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This little entry was written on the 2nd anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. It is dedicated to all the first responders but especially to Kez, who was exactly where God wanted her to be at that moment. Right next to me.

It didn’t rain. All day it had looked of rain, and night was usually the time of day when the look became reality. The heavens would open and -if we were so fortunate- flash too, thundering, crashing, pouring wet and light down upon the streets of Port au Prince. Lightning storms in the rainy season: God’s unrestrainable exhibition of power, danger, mysterious beauty. But it didn’t rain.

Tonight snow falls. And unlike that night I will be warm, I will sleep in a bed under a roof, and the world around me will be as silent as the snow. And I will remember the earth that trembled, the women who sang, the nurse who labored, broken bodies, peanut butter sandwiches, January cold, sky that broke, the bright silver loneliness of a moon looking down upon our chaos. And it didn’t rain.

Thank You, God, for your mammoth and miniscule provisions. For circumstance and routine, community and conversation. Thank You for presence and absence, for limitation and ignorance. Thank You for adrenaline and exhaustion and grief.
Thank You that it didn’t rain.

Please Look at this Link Re: Haiti Cholera Epidemic

Please Read This:

http://goatpath.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/cholera-reaches-port-au-prince-as-victims-are-left-in-mass-graves/#more-553

An Open Door

A few weeks ago I was challenged by a conversation with a new friend. I was describing to her how my life felt like I was pinned up against a wall, suffocating, with no direction and no end in sight. I didn’t even know what to pray. Jen counseled me to start asking God for an open door. So I did.

Very shortly thereafter I received a phone call. An answer!

Back in February I when had been home from Haiti for about a month a good friend spoke into my life. She said she was seeing things in my life which she felt God was pressing upon her heart she needed to talk to me about. I’ve struggled (Ha ha ha! What a mild word. “Been engulfed by” is a more fitting description.) with an eating disorder since I was a teenager but I thought I’d had victory over it last year before I left for Haiti. Apparently, I was wrong; coming home from Haiti that became very evident. My friend felt strongly that I should admit myself into a residential treatment center to get help.

So we researched my options and pursued several paths but all paths became blocked except one. (And, boy, did that one drag on, and on, and on!) Six months later, I received my phone call! I had a move-in date! An open door!

On Wednesday, 18 August I am walking through that door. I will be living in a residential treatment center with 19 other girls who, like me, are there to work on an assortment of addictions, disorders, and issues! The program we are going through is called Vision of Hope. It is a ministry of Faith Baptist Church of Lafayette, IN.

How long will I be there? As long as it takes. (The staff says anywhere from 6-12 months.) Initially, the program is very restrictive so forgive me for not returning emails and phone calls. I will be allowed one personal phone call a week and you can bet I’ll be using all 14 minutes to talk to my mamma (and Daddy, and Taba, and Drew)!!! I will have no internet. I think I will be allowed to send and receive real mail, though. If you write, I will certainly write back!

I need prayer for transparency. My heart is so deceitful and deceived that I myself am often unsure what to say and do and think. I need Jesus to shine His light on. I need grace to respond to Jesus as He continues to pursue me for a relationship. For the past ten + years of being a Christian, somehow I’ve been totally missing out on that. More than anything, I think I need to feel and become convinced of God's love.

The Beautiful Letdown album seems to be providing the soundtrack to this season of my life. In my preparation, as I vacillate between pure excitement and sheer terror, the chorus of this song repeats itself in my mind…

When everything inside me looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

And I'm on fire when You're near me
I'm on fire when You speak
I'm on fire burning out these mysteries

I'm standing on the edge of me
I'm standing at the edge of everything I've never been before And I've been standing on the edge of me, standing on the edge


Thank You, God, for good friends! and for the Journey You’ve promised to lead me safely on, as long as it takes.

Switchfoot - On Fire Lyrics

Switchfoot - On Fire Lyrics

Twenty Four (Six)

"Ok, what's the next Step?"

July, 2010...
Do you have songs which, when you hear them, immediately bring to mind a specific person, place, or season in your life? I do- in fact, I have entire musical albums which remind me of past seasons of life. Switchfoot’s “Beautiful Letdown” was one that I downloaded (uploaded?) onto my iPod prior to moving to Haiti last summer so when I ran the streets of Petionville for the four and a half months that I lived there a visual track evolved to accompany the music. (I especially laughed at the chorus of one song: “From the third world to the corporate ear we are the symphony of modern humanity”…)

God and I have been talking about the next step. I have officially been home for six months now. “What’s next, what’s next???” I demand, frantically. Back to Haiti? Where’s my passion? Do I have a heart for orphan care? Or is it against the cruelty of the sex trade? Is my calling on the foreign missions field? Should I go back to school? These questions reminded me recently of lyrics in Switchfoot’s song “Twenty Four.” I am a bit past twenty-four but I am still in my twenties so the song speaks personally to this season of my life:

I want to see miracles, to see the world change
Wrestled the angel, for more than a name
For more than a feeling
For more than a cause
I'm singing Spirit take me up in arms with You
And You're raising the dead in me
http://artists.letssingit.com/switchfoot-lyrics-24-hh5pt3w

The gracious sifting and scourging and pruning that the Father is working in me currently is spoken of in the lyrics above. Yesterday the Holy Spirit showed me that, although the Lesson for me has been and continues to be, God, God, God, God, God- more of Him, getting to know Him, desiring Him and enjoying Him more than His gifts- my heart still clamors for some kind of definition outside of Him: a name, a feeling, a cause. The song speaks of something more valuable than even these enviable gifts: intimacy with God and a life made new.

So how can I respond? I am laying down my demands. I will cease striving. I will wait.

Francois Fenelon has this to offer we Pilgrims who find ourselves needing to practice the lesson of walking with God:

LIVE DAY BY DAY
Your spiritual walk is a little too restless and uneasy. Simply trust God. if you come to Him, He will give you all that you need to serve Him. You really need to believe that God keeps His word. The more you trust Him, the more He will be able to give you. If you were lost in an uncrossable desert, bread would fall from heaven for you alone.
Fear nothing but to fail God. And do not even fear that so much that you let it upset you. Learn to live with your failures, and bear with the failures of your neighbors. Do you know what would be best for you? Stop trying to appear so mentally and spiritually perfect before God and man. There is a lot of refined selfishness and complacency in not allowing your faults to be revealed. Be simple with God. He loves to communicate Himself to simple people. Live day by day, not in your own strength, but by completely surrendering yourself to God.
-The Seeking Heart

A recent view along the Appalachian Trail, Dalesville, Virginia

You Can Help

Dear Indiana Friends,
I wanted to let you know about an opportunity to further serve the people of Haiti through work that is going on with Three Angels… I will be sending down a shipment (number 3? or 4 from Indiana? Great job, Indy, for your support efforts thus far!) of relief supplies the week of July 5th. These are the supplies we could especially use at this time:
• Food (beans, rice, peanut butter, oatmeal, tuna, etc…)
• Clothing (gently used, please, and keep in mind that Haiti is a HOT climate)
• Protective rain gear (ponchos, umbrellas, etc.)
• Personal Hygiene (Haitians are black, so please consider the needs of black skin & hair)
Please drop off your donations at Centennial Bible Church in Westfield. The items should be placed in the bins under the coat racks. Or contact me through Facebook. The Fishers YMCA has donated more than 100 t-shirts which will go down on this shipment… Are there any old VBS shirts that could be included? Many thanks to the Brown family for the beautiful clothing they donated- I am smiling when I think about how pretty those little girls will look in their new sundresses.

Three Angels has been on the hunt for land to purchase for several months now. (The 91 Delmas property we have been on is a rental property.) Last week a lucrative opportunity arose; please pray for our Leadership to have God’s wisdom and clear leading as they enter in to the negotiation stage & seek to be responsible stewards of the money available.

Hurricane season is upon us. Will you pray with me that God will completely protect the nation of Haiti from hurricanes this year?

On Wednesday of this week (6/30) Dr. Jack Nonweiler will be in Indy having surgery to fuse vertebrae in his neck. Please support he and Marcia in prayer during the procedure and during the 6-week recovery time to follow. They are eager to return to their work in Haiti!
Blessings!
Abbey McArthur

A Re-Commencement

Dear Family and Friends,

Welcome back to my blog! Many of you are interested in what’s going on in Haiti with Three Angels and what my current status/future plans are… So for these (and several other) reasons I am re-commencing my blog. :)

Currently I am back at home in Fishers, Indiana with Daddy, Mamma, Tabitha, Drew, Lucy and Yoda. God provided me a part-time job working at Ace Hardware- what a blessing this is proving to be! More on that in future blogs, probably. Taba & Drew’s school year finished up with Taba’s senior prom & commencement ceremony. Thanks to the Parks & Farris’ for making the drive down/up ‘n’ over to celebrate with us and for our church family who came in support of my sister, too! When I think about the story I’ve lived these past 26 years it is you folks who have made it a thoroughly satisfying one. Thank you.


The Taylor-Macs are Back: Together Again

God has been restructuring Three Angels and giving its new leadership clear direction. These visionary, hard-working folks are laboring on three specific fronts.

The Nons in Action!

Medical mission teams continue to travel down to minister the love of Jesus to our neighbors on Delmas 91 out of our clinic which- miraculously- still stands! Dr. Jack and Marcia Nonweiler are no longer living on our Delmas property but continue to make trips back and forth from the States to Haiti. When they are on the ground, they see and serve 40-50 patients daily. Currently, the Nons are stateside to work through some medical challenges of their own so please be in prayer for these tireless warriors!



School boys during recess
The school, Three Angels Christian Academy (TACA), resumed abbreviated classes shortly after the 1/12 earthquake and will continue through July to make up for the weeks lost post-quake. A major goal of our ministry has been to provide a hot, Haitian-style rice-and-beans meal each school day to each school child and teacher. School child sponsorship really helps foot the bill financially to meet this need so if you haven’t “adopted” an adorable TACA Haitian school child please seriously consider getting your family involved to do so. (http://www.threeangelsrelief.org/christian-academy/sponsor-a-child/) It’s $27/month. If you have four people in your family, that’s one date night out to see a new movie. Please ponder the eternal impact of such a sacrifice.

Manger! Mmmm... Haitian Rice and Beans

Restarting Angel House Orphanage has been placed on Divine hold. Regarding our passion for orphan care, TA board member Shannon Hoffmann affirms, “We are still committed to the care of orphans by serving those in our community until we can provide a new home for them. We cannot lose this focus as it is the crux of who we are.” We continue to financially support our workers who once “ran” the orphanage- our hard-working Haitian nannies, groundskeepers, and guards- but the TA leadership considers it wise to purchase land (we were only renting the Delmas 91 property) before starting a new orphanage. The “hold up” is that land now in earthquake-ravaged suburban Port au Prince is around $200,000/acre- prohibitively expensive! Land in the countryside is much more affordable but to move our operations so far from our current neighborhood would be to change the nature and mission of Three Angels all together. We are praying and trusting God for the resources and the wisdom we need for the future.




With 300,000 dead in Haiti, there are many new oprhans who need to feel the Love of Jesus

I think and dream about Haiti, “my” kids, and the Haitian friends I left behind daily. Am I going back to Haiti? I have no idea. Do I want to go back? I have no idea. The Haiti “chapter” of my life feels very much unclosed & I feel a desire to return there but I’m not smart enough to know if that’s because God will send me back or because of the very unusual and very abrupt departure I and 26 other Haitian refugees made on January 18th. God knows. And for now, that’s enough for me. When I think about returning, here are some of the pros and cons I bullet-point list in my head:
Cons:• Pervasive poor work ethic and self-respect of the men.
• Arrogant Haitian self-identity of Entitlement nurtured, unfortunately, by a strong & long missionary presence in Haiti.
• Being taken advantage of as a foreigner.
• The sexual promiscuity which saturates the culture.
• City noise & toxicity.
• The “concrete jungle” of the city.
Pros:• Women’s faith & work ethic.
• Kissing Hello & Goodbye! Very classy & personable.
• Being called “Miss”!
• Foreign language(s)!
• Missionary community: quality folks!
• The hardness of life: I really liked the inconvenience of life in Haiti!

While I share the thought process that I routinely go through, the Question of me returning to Haiti will not be decided by a list of what I liked and did not like about life there. It will be decided upon a calling. –Am I called by God to go to Haiti? M'pa konnen. I don't know. I am thankful for the days, weeks, and months He is giving me here at home to wait for and to hear His answer.


Pre-Quake Port au Prince