Courage

Noun: courage

1.    the ability to do something that frightens one; bravery.

"she called on all her courage to face the ordeal"

o   strength in the face of pain or grief.

"he fought his illness with great courage"

synonyms:	bravery, braveness, courageousness, pluck, pluckiness, valour, fearlessness, intrepidity, intrepidness, nerve, daring, audacity, boldness
antonyms:	cowardice, timidity

If you haven’t heard yet, my children and I are moving to a new (to us) house on COTP’s campus. (If this is news to you, you should ask to join my Facebook group where I share more updates and pictures). Our new house will be called The Courage House.

In Life we have to do a lot of hard things, hard things that take a lot of courage. “Strength in the face of pain or grief”--we have a lot of grief and pain around here and that can look a lot of different ways.

It takes a lot of courage to leave everything you have known to come to a country with a new culture, a new language, and a new way of doing things.

It takes our Haitian employees a lot of courage to leave their kids at home, even in the middle of nationwide rioting, to come and help care for our kids, sometimes not having food to leave with their own.

It takes our house parents a lot of courage to willingly say yes to a new child moving in and loving them fiercely, knowing that one day we’ll say goodbye to them and how hard that will be.

It takes our kids a lot of courage to feel the hard stuff and express it (and these little souls have so much hard stuff they have gone through).

It takes our house parents a lot of courage to willingly say yes to a child with a diagnosis they might not be familiar with, to research and learn all they can to advocate for the child, and to love them through all of their hard things.

It takes our kids a lot of courage to go home with their new families who love them dearly but are leaving behind the only life, culture, and country they have ever known.

It takes us a lot of courage to rally around new children and love them while we can, knowing their grim prognosis from the moment we met them.

It takes a lot of courage to truly trust that God will provide for your every need day in and day out. Something I have never needed to know as in depth as so many Haitians I have met.

I suggested this house name as soon as I knew we were moving. Courage is such a strong word with such a great meaning. At that point I had no idea how much courage it would take to simply move my house.

The Life House is where I became a mom. I've parented 13 kids in this house and six of them will never live in the new house. Their memories will no longer be in the walls of where I live (but I'm so thankful they are still in my heart). The hardest of these kids' memories to leave is Keven's. I still often grieve his loss and these last couple of months it has been greater than it has been in a while. It has been/will be really hard to leave my bedroom where his memories are so vivid. Certain places in my room connect me so much to him and I'm leaving those behind. Tears have been shed and will be shed, but God is giving me the courage to get through this. It is taking so much courage to leave this house behind.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance.  The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”’ (Deuteronomy 31:6-8)

My prayer is that through it all we will be filled with strength—God’s strength and come out stronger on the other end. I am so proud to be moving to a house with such a meaningful name.

Special shout out/thanks to Courtney, Carla, and Rachel for helping me come up with some ways we see people have courage every day.