What's next?

 This is most definitely the question we have been asked the most since we left Haiti at the beginning of December and I can honestly say until we got home to Northern Ireland we really didn't have much of an idea and very quickly some opportunities were presented and we made some decisions.  

For the time being,  I will be continuing on the role of communications and marketing for Bethesda. This is something I have been doing for around the last 2-3 years.  It involves keep our social media & website up to date, communicating with supporters and trying to increase the support for Bethesda. I will also continue to meet with Altidor & Echebert weekly and provide as much support for them as I can from a distance. I am working with Altidor on treatment plans for the kids she is currently treating.  I am so thankful to still have support from Bev and Alison who join us on the calls and provide a lot of input and help.  The South West Baptist University in Missouri have been an amazing support to the quality of therapy our physios can provide in Haiti.  Anyway I am getting off topic.  That is what I am doing for the time being.  I do hope in the future I can return to Haiti on regular trips, maybe even take some medical teams but all that depends on the situation in Haiti which right now is pretty grim. 

Bill has accepted a role within OMS here in the UK office.  He had been applying for jobs and was offered a couple but once he met with OMS and heard about the role within the mission he felt that that was the right direction for him to go down.  Bill had already been planning to transitioning out of academics and into something different sometime down the line.  This opportunity with OMS gives him a chance to stay involved in missions full time even with not being overseas.  He is working in finance and will oversee the compassionate ministries within OMS UK.  Right now he is doing training in finances and is not overly sure what the other part of the job will entail. 

So that is what we are doing for right now. 

The other question we have been asked a lot is 'how are you settling in?'  That, is a hard one to answer.  I am sure at some stage in life many of you have felt unsettled but its hard to describe exactly what that means or what it looks like.  It is like that period of time when you finish university or school and have no idea what is next, that you are not where you thought you would be and not quite sure what to do about it. 

We are settling I think.  

The boys are going to school everyday and doing well. I think the past few months has been the most difficult for Sam, he is enjoying school here and seeing his friends and family but he asks often about Haiti and talks about missing various places and people and prays every night for a chance to go back. 

We still feel a lot like we are living in two different worlds, one minute I am having a conversation about Sam going to a birthday party at a trampoline park, the next minute I am reading a whatsapp message from a friend in Haiti saying they do not have any money to pay school fees for their kids, can we help. 

I go from listening to others talk about the health service in Northern Ireland and the frustrations and waiting lists to conversations with Altidor and Echebert about a patient with probable spinal TB with no bone biopsies and neurosurgeons anywhere near the North of Haiti.  So he runs the risk of ending up paralysed. 

We hear about the cost of living crisis in the UK yet its hard to weigh that up with the increase in children with malnutrition our clinic is seeing.  UNICEF reports in 2021 malnutrition in under 5's increased by 61% in Haiti. 

It's a very difficult and strange thing to navigate.  There is nothing wrong with Sam going to a trampoline park or listening to people complain about the NHS but it is a million miles away from I can't send my kids to school or I can't even go to see the doctor I need to because it doesn't exist where I live.  I know the UK has a cost of living crisis but its so hard for me to reconcile that with the poverty in Haiti. 

It all feels incomparable. 

Our perspective has changed.  

So sometimes in those conversations we say nothing, because something we say might annoy or offend someone, because reading and listening about poverty is very very different from seeing it with your own eyes and because sometimes its just too hard to explain. 

I came across this post on facebook a few days ago and it sums up transitioning cultures and countries pretty well.  Its from Communicating across Boundaries. 

'“First you arrive physically and you are very tired. But only after a while, your soul gets here, too. Because the plane is very fast, but the soul takes longer to arrive.”⠀

In 2013, the BBC published a short video of a man from a tribe in the rain forests of the Amazon who had come to New York City to live. His words quoted above accurately describe our global world and remind us that though through plane travel we arrive quickly on the other side of the world, our souls take longer.⠀

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We have high expectations for ourselves. We expect to jump right into life, to pick up as though we are unchanged, to tell ourselves “it’s no big deal – I’m back now”. But when our souls are still a world away, we can’t fully connect.⠀

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We need time and we need grace.⠀

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For the third culture kid arriving in their passport country, culture shock can be particularly debilitating. Many are arriving in a place that they have been told is “home” and yet, it is a world away from the homes they know. ⠀

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Three years ago my friend @robynnjoybliss wrote these words:⠀

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“You can anticipate some cultural confusion. When you switch a baby from breast-feeding to bottle feeding and then back to breast-feeding often the baby experiences some “nipple confusion”. As earthy as the metaphor might be, I think it describes some of what we feel when we return to our beloved places and then reenter our regular placements. We are confused. Our souls are unsettled. We knew a particular way and then we became used to a different way and now we’re back to the old way, but only temporarily and now we race to what was sort of familiar and yet now not so much. There has to be some cultural confusion….some yanking of our tethers, our leashes. We are whiplashed from culture to culture. You can expect to be out of whack!⠀

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“Resist the urge to return too quickly. Try not to rush back in. Breathe deeply. Move slowly. Go ahead and do the next thing on your list but don’t hurry. Your poor body has been around the world and back again. Let your soul catch up! Come home slowly.”⠀

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Because the soul takes longer to arrive. ''