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| Our resort where all the water drinking will take place! |
Through the World Wide Orphanage, the benevolence of a couple of good friends and The Grove Church, my husband and I leave in a few days for Haiti. We're teaching older orphans how to teach theatre and communication skills to their fellow orphans. Isn't that nice?
I don't quite know how we'll manage, well, most of it...there are still arrangements to be made for our kids who will each be in a different place, when I don't work-I don't get paid and we often don't make it month to month as it is, we'll be teaching "communication" in a country whose language we don't speak among some frightening cultural differences, not to mention unspeakable conditions and poverty and pain.
And yet...
We are flying first class. Thanks to my friends from college. Our trip has been underwritten by some friends we made while teaching theatre to their kids a lifetime ago in Rolling Hills, California. We're staying in a "resort" in the mountains. It is apparently beautiful in the mountains where we are mostly sleeping. (Amy Poehler also taught theater for this same organization! (I love Amy Poehler.) (I feel we are in good company.) Family, friends,acquaintances,have all offered help to care for our girls and have showered me with puppet making supplies. It's all working out, because we are sparrows with mustard seed faith...
But...
My husband suggested I not drink a lot of water so I wouldn't have to go the bathroom at all when we aren't at the "resort." Okaaaayyyyy...
I'm fairly certain I'll do something stupid so there is potential for humor, and for unending, eternally heart-breaking moments.
We are leaving our own children to do this.
Animals are treated differently in Haiti. I'm a complete wimpy mess when it comes to animals.
Ultimately...
We will be teaching acting. And acting is about trusting your instincts, making choices, listening, truth, putting all of your attention on someone else. Acting happens in plays. We are going to Haiti to play. Playing is good. Playing is what I do best. We made the choice to go to Haiti based on all of the above. We are blessed enough to have choices.
It's highly likely I will want to bring them all home. I will not be able to, due to laws and practicality.
I can hardly believe we have this opportunity.
I feel my heart will finally break beyond repair. It's so close already.
I'm fairly certain I'll have something to say about the discrepancy between life here and life there. In the mean time, I would appreciate any prayers from those of you who pray - mostly for my children to make good choices while we're gone helping other children learn that choices do, in fact, exist.
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| Smiling cuteness. |
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Victor Borge, my idol.
