Christy

We are back in the States.  Yay!!!!  Both flights were good.  The lay over in Ft Lauderdale was long but now I have a Ft Lauderdale sweatshirt---we froze during the seven hour wait.  Steph, Emily and Sarah, greeted us at the airport, and I have to say, the ride home was more than a grandmother could ask.  In the back seat with both girls, simply wanting to be close.  How wonderful is that?  Conversation and laughter until about midnight made the long wait for our Chicago flight worth it.

While flying and sitting, I dug in to finish the book Christy.  If you've never read it, please do.  I was fascinated at how the lives of mountain people in TN, parrot the lives of those we minister in Haiti.  The superstitions, lack of medical care, lack of education, the way funerals are conducted, revenge battles, struggle to bring truth--all of it reminded me of Haiti. 

One time I took a picture of a little child with a necklace around his neck.  Beads around, center a small bone from a hogs head.  Voudou.  I hung it on the bulletin board at our church in WV.  The young woman who cleaned our church had a background much like those in the Christy book.  One day she approached me saying, "I know that bone!"  I didn't know what she was talking about until she took me to the picture and pointed to the necklace on the little child.  She went on to say she had a necklace just like that one pictured.  Of course, I asked her to bring it to me which she did. She told  me her grandmother made them for all the children in the family.   It was the same necklace.  The mystery remains as to how a family in the hills of WV could have the same type necklace as those in the villages of Haiti.  There is a thread that runs among the poor of the world that fascinates me and reading Christy made it even more so.  I took that necklace to Haiti and all the Haitians were awestruck when I told them I'd gotten it in the US from a white American who's grandmother made them for the children. 

Out with my friend Peggy today, tomorrow heading east, wedding date is about here.  My youngest son getting married.  I wonder if what I'm feeling was felt by my mother-in-law when Gary married me?  I'm looking forward to a new daughter-in-law and sharing in their joys and sorrows for as long as the Lord allows me to remain on the earth, but of course, I'm praying against sorrows.  We were at a Haitian wedding last week as we witnessed Daniel''s marriage.  It sure  was  hot, doubt we experience that kind of heat next Sat.

More about the comparisons of the two weddings next week.