Whatever Christian
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Estella
Estella has a gentle, quiet way of loving. She is shy, but strong. She has known heartache, yet there is a sparkle in her eye and sunshine in her smile. While her love whispers, her acts of service pierce my heart, scream to the very core of me, and deafeningly teach me what it really means to possess a servant’s heart.




I had returned to what was home at the time feeling defeated by the result of the day. I was frustrated, angry, and exhausted. I had been up and down Port au Prince trying to accomplish something and in a very typical manor had been let down. I was marching through an unwelcoming market carrying a sick baby when it began to rain and I thought, “How appropriate.” If it hadn’t been for the hundreds of dark eyes already staring at me, I would have started crying then. The rain is powerful; it kills and it saves. We usually welcome the rain for it provides life-giving water. It also has a way of washing away the dirt and renewing the soul. Today all it seemed to do was create mud. The rain made the thick, sticky type of mud that sprays up your legs with every flick of a flip flop. A woman gave me a cloth to cover the baby with and gave me a look that said, “That stupid child, doesn’t she know the rain could kill a baby?” When you are from a place that watches children die as fast as the rain comes, you start to form your own superstitions. I barged through the large blue gates and plopped the baby down in the first lap I found and headed back to the well. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Haiti often makes one feel helpless and all efforts pointless. I avoided making contact with questioning eyes as I found the bucket and began hauling up water. Someone handed me a small yellow tub to fill and curiously said “Sissy?” as if to prompt me to explain. I said nothing, not sure how to explain my reaction to the frustration these women are accustomed to. I sat down and stared at my feet and thought about how incredibly blessed I am when I noticed that Estella had planted herself in a chair in front of me and informed me that she was going to wash my feet. I told her she didn’t have to do that, but she just grabbed the soap and began anyway. The mud was all the way up to my thighs and she gingerly washed it all away. It was late in the afternoon and time for her to go home to her own family and her own chores, yet she took her time. I began to cry again at the beautiful parallel of this moment and the moment shared between Christ and his disciples. Washing someone’s feet is intimate, humbling and selfless. This is the relationship Christ had with his disciples. I was filthy, but Estella was not afraid to get her hands dirty in order to make me clean. I was filthy, but Jesus was not afraid to die pierced, bloodied, bruised, and betrayed on a cross in order to make me clean.
posted by Carsen @ 6:30 PM  
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Name: Carsen
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