short sleeve T shirt and light weight shorts.
When I’m feeling besieged while painting houses, dreading
that next coat of paint, I picture him doing work 50 times harder, with someone
screaming in his face the whole time. Why do I ever spend the least bit of time
in negativity, thinking I’ve got it hard? Would I call these emotions pain?
Absolutely not. I’d like to call them weakness.
As humans, we will often times experience a lot of different
emotions in a day. We also make incalculable amounts of choices, so why can’t
we choose into our emotions? I think we can. We can pick and choose what we let
ourselves get down about. Half the time I find myself pouting ,and making a big
deal of something that any one of these Haitian people would laugh in my face
about if they knew why I was upset. We also have to put into play that God
already has our game plan- revised, printed out, laminated, and framed. Why do we mess with our creator? Nobody wants
a negative Nancy, or pessimistic Pete for that matter. We all know those people
suck to be around.
Highlights of Haiti
1)
3 day mountain adventure, consisting of
approximately 13 miles. 22 hours of hiking total.
2)
Spending an entire day, walking the city, and
painting houses without shoes, to live, and walk like the Haitians, trusting God
to protect us from the heated streets, glass, and rocks. (he did)
3)
Riding a
pregnant horse bareback
4)
Watching a little boy climb a palm tree to get
us coconuts as a thank you gift for painting their house.
5)
Taking a boat ride away from the dirty
garbage-filled ocean shore near the city to a place 30 minutes away where the
shore is pure, clean and beautiful. (example of how God intended for things to
be perfect and pure, but with our sins we make things unsanitary)
6)
Being around my amazing teammates
7)
Making music videos with Sami
8)
What felt like only 30 minutes, our 3 hour team
devotion.
9)
The two pet crabs that reside next to my bed in
a cranberry juice container that I have been nurturing for about a week now.
10)
Rice and beans and rice and beans and rice and
beans and rice and beans.
IRELAND NEXT WEEK heck YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
