I know I have posted two things already tonight but I stumbled across this post that I wrote in July of last summer and I couldn't help but break. Reading this reminds me how full my last summer was and how much I had a home in Haiti.
I miss it there more than words can say.
But here is a post from last summer:
Tonight was my last movie night at the Hope House.
As I road drown in a truck toting the projector ready for my last movie night I saw the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life. The colors of orange, red, and yellow came flowing over the mountains dancing on the green terrain and glowing all through the countryside of Haiti.
When I arrived at the Hope House I went inside to start setting up for the movie, needless to say all the kids were screaming my name and asking me what film I had brought for them to watch tonight. The mommies were all making popcorn in the kitchen with some kids lingering around. The beautiful, perfect, sunset pouring through the windows and lighting up their faces in such beautiful ways.
I was home.
The mommies are usually even more excited to see me than the kids are... and that is saying something. They love that I invest time in them and know each of their names. They started talking to me about their weeks and giving me kisses.
Later I was given several love notes from my little angels. As I was chasing them around the Hope House I ran into almost every room. Mommies were showering, kids were dressing, and I was intruding on everyone... But all they would do would laugh and call my name because they all knew me and were comfortable around me.
Again, I was home.
Somehow I have become part of their family. It is hard to think that 60 kids and 17 mommies could actually be a family or that anyone would actually know each of them and each of their quarks but they do. I do. They have burrowed their way into one of the deepest parts of my heart, a place that few make it into. A place that is set aside for people I love so deeply it pains me to think of loosing them. Family.
Somehow I am part of the family now.
The brothers and sisters I always wished for when I was young. The mommies that each pour into my life in different ways.
I was speaking in Creole to a little girl named Esther from the Hope House. I told her that I was leaving Tuesday and that I would probably cry when I had to say bye. She looked at me straight in the face and said in English "I cry too when you leave." My little sister that I asked for every Christmas and never got has been waiting for me here all along. But not only one little sister... About 30 of them. But each of them know me and I know them. We know what makes each other who we are.
The only consolation I have when thinking of leaving my family here is that I will not never see them again. I will see them in Heaven. And there we will be reunited, real family, the way we were supposed to be on earth.
I forever want to be where my heart is home.
In the kitchen of the Hope House, running around the bedrooms, getting my hair braided in the court yard, getting dusty on the playground, pumping water for the kids to wash their faces after we eat mangos, and singing worship songs every Friday night before the movie.
My heart is home here.
Killin me.
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