Today has been a day full of every emotion possible. It has been sad, glorious, beautiful, spiritual, and meaningful. When all those hit you at once you know it is going to be an interesting day. I want to start off by explaining why this is such a mile marker of a day.
One year ago today my grandmother, Bettye Summers, passed away. That was probably one of the worst days/weeks I will ever go through. Gran was a great woman of God. As briefly mentioned in my other post she wanted nothing more than to be with her Lord. She lived everyday as if in waiting. She lived every moment of her life to please the Father, and she did that. There isn't a doubt in my mind that when they opened the pearly gates even Paul looked at her in awe. She loved to love. Anybody and everyone. She had the most joyous smile and laugh that would brighten a whole room. Everything was beautiful to her. She loved her precious Edd more than anything else. They were soul-mates and the most beautiful vision of love there was. She loved her grankids/great grankids. She talked about us with everyone as most grandmothers do. But her her heart for missions and the Lord is the reason why I am sitting here in Haiti this very minute.
Gran was always on a missions trip, planning a trip, running a whole states missions, teaching missions, everything out of her mouth was missions. She loved the people of the world. TBC, SBC, WMU she was on them all. President, Executive member, boss lady, she was the one everyone turned too. She never pushed missions or church on any of us. It just came natural for me. It was a common heart string we had. Through her life and outspoken love of Christ I began to feel those heart strings pull from another source. The Lord was letting me know that this too was what He wanted for my life, whether in the same volume as hers it is too soon to tell.
I had trouble deciding whether to be at home or Haiti during this time. July 4th was their first anniversary apart, and today was the first anniversary of her joining of Christ. But the thought was only for a moment, because I knew that Gran would personally take the lightening strike from God to hit my tail end if I chose to be sad than to come do what my heart says. To her missions and evangelism was the thing to do. Not something you worked at. Which is where I hope one day I can say the same. So I came on to Haiti. Through all the trials and temptations I made it here with the perseverance that only comes from Christ. And today was even more an assurance that this was the right thing to do/
Today Erica and I went to the Children's Home (background on previous post). We were able to spend most of the day there. The kids just flocked to us. We were there to give the ladies a rest and help the director run his program to get an idea for what works for when we come up with our own program for Guerlin's orphanage. They are so beautiful. We didn't really know what to expect. I ended up at the table with the non babies as they were working on their workbooks. Next thing I know we are learning our ABC's in English and then they taught me in French (not creole because they are trying to be better at french). So much fun. We did them all kinds of ways. There was a definite language barrier and no translator, but with kids a lot of times there is really no barrier. They think you are funny, and use dramatics anyways. They would get so tickled when we would get to harder letters like J, G, H, W and they knew that I knew they knew it but got stuck.They would laugh and cover their faces until we said it together. Next thing I know they are fluent in English ABC's. They are so smart to know almost nothing. Their little brains want to soak up all it can. As I was sitting there helping them it hit me that this is what Gran did for so many years. She loved children in America and International. And on this day in her remembrance I was doing just that. Loving on and teaching children. It was so beautiful. It is hard to describe what kind of feeling that was.
I miss my grandmother so much, and would give anything in the world to have her here to see this. That is probably the hardest part about this trip, and about doing missions. She isn't here. To get her wisdom, here more stories, to share these experiences, none of that can happen now. It is tough. But I know that she is where she always wanted to be, and is dancing for her Jesus now. I like to think that she has met Jean Michele there. He is a 16 year old boy from Guerlin's orphanage that was flown to Knoxville for heart surgery and didn't make it trough the procedure. But through his life Chadasha was able to meet Guerlin and her and Sara made a bond that allowed us to come alongside her for the children. All 77 orphans. This is how God works. He makes things beautiful, even when it is hard to see.
*In Loving Memory of Gran*
February 5, 1934-July 6, 2010 |
| Summer 2008-Right before I started college at UT |
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