Living on the edge

For the last several years we have been living on what some would call the edge. Just giving up our Western lifestyle to come here, selling all of our belongings and our home, to live in this tiny little Caribbean nation. To follow God's calling on our lives.

However, that is not the edge to which I am currently referring for this blog.

The last several years, we have been living on the edge. Yes the proverbial edge mentioned above but also a geographical edge- one signifying the end of one gang's territory and the beginning of another's. 

We arrived in Haiti as things were simmering. Just as the waters of political instability were coming to a boil and the country lockdowns began we completed our first year here. We had no idea we happened to arrive on the edge of a humanitarian crisis, a country collapsing.

Two times in the last year and half we have had to leave our home due to gang territory wars and violence. Leave our home as in move. I am writing this blog as I sit in the refuge of a friend's guesthouse, not knowing what comes next exactly for my family because we paid the rent for the house for the entire year until September.

Edge-living is not something I envisioned for myself. And the adventure the expression eludes to has been evasive.
Fleeing at a moment's notice or getting stuck in for long periods of time.
Gunshots and rushing inside.
Dead bodies and burnt flesh festering in the sun on the sidewalk as we drive by, praying about the day my son begins to notice and question them. Praying about the children we love so much having to walk around the remains on their way to school, or stand near them as they wait for a taptap (taxi) to pick them up.

The stories and the endless trauma. The Whatsapp videos and the fear of opening them. The stories, the firsthand accounts, the relatives lost, the hope slipping away off this edge that seems all consuming. Did I mention the stories? Imagine your nieces and nephews coming home with terrifying tales of hiding under desks while gunfire rages on, or your grandpa talking about his neighborhood being overtaken and watching his neighbor beaten over the head with the end of a rifle. 

Imagine being a refugee in your own country. Fleeing from home to home to escape the atrocities of the day only to find the next edge harbors far worse evil than the last.

The realities the Haitian people are facing in this moment is unmatched in horror and despair.

In just the last six months we have found ourselves on the edge of danger, of having our home taken over, Alex at the edge of a rifle while being robbed and forced to drive the gangsters into their territory, the edge of our sanity, and the edge of looming mental health crisis.

The proverbial edge living, as well as the real edge living, have an ability to shake us. To grind us to our core. To find the edge of ourselves. To come to the edge of our abilities and strengths. 

We are also living on the edge of hope, the heaviness and terror cannot diminish the hope we have in Jesus. This might be by far the most dangerous edge to live on, when everything in us is screaming to give up. When all around us has grown dark, holding on to light can feel foreign and false. However, we know God is not finished here in Haiti. So we do what makes zero sense, follow this everlasting Hope. We relish in His love as we do the impossible again, and move to a new edge.

We have come to the edge of ourselves here, but we are not done and will continue to fight the injustices of this world because at the edge of us begins the edge of The One who is mighty to save. And on this edge we'll be found in Him, abiding in Love.

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