Be as good as your dog

Talk about an ego booster.

Seventeen years ago, I was a frequent visitor to House of Blessings at #4 Rue Sambour, Port-au-Prince. In large part, I availed myself of the hospitality of Phil and Lonnie Murphy, whom I had adopted as family while I was in Haiti. ("Abused" might be a better word, but I like to think that I made up for it after my return to the E.U., when I steered some support their way from the Christian school where I was teaching.)

But aside from my time with the Murphys, I put in some time with the children there as well. In particular, I paid attention to Steve and Isaac Adrien, a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old pair of brothers who had just arrived. I played with them, talked with them, and would gladly have taken them home had it been possible and realistic. (It was neither.)

I spoke for a while with Steve, during our recent September visit to Haiti. Now 19, Steve hopes in early 2012 to begin attending a unversity in Missouri, where he plans to major in business administration, so he can return to Haiti and make a difference to his people. I felt a sort of distant pride in him, aware of how much I had loved the little kid he once had been, but also aware how little I'd had to do with the man he was becoming.

Steve also told me that he had recognized me last March when he had been at the Cradle of Life Crisis Relief Center. Like me, he had volunteered with the relief efforts; and while we were there, he had been plagued by the thought that he knew me, but for the life of him, he couldn't recall why.

And then last August I led a team to Callebasse to build houses while we stayed at House of Blessings, and it clicked.

So, reader, be assured of this: If you pour your life and your love into someone, they will remember you.

* * *

Several others who had been associated with House of Blessings in 1994 still are connected with it, and I spoke with them while were in Haiti in September -- Wislande, Tania and Woody all believe me when I say I was there, even though they don't remember me.

After I left in 1994, Phil took in my dog for a month or so, until they were unable to keep him any longer. Ajax was a mountain of a dog, an indomitable Labdrador retriever, rising up over everyone, a mighty river coursing the length of his large pink tongue. He one of the best dogs I've ever known.

They all remember my dog.

And all this goes to prove that if you love someone deeply, you can mean as much to them and make as big a difference in their lives, as your dog.




Copyright © 2011 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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staff devotions

I've never been a big fan of daily devotions when it comes to matters of faith, especially when we're expected to lead them with one another.

Devotions more typically are shallow readings of Scripture or similarly light stories intended more to make us feel good than they are intended to challenge us to think more deeply about God or a life of holiness. Poems like "Footprints" are popular material for devotions. They reassure us that God is in control of things, and no matter how it seems to get, everything will turn out all right in the end.

We had daily devotions at Central Christian Academy in Bethlehem, Pa., when I taught there, and man the other teachers hated when it was my turn. I've always felt that the purpose of reading the Bible is to discover something new about holiness and our pursuit of God; and that we should share what we've been learning, rather than repeating the same homilies everyone knows and shares all the time.

In other words, I couldn't just be normal and light and fluffy, no, I had to do something different and sometimes even downright bizarre.

So one time I shared Orson Scott Card's different versions of the woman caught in adultery. In one the teacher spares the woman's life because he is corrupt, and sees an advantage in sparing her life; and in the other telling he kills her to uphold justice. That got a horrified gasp from one teacher, but I enjoyed Card's point that Christ strikes the perfect balance between justice and mercy, and that's why we strive to follow him and his example.

Another time I shared a passage from Don Richardson's "Eternity in their Hearts" about the redemptive analogies found in pre-Christian cultures, that missionaries connected to the gospel story so that Christianity would grow organically in the culture rather than being imposed from outside with its Western baggage. I was a former missionary and found this sort of thing fascinating; the other teachers found it tedious and pointed out how long it was taking.

These were not normal fare for devotions, I guess, but then it was my turn to lead devotions, and I found them both more interesing and inspiring that hearing that damn "Footprints" poem again.

Then of course there was the other school, Cradle of Life Christian School in Haiti. We had staff devotions there only twice a week, as I recall, and when I shared "what God was teaching me," it was about the obligation we have to the poor. I offered no answers, only the questions I was asking, and what I was seeing in Scripture and in literature.

No one in the staff objected to my knowledge, but the administration really didn't like that. I was put on probation the next day, and at the end of a month I was fired.

I'm not a fan of devotions, but I'm pretty confident I did that one right.


Copyright © 2003 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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