His Grace is So Amazing...

My job was to take photo's, to observe and document their life. To watch through a filter, to edit and present a story that I was detached from. Of course I knew this would be impossible. After all, the majority of people I would be taking pictures of were children, and you know me and children... or you don't... let's put it this way, most of photos that are taken of me are usually blurry, and I'm always holding a child.

So I knew that this story I would have to tell would be personal, I just didn't realize how much. *deep breath* I have a story to tell you about God's amazing Grace, and it involves a need and a group of individuals who spend every waking and sleeping moment trying to fill that need. They cannot, and they know it. But rather than walking away, they remind God over and over again to use them, to use their failings and mistakes, to push them through the discouragements and challenges, to let them be his hands and feet and heart for the Haitian people.

God has a habit of listening, and it is obvious when you walk through the gate at Grace So Amazing Ministries; the front sitting room is open concept - rather than a wall there is white wrought iron fencing, instead of proper doors you enter the house through gates, offering a view of three "mamas" sitting as four babies play around their feet. Access to the house is through a covered play area for the older four children. Here they sit around a small folding table eating their lunch of rice and bananas (side note; their bananas taste way better than ours). Here the eight children are cared for and loved. Here is the home base for Kellie Hurt and Beverly Claire, American nationals with Haiti hearts. Here men and women come and go, loving and working for their community and their God. Here my sister, Dad, and I called home for too short an amount of time.

Playing around

DSC_0378

Breakfast

Going for a walk

Tianna

Breakfast

Noah

Toes

Front Porching it

Reena

Mathurin and baby Daniel

Melissa

Cuties

Mama Nana

Music

Rosie's main job was baby holding, but this included organizing school supplies, making dinner, teaching the kids duck, duck, goose (translated effectively as kanna, kanna, honk), distributing lunch and loving where she could.

Not so serious

Loading up

Smile and wave

Hand washing station

Rosie and Dominic

Pat-A-Cake

Visiting Global Vision Orphanage

Rosie and Dawins

Reena's a favorite

Say Cheese!

Helping with lunch

Lunch

Dad had a job of maintenance and planning. From fixing the well on the school site to measuring distance for the school roof, he was kept busy as he planned for future projects (e.g. the Grace Academy Roof project), and he had the opportunity to train others as he worked.

Hanging "doors"

School Plans

Repairs

Fencing

School

Music Break

Water

Filling Station

Schools

Big talks

Going home

Feet and Ladder

My job was documenting. My camera became a third eye as I tried to take in as much as possible. There were times. however. when I left it in my room. Instead I would soak up all that I could, trying not to lose the colors, smells, and noises. The camera was not seen as a friend there in Mirebalais. I quickly learned to ask ''Mwen ka pap fu foto" when I was given the chance, but if I didn't ask I couldn't take the picture.

Reena

What a smile

Lovelyness

Mosquito Netting

Classic

I wanted to say I understood.

I wanted to sit with the woman braiding her daughters hair and tell her that I too would feel ridiculous to have a foreigner take pictures of my life and my home as if we were in a fishbowl. As if we were an abnormality.

I wanted to sit and say that I wasn't taking photos because I wanted to separate them from myself and my world, but rather to bring them closer.

I wanted to say that I took the picture because it is beautiful to me that her children have wide eyes of wonder, that she is painstakingly braiding her daughters hair because she cares about her, that the lack of door is a point of envy because the children can run in and out of their mothers love without letting the door slam, that I love her choice of fabric and that the colors speak of her yearning to make her home beautiful.

Just the same as the homes I have been blessed to be able to run in and out of.

Just like the mothers I know, who take time to do their daughters hair, who leave the doors open to let in light and children, who hang their walls in color to make their world more lovely.

I wanted to talk to her and ask her about her heart but all I could do was laugh along with her as I faltered through, 'Mwen ka pap fu foto??'

She nods and tries to hide her smile while I take the picture, and I thank her and move on.

It is easy to say that I was changed by Haiti. After all, that was to be expected. It is much more difficult to explain that every part of the chaos and calm melded themselves in between the layers of my heart and faith and unfixed me. When I walked into Grace So Amazing I picked up Melissa and she promptly snuggled up under my chin,

It was then that I felt home-not as if I was a nomad coming home or that I don't feel at home here, I simply felt home-an overwhelming sense of belonging to something greater than myself and my failings. And for six days I did belong to something greater than myself, I stepped into a world so completely different and yet carrying with the difference the same familiar wants and needs, the same emotions. The babies still cry when they were hungry and card games still became survival of the fittest. We still laughed in horror when we discovered Mama Nana cheating at cards, the dishes were often done with inside jokes and praise songs.

So it was all familiar, love was still there along with the grimy residue left by sin.

Grace So Amazing Ministries was started in 2012 as an education outreach program, Kellie Hurt's goal was to bring enriched education programs to those who could not afford to go to school in the outlying farms surrounding the town of Mirebailias. Although Kellie planned to provide care of some sort for orphans in the future after the school was established her priority was education. Come to find out that God had other plans and in the summer of 2014 Kellie was contacted by a woman who knew of two infants who were in dire need of love and care. Both little Carl and Tianna were in abusive situations and needed a way out. Initially GSA contacted other orphanages in hopes of finding them a home but none had space for the two malnourished babies and so Kellie and her team at GSA were faced with a decision, rework their facilities to accommodate for children or walk away. They knew that in good conscious they could not choose the second option and so Carl and Tianna became the first of many babies to find hope under the roof of GSA. Hannah Brencher writes, "...the definition of agape is loving a person for exactly who they are-not who we hope they'll become with enough fixing. It's this idea that every person has their layers, so you can never confine a person to only what you know about them from first glance. Its staked on the premise that to love anyone is to hope in them always."

...'to love anyone is to hope in them always.'

I started this post the week I got back in July and have kept rephrasing and rewriting it. Trying to fit too many words into one space. Writing is not my thing, pictures are. So I stumble through the writing and know the photo's do the talking. In the next couple of weeks I will be releasing three blog post specifically focused on the GSA group and the work that they are accomplishing. My goal is to convey to you the needs found in little Mirebailias and the stories of each of the children who can claim the title of Hope.

If you have any particular questions you would like me to respond to please email me at hannah.jane.farris@gmail.com