What happens in dark places

Smoke filled the church sanctuary. Eyes closed, I didn't discover this till my lungs felt it, yet I sang on. Diaphragm diving and throat soaring, my voice mingled in among the other singers--an English song being sung with thick Creole voices that swell like ocean waves. There is a change of key and not everyone makes it, so the choir director lifts up his hand and all singing stops.

I do not understand the words being spoken, but I do know that we're going to sing it again. My body is tired, my spirit overwhelmed with the multifarious experiences that have stretched me like elastic this past week, and I need sleep, yet there is a choking within me deeper than the smoke that comes from the nearby trash burnings. We restart the song and I rejoice, for I need this song. Its eery tones mixing with praise resounds within me till every part of my body and soul electrifies and I continue to sing, lungs full of smoke, heart heavy.

My heart is heavy because I don't know what to say when the nine year old girl with hair that smells like vanilla bean tells me her mom died a week ago. My heart is heavy because I'm suddenly caring for her five year old brother who's toe was sliced open and he won't let me clean it off but I have to, I know you have to, and now he's crying and I choke back tears of my own as I realize that I'm doing what his mother should be doing. But she's not here. I saw a picture of her emaciated body on her deathbed, languishing from the treatable cancer that took away her life.

My heart is heavy because this 6 months in the Dominican Republic is suddenly so much more than I was expecting. Because there is a lot of darkness.

Of course I wasn't expecting easy--if I wanted easy I would have stayed. But I don't want easy, it's just that this isn't the kind of hard I had anticipated. I hadn't foreseen what I was walking into, I hadn't realized the responsibility I now have. There are things I am in the midst of right now that I can't even explain if I could. My heart is heavy because when you're committed to a place for longer than 10 days you begin to realize a lot of things you had never seen before.

"But Thou, oh Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the lifter of my head."

You sing, oh dear heart, you sing it out. He is my shield, and a shield is what we need. Kristen and I have entered into a battle zone and if ever we needed a shield it is now. We don't even trust ourselves anymore, but with desperation we grasp hands and we pray because we know how weak we are. We know that in the face of this we can only fall upon the Lord.

"Die," we say to one another, "we must die." But death to self cannot only be talked about. So we pray, Spanish and English intermingled, dogs barking around us and loud music booming from the night clubs, we pray that we would be strong enough to die to ourselves.

* * * *

Next afternoon there are clouds jumbled up with puffy contours which Kristen says makes them look tangible. She's right; you feel that you could practically reach out and hold them. There's a mixture of white on a blacksplash of dark sky, the sun slanting in from one direction and a dust-like rain coming from the other. Perfect ingredients for a rainbow, which we soon spot forming across the sky. In our excitement we run and catch the arm of our cook and ask her how you say rainbow in Spanish. 

"Arcoiris," she says, her elegant tall figure standing upright beside us. "Gracias!" and with that we run on to tell others, "Mira, arcoiris!!" 

Yet that's not all, for suddenly, out of the darkest place in the sky, the huge double rainbow turns such vibrant colors that our eyes are dazzled and all we can do is grab one another, practically jumping from the joy of our revelation: Where it was darkest, it shines the most vibrantly. The bow which served as a reminder of God's promise to Noah now arcs across our Caribbean sky, the place we're now calling home, and it speaks love and hope into the depths of our fears. It proves to us that here, in the midst of darkness, God's light and the marvelous colors of His beauty will not only overcome the dark, but shine brighter because of it.