Pillow talk

The time I spend in Haiti is an opportunity. But to the people who call it home. The people I love here. It's their lives.

I'll go home to a pedicure and a hot shower. I'll buy a dress for midnight mass. I'll go out to dinner on a date. 

I'll drive my car and visit with family and friends over a glass of wine around the fire place.

So I ask you, what in God's name will have changed? 

Well, me. I hope. My heart. 

And the people who have filled it. 

I love a group of people. A family, really, in the third world. And they love me back. 

It's not everything. But on Christmas Eve. When the earth feels alive and awake and the air is full of mystery.

When I feel beautiful in the dress I bought. When I drive down the street, everything easy, everything maneagable.

Everything a blessing.

I'll think of them. 

From an ocean away, I'll wish my loved ones a Merry Christmas. 

And I know they'll do the same.

Sometimes at night, from across the balcony, in the other house, I can hear Steve talking to himself from his bed. I'll hear, 'oh Izabet' in a stream of chatter, and I think, I wonder what he's talking about. 

Sometimes at night, when my head hits the pillow, the words fall from my mouth in a solemn prayer.

God, thank you for Steve.

And then I think, I bet I know what he's saying.

We love each other. These boys and me. These orphans and these angels.

We really do. 

And that is a God given change.