God Sent You Here to Sweep

BY KATHY

Before we moved to Haiti, I attended a session at the Church of God International convention entitled “So You Want to be a Missionary”, led by Kathi Sellers, a former missionary herself.  She gave all kinds of sage advice, but the message she gave that morning that really stuck with me was this:  whatever work you feel God is calling you to in another country, you should already be doing in the US.  Her point was that  learning a new culture, language, and everything else that comes with living abroad is not the time to also develop a new skill in an effort to help another people.  For Mark, as a medical missionary, that translated to not only having years of experience as a dentist and managing a health facility, but also pursuing a wide variety of other educational experiences such as EMT certification, licensure for IV sedation, additional oral surgery training, and many courses on internal medicine, along with a variety of other flavors of preparation in the medical field, not to mention, of course, spiritual preparation that must accompany any call to missions.

Though I clearly heard God’s voice calling me to Haiti as part of the Fulton team, what I have to offer is certainly more of a supportive role and often more difficult to describe and less overt than Mark’s.  There are many gifts that people commonly assume missionaries possess but which I am lacking.  I am not a Bible teacher, not a preacher, am not especially adept at learning a new language, and not especialy malleable when it come to living in a place that is often emotionally and physically taxing.  Yes, I tap into my business degree and utilize that daily in conjunction with the clinic and the related nonprofit, but that really could mainly be done stateside.  I do provide speech therapy in Haiti, but our schedule only allows that for a few hours per week.  So sometimes, on those days when my family in the US needs me, when I reflect on how I loved my career stateside and felt competent in that role, and how easily life in the US seems to fit my temperment, I wonder how much value I bring to Haiti as Christ’s representative in this new-to-us country.

Last month, Mark and I were in the village of Saint Ard, the same village where the clinic is located.  We were at the church we typically attend there, helping ready the church for its annual regional convention.  Mark was helping move and arrange chairs in the church, and I was sweeping floors, alongside several other members of the church.  Although I do know how to sweep, I was taking note of how the Haitian women were sweeping as they were using brooms made in Haiti that functioned somewhat differently than what I am used to, using a shovel as a dustpan, sprinkling water on the concrete floor before sweeping and then waiting until the floor was damp but not too wet to sweep, in an effort to keep the dust clouds to a minimum.  I was trying to make pleasant conversation in my limited Haitian vocabulary, when another woman who was sweeping said to me “Bondye te voye w pou bale”, with a broad smile.  I looked up and said “What?” (because I so often have to hear a sentence twice or three times before I understand it!).  She repeated herself, with the same smile “God sent you here to sweep”. 

I believe this woman’s message was that God had sent me, and sweeping together, as part of this Haitian community, was what He had sent me to do on this day. 

I think sometimes, being Christ to another is simply joining them in life’s ordinary events, such as sweeping, and just being there.  And sometimes, being Christ is encouraging those of us who are “sweeping”.