Alternative Title: Adventures in Anticipation
In 23 days, I will fly out to Haiti to stay for two full months.
What?!
Wow!
I can’t even begin to process that statement. In my typical fashion, I’ve been exercising my mighty mental procrastination skills like a champ. I’ve just gotten off of a long, hard semester in Massachusetts and before that, a very challenging semester in France. I’m weary in so many different ways. Even though that annoying voice in my head is telling me to just kick back all summer in my backyard with a good book (or fifty), I knew that that option was no longer for me, despite my going and going and going.
I can’t stop now. I’ve been bitten by not only travel bug but the experience one too. I’m now an adrenaline junkie with new challenges and obstacles as my drug of choice. And what is more enriching yet challenging than what I’m about to do?
For those of you who don’t know, I’ll be interning with Nehemiah Visions Ministries’ summer English camp in Chambrun, Haiti.
[IMPORTANT INTERRUPTION: I also need to make it completely clear that this opportunity would have NEVER been possible for me without the generosity, support, and love I’ve been overwhelmingly blessed with shown to me by my friends, extended family, and members of the community build around my family. I’ve been so blessed and could not be more humbled. Not having the heavy burden of expenses has been the greatest possible gift bestowed on the most grateful of subjects. I can’t even say ‘thank you’ enough to those who have helped!]
I can’t tell you much more right now because I won’t fully understand all that I’ll be doing until I get there. I don’t have any experience with ESL teaching or creating curriculum or missions. Even though I don’t have the experience factor, all I know is that I love kids, I speak French and have already started learning Creole, and I am a passionately quick learner.
It’s not that I’m scared to be going into something that I can’t even dream up expectations for. No, ‘afraid’ is not really it. My aunt said it well; it’s not exactly ‘excited’ either, it’s anticipatory. I’m anticipatory to see Haiti and its natural beauty (after all, the French call it “La Perle des Antilles”). I’m anticipatory to build relationships and really love on these kids I’ll be teaching (whatever I’ll be teaching them). I’m anticipatory to connect with the other interns I’m serving with and the great people who run Nehemiah. I’m anticipatory for homesickness and yearning for my comfortable, easy life back home. I’m anticipatory for the inevitable sunburns and laughter and joy.
I really have been trying to understand how I feel about this new adventure; if I’m ready, what I want to learn from it, what I want to take away from it. And I just can’t. And I think that’s the healthiest way to start.
So, Haiti, here I come! Completely open!
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