I didn’t know what was “normal” anymore.
As I stared out the window of a coworker’s car, I took in all of the sites and sounds. Even the smells. All of it was unique and foreign. It was the first time I had been off the rural campus we had moved to in Haiti since we had arrived a couple of weeks earlier. There was a sense of fear as I watched people moving and working, selling and talking. Numerous thoughts flashed through my mind. Was I safe? Was the person walking toward the car going to try and sell me something, steal from me, or just walk past? Why did we have to put the window up when we turned down this road? How do you even navigate in traffic that seemed to be constantly on the edge of chaos?
The deeply rutted and pitted roads threw us around in the vehicle. A motorcycle driver shot past us so closely I could have easily reached out and touched him as he went by. The air was thick with dust kicked up by passing vehicles. Horns blared. Music played loudly from shops and passing motorists. Everyone spoke in a language I didn’t understand at all. My driver and fellow missionary tried to orient me as much as possible as we drove—traffic patterns, routes, landmarks, names of towns we drove through, and the basics of the language.
All of my senses were on high alert and overloaded at the same time.
I went to bed that night exhausted and defeated. How was I ever going to survive in this place? I tried to reassure myself it would get better with time. However, that was of little comfort in the moment or in the long days to come.
I realized that this was what it must be like for someone who immigrated to the U.S.
Deep empathy welled up within me repeatedly. I struggled to do basic things like order from a menu, convert foreign currency in my head so I could have some kind of an idea as to what something cost, or understand what people were saying around and to me. The constant feeling of being out of place wore me down. I am sure that I am not the only one who has felt this way when they found themselves in a new place.
God gives us different experiences in order to help us relate to one another.
I will never forget those first few months when every breath felt hard. To this day, my heart is filled with compassion for someone who finds themselves as a foreigner in a new land, for whatever reason. I am always on the lookout now for someone who seems to be struggling in a new place the same way I did at one time.
The second greatest commandment that God gives us is to love one another.
No experience is wasted in the hands of God. Good or bad, He can use our history to impact the life of someone else. Going through a divorce, the loss of a job, struggling with addiction, launching a new business, leaving a sure thing to follow a dream, or adopting a child, all have elements to them only someone who has walked through a similar situation would understand.
When you have walked through something you see it more readily and clearly in someone else than an individual who has never been through those same struggles or victories.
You can also relate to them in a way that others cannot. There is a common understanding of what it is like to be new at something, to have to learn a new language, to be unfamiliar with how something should go, or to experience something amazing for the first time. All of these are connection points, ways that we can share the love of God with others. It can simply start with “I remember how tough it was when…” or “I loved the first time I…”. You just never know how God will connect your life’s journey with someone else’s and what an impact it could make.
Lee Robinson says
I will never forget the time I spent in Haiti. I was so impacted but also impressed at how well you guys assimilate into the community and made such a difference In there live. God is still using the experience to make a difference through you and your family.
robinson.kristin186 says
It’s a good thing you came after we had been there for a couple of years! When others visited just six weeks after we arrived they got a whole different view of things.