The Old Home Is Gone but Not the Memories

Gardenia blossoms: Forever the smell of the old homestead

I looked in the dark as I drove by, but I couldn't tell anything.  My grandparents' old home, long empty, had been torn down.  The darkness allowed a few more hours of memories of the way the old house looked during my childhood.  The next day, however, I saw the reality: only a few remnants of the first house on the left of Ainsworth Road in Star, Mississippi.

A few months ago, I wrote about a black rubber "WELCOME" mat that belonged to my grandparents. It continues to serve as a reminder of my grandparents who lived just two houses away during my childhood.  A childhood flush with good memories.  Daily visits with my grandparents.  The ritual flipping of the welcome mat.  Pop's place on the front porch.  Granny's place.  Dogwood blossoms gathered because they were Granny's favorite.  The smell of gardenia blossoms.  Cokes drunk from our special cups.  (Those cups were still in the cabinets a couple of years ago when I last walked through the old house; they seemed so tiny.  Amazing how far a 32-ounce Coke used to go.)  I could write a whole post on the Cokes alone; perhaps I will one day.

Dad told me this weekend that it had been 25 years ago that my grandfather passed away.  I can still remember Pop's playing catch with me with that old-timey puffy, flat baseball glove.  Oh, do I wish I had that glove.  I remember his driving lessons in his baby blue Mercury Capri.  Actually, I won't forget because I ran over the hedges in front of the volunteer fire department, and my sisters and brother remind me of it every so often.  The old house may be gone, but the memories linger.

The older I get, the more I realize that my treasured childhood memories are far from the norm.  I hear so many stories of childhood abuse and neglect, and it breaks my heart, especially since people tend to repeat as adults whatever their childhood looked like.  As a pastor I get the privilege of watching the Lord bind up the brokenhearted, redeeming scars of childhood wounds and making people new.  Spiritually, I am -- in the words of Psalm 70:5 -- "poor and needy" like everyone else apart from Christ, but I am aware that the baggage I carry from my past is light. For many, perhaps even most, their baggage is not light.  It is certainly not light for the world's 140 million-plus orphans.

I will be in Haiti in a little over a week, serving kids whose childhoods do not mirror mine at all.  A win for our team will be if years from now, those kids look back at the week they spent with us and say, "Remember that time that team from Mississippi came?  Remember how we drew on every square inch of concrete with the chalk they brought us?  Remember how they colored with us and jumped rope with us and played ball with us?  Remember how they taught us to play corn hole and left the game with us?  Remember how they let us see every single photo on their phones even though we had seen them a dozen times already?  Remember how they couldn't say anything in Haitian Creole, but that didn't stop them from trying?  Remember that crazy guy shouting, "Viva, de Crayola!" when we were coloring?  Remember how much they loved Jesus?

Even a year from now, those memories will come from a new house.  They will realize -- as I have -- that memories may be associated with houses, but they don't contain them.

Yeah, I remember...

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

Last Day, Saddest Day: Haiti Mission Trip, Day 8

For the last few days, the 4theVoiceless blog has chronicled the mission trip of a team from Illinois, Florida, and Mississippi to serve at the House of Abraham in Jacmel, Haiti.  Links to previous days of the trip can be found at the bottom of this post.  

Monday morning, our last day in Haiti, was another early day.  Most of our things were already packed, and breakfast was a quick bowl of cereal, but we had to be ready early if we wanted to spend a little more time with the kids before they left for school.  They were ready early, as well, and after they said their prayers together, the final goodbyes began.

               


And then,
just like that,
they loaded up in Fenel's truck...












...and drove away.










As soon as Fenel returned from taking the kids to school, we loaded up our luggage and began the long, winding drive through the mountains to Port au Prince.  Again there, the goodbye to Fenel was quick, and there we were in the airport, waiting to fly home. 

A delay in Port au Prince put Jacob and I in a rush to catch our flight out of Miami (We made it juuust before the doors closed!); because of that, our goodbyes to our new friends from Illinois and Florida were rushed, as well.  After a lengthy delay in Dallas for mechanical issues, Jacob and I finally greeted our wives in Memphis about 1 a.m.

Maybe hasty goodbyes were a good thing.  Somehow, though, I don't feel like I gave anybody a proper goodbye after such a purposeful and life-changing week.  Sure, our team here in the states can stay connected through technology (like the first of Gabe's promised Sunday morning texts!), and we can connect with Fenel through social media, but what about with the kids? 

My friend Stephanie (Jacob's wife) wrote about this very thing on her Welcome to Walley World blog just before we left for Haiti.  Sometime during the week during a conversation with Fenel, he told us that Haitians in general do not forget people who come to visit them.  I'm glad.  Because there's a certain photo that, when I look at it, I have to remind myself that they won't forget.



I'm not exactly sure what Tchikovsky is holding up in this picture, but as you can tell, he was very happy to show it to me.  He's also holding the football that we threw together so often throughout the week.

I wonder, will Tchi be as excited to see me again when I return to the House of Abraham as he was to show me this little scrap of paper? 

I will trust Fenel's assurance that, yes, he (and the other kids) will remember me.  But I think I will send Christmas cards along with photos and me and my family...just in case.  And learn a little Haitian Creole so that I can communicate more next time.  Next time...



You can read about the other days of our week of service in Haiti here:

Days 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4
Days 5 & 6
Day 7

Tomorrow, I will have a few closing thoughts about our trip along with some photos and videos that didn't make it into any other posts and a video memory of our trip. 

Perhaps you would like to go, too.  Check out Isle Go's site for more information.  If you are part of a church that already goes to Haiti on a regular basis, make sure you find out the dates of the next trip so that you can begin to plan (and save) to go.  God's hands and feet on this earth are His people's hands and feet to "visit widows and orphans in their distress" (James 1:27).

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al