God gave me a resturaunt; Part I

On this day four years ago:
Everest and I spent our first night alone in our own little apartment in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. He was a sweet, chubby seven month old at the time.

Six weeks prior to our move in- my husband had left us in a whirlwind of abuse, chaos and lies. In the months to follow, Everest and I needed an order of protection granted to remain safe from him in that little apartment. In those months I also discovered that everything I knew about my husband was a lie. It happened to me, folks: I had married a sociopath.

Needless to say, this was a rough patch in my life. But, the most significant thing that changed in me was my faith. I was confident that God did indeed exist, but I retired the belief that God intervened in the happenings of the world.

I grew up in church, I spent every summer of my youth at bible camp, I went to Christian schools and Christian college. My parents taught me that God was powerful, and everything was hinged on prayer.
So... I didn't announce my new ideology on social media or anything, but I was internally void every time someone told me they were praying for me- because I no longer believed that God had puppet strings attached to our planet.

But, this new belief sort of empowered me.
"She believed she could... so she did"  became my new thing. It was liberating for me to let go of the whole "God I am so weak, I can do nothing without you" mentality, and just do stuff.

And in the last four years, I got a lot done. A LOT. If I had a dollar for every time someone said "I don't know how you do it..." I wouldn't be home fundraising right now.

In the Spring of 2014, I was living the single mom dream. I was making $50,000 a year as Social Worker; I was starting the process to buy a townhome; my kids were going to KinderCare and getting smarter everyday; I was applying for graduate programs; and I had just received a $10,000 single-mom tax return- everything was A-Okay.

That tax return, oddly enough, inspired my first prayer in three years. I don't know why a large sum of money made me pray- but I asked God to help me use it to make an impact on the world. I let the money sit in my bank account waiting for an answer. For some reason, when my bank account had the most money it has ever had; I wanted God involved again.

On March 26th, my friend that works in Haiti facebooked me while on my way to work, and asked me if I could move to Haiti for six months to a year to help mothers with employment.

It was a bizarre moment: I had no fear, no reservations, no conflict, no hesitation, no confusion, and because of the $10,000- no barriers. I was being asked to do something impactful: help other mothers feed their children. I launched a gofundme for a program on April 1st, and decided I would stay in Haiti for as long as I could live off that tax return.

This is when the #godmagic began, I uttered one little prayer in three years, asking God to use me and my money- and then I stood, jaw dropped, in the middle of a tornado of supernatural occurrences. Everything happened like magic.

Except when I started developing employment ideas for the mothers I was going to meet. I researched, consulted, networked, and strategized. I knew I needed to create a job market, so I spent endless hours trying to figure out what work. There were lots of amazing ideas- but I was discouraged because I have absolutely no skills in jewelry making or sewing. So... having the women make a sellable item made complete sense, but I wasn't going to be able to train to them.

Simultaneously, I launched a campaign called #junkinmytrunk where I offered to pick up my friends junk for a fundraiser garage sale. This is when I was introduced to Jackie through Facebook. She contacted me having heard of my fundraiser through a friend of friend; and offered me a desk to sell at my garage sale. We became friends on Facebook that day, but I never picked up the desk.

Fast forward 5 months, and I have returned to the US from Haiti. God has proven me wrong. He does intervene in the happenings of the world. He completely schooled me. He's super busy making things happen.

I got quite a bit accomplished while we were in Haiti. But, when I returned, I focused on one thing: figuring out the employment program that I had failed to develop while in Haiti.
Because now I have mamas.
Now I have families I am invested in.
Now there are people in Haiti that I have promised to help.

I had more ideas, different ideas, but couldn't get behind any of them completely.
None of them felt magical.

I spent a week talking to professors, grant writers, friends, social workers, missionaries, and as a result of those conversations, I FINALLY felt like I had an employment idea I loved, and made complete sense:
A restaurant.
1. I have 10 years of experience in the service industry- it is something I know how to do!
2. It is sustainable in Haiti, because we can use Haitian resources, and Haitians will buy it.
3. We can implement programs for the children in our program that support the business: like gardening, and raising chickens.
And the list went on...
I was relieved and thrilled. And I was immediately committed. This was it. I knew it.

The very next day, Jackie- this woman I have never met, but am friends on Facebook because she offered a junk donation for my Haiti Mama garage sale- posted pictures of a storage unit full of things that needed to sold. Inside that storage unit was an entire restaurant. I had just completely committed to a restaurant in Haiti the day before.
It felt... magical.

I reached out to her, and told her of my grandiose plans. The next day, Jackie and her husband decided to donate their entire restaurant to Haiti Mama. Everything we could have dreamed of: 40 chairs, 20 tables, outdoor tables with umbrellas, warm and cold serving stations, pitchers, cups.... EVERYTHING. Donated.

In April, I was freaking out because I was going to Haiti without the artistic ability to make sellable anything. I was watching #godmagic happen all around me; but my faith hadn't been restored enough at that point to trust that God had it ALL planned out.

As I was being a stupid little human, God was ensuring that 5 months later I would see a Facebook post on the exact day I needed to see it. He also timed Jackie and her husband's decision to sell the contents of their storage unit after I had decided to start a restaurant in Haiti for our mamas to work at. Had it been ANY day before that, I would have never thought to ask them.

I have an entire organization built on the magical interventions of God on our planet. And the donation we received today was my faith restored to a point that I want to scream about God's power.

The thing about #godmagic is that WE are His workmanship: nothing magical happens without our hands and feet. So- go forth and serve with gladness. :-)

Thank you, Jackie and Brad! I promise to make you proud of our generosity.

Haiti is a horrible place!

Three separate times now, since being back in our bountiful United States of America someone has said to me "Haiti is a horrible place!" upon learning of my travels. The first guy on my plane actually said "Haiti is an effing disgusting, horrible place!"

To my face.

I suppose if poverty constitutes effing horrible than it's horrible; because Haiti is poor, for sure. 

But, the times in my life where I felt shock and dismay because something was horrible- wasn't ever due to poverty. The times I have observed cruelty, selfishness, racism, ignorance, elitism, and blatant arrogance are the times I would use the word horrible. 

In my opinion, the most horrible thing in this world is love of self and all that goes into it. 

On the contrary, Haitians are generous and selfless in spirit. Though they have so little, they offer you everything they have. 

I remember in July, my boys and I were invited to spend the weekend at a small beach village, I was told by the missionaries that invited us that the people there were extremely poor, as a sort of warning. When we arrived, all the children ran up to greet us; none of them wore shoes, all their clothes were dirty and torn, and most were malnourished. But their welcome was genuine, and they so badly wanted my boys feel comfortable and happy. About 5 minutes into our visit, I looked over to see my boys being fed cheese puffs from one of the village girls. I was so humbled. I am sure her family couldn't afford much more than the 5 goudes it cost for that bag of chico, but she was feeding it to my kids with a beautiful generosity you can only find in horrible poverty. She was loving them before herself, for real. 

The Haiti Mama boys are the same.
Generous, sharing, compassionate, giving, and empathetic at baseline. And remember their baseline was also sleeping on the streets, and begging for food before I met them.

I don't think Haiti is a horrible place. I love this poor culture of selflessness and generosity.