Penetrating the Darkness

A few weeks ago, my home church, Daybreak, asked if I would record my story on the topic of Penetrating the Darkness. Here is what I wrote for the recording:

My name is Kimberlee and I live and work in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. My main job is to serve in a Girls Home Orphanage working with 23 girls from ages 8-21. I also get to work in a tent city doing Community Development, and helping with teams on week-long trips.  

As I’m sure you have heard, there are many dark places in Haiti. I usually don’t go a day without seeing a family living in a tent or a mother who can’t feed her child; children without shoes and a baby without parents; a father desperately trying to find a job or a husband that abuses his wife. Most of the times, it’s too much for me to take. I very quickly and easily become overwhelmed.

But, I’m finding that God’s first desire of me isn’t to penetrate this darkness in Haiti…it is to penetrate the darkness in my heart.  Those dark places where I find my worth in what I’m doing - in what I’ve accomplished. Where I see my value in:

-       How many buildings I have helped build

-       How much food I have handed out

-       How fast the girls I work with are learning computer skills.

In the midst of trying to rack up the numbers, I hear God say this:

“Kimberlee, would you be still long enough to find your worth in me? That no matter what you do or don’t do, I LOVE YOU. You are already worth it. You are good enough.”

When I first take the time to fill the dark places in my heart with these truths, I begin to outwardly penetrate the darkness in Haiti naturally.  I can rest while I am working. Because I can confidently rest in who I am, and not the measurable outcomes I produce, I am free to take the time to:

-       get to know a Haitian and help teach him how to build a house alongside of me…even if it means less houses being built

-       to train a Haitian in a skill so she can earn an income to buy her own food, therefore increasing her self-esteem and self-sustainability

-       to continue teaching computer classes, ever so slowly and inefficiently due to my lack of language skills and cultural differences, trusting that the girls just need me to be present in their lives - seeing my effort as love.

Penetrating the darkness is more about slowing down enough to hear the Spirit speaking.  And I heard once before that the Spirit very rarely respects one’s comfort zones. How true that is! The Spirit often calls us to take a risk. Not a risk to DO more, or work HARDER, or SERVE longer. But a risk that is uncomfortable. That thing that usually sits in my gut and I say, “Ok, God, later. Next week I’ll talk to that person.” “Next time I see my family I’ll have that conversation.” “I’ll set boundaries and slow down once school is over.”  It is taking a risk to listen to that Gut feeling – the still, small voice - HERE and NOW in your present and in your immediate surroundings. Not always in another country, and not always later, when your kids are grown or you’re retired from your job.  But what you feel the Spirit calling you to right NOW.

When I do this, I soon notice I begin to get messy. It’s not neat and easy and clean! But it’s worth it. It is truly LIVING. And, like the broken, I find myself calling out to God for answers. When my best efforts have failed, I am left with nothing to cling to but frail faith. In a strange twist of divine irony, those who would extend mercy discover that they themselves are in need of mercy. Mercy from a great big God who is more than willing to give it. And I begin to realize that in this whole process, God is changing me. And THAT is where the task at hand starts!