12.5.12
I have some free time this morning...Toby is sleeping, Rob is busy with payroll this week and working in the office, Brooke is feeling BETTER, and the girls are downstairs loving on some twins while they eat pancakes...
I am exhausted...I don't think it was just last night. Little miss slept better than she did for me on Saturday night and she cried way less (PTL)! But it is the illnesses, the sleepless nights, the vomiting kiddos in the middle of the night, the dreams...the endless list of things that have robbed me of my normal amount of sleep (which is already at a higher requirement than most ;)...these are the things that have brought me to this point.
So maybe out of the exhaustion comes my emotions this morning...or maybe it is my daily prayer for Yahweh to break my heart for what breaks HIS...either way, I feel like I could just break down and bawl. And maybe I will...I need a soul cleansing! And crying is a cleansing of the soul (right Sarah Achterhoff? miss you girlie! ;)
Yesterday, I went downstairs to go check on a baby that we are considering admitting. On my way, I found Rob under the mango tree with Fritzlin (the little dude who stayed with us a for a few nights, who runs to our arms when he sees us). He didn't look right...
I ask him how he is doing...how is your morning going?
He shakes his head and acts like he is going to unload a big response...but then he stops...his voice cracks and he just says, "We'll talk later..." His eyes fill...
Oh, Jesus...
Later that night we talk. It has been payroll week around here. All of our staff is getting their monthly pay. It is a great time, we get to see how many Haitians we employ and watch them walk away with the means to provide for their families...at the same time it is a hard time, because the paychecks alone are not enough. It is never enough. And that is what Rob was feeling. He had been hit that morning with a barrage of complaints from the nannies, the main one being that they wanted to be paid for the days that they couldn't make it to work because of the rain. To them, it wasn't fair that the local nannies got the extra days b/c they were so close and able to easily make the short commute. It wasn't their fault it was raining...they should still be paid. Well, we all know that we can't operate like that. We can't pay anyone and everyone for days they aren't here, it just isn't a financial reality. Rob tried to explain that to them...He knew it wouldn't end in his favor.
During this time, I think his struggle was multi-faceted...Would we love to be able to financially provide for the families of the ppl we employ? Of course!!! Is that a tangible reality? No, unfortunately it isn't. Rob and Kirk are DAILY faced with the decisions of who to help and how to best meet the needs, not just of the kiddos who live here, but of the staff members and community members who come to their door.
Another part of his struggle...while the nannies were so focused on their needs, Rob glanced at the kiddos behind them and realized they were on their own while he dealt with the nannies and this issue. That is a hard thing about areas of poverty. Need is need. How do you decide whose need is greater? Their own kiddos at home and being able to provide for them? Or the kiddos in their care-waiting to go home to their forever families or orphans without families of their own?
He was overwhelmed and broken...I wish that he could share his thoughts himself! and hopefully he someday will! (School ends for him this week, payroll, my parents coming...I just knew it wouldn't happen)
We are praying that God shows us daily what to fight for! We will fight for our kiddos and the best care we can establish and give to them first and foremost...they are why God called us here! But we love our staff and we want to do right by them and be the hands and feet of Jesus to them as well...
So we pray that God is in our every interaction and our every decision...
We pray that He flings doors wide open and closes others so that the decisions are never ours but HIS ALONE!
Comfort our hearts and be our strength...
Pray for us, friends...
Erin- I am with you. This is a struggle we deal with daily as well. We once had a staff member tell us that it was hard for him to watch us provide so much to our kids at the orphanage because he knows at the end of the day he has to go home to his own kids- kids he can only provide much less to. And is that fair? Is it fair that we ask him to come to work to provide a good life of what would be considered abundance in Haiti when he can't even provide a good life for his own children? I don't know how our staff do it. And as employers, it is ok that we put them in that dilemma in the first place? I don't think so. But money is tight so what do you do? I wish I knew too.
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