Be Still

This is a picture of Lynn, a missionary in Haiti. 

It's one of my favorite images this year. 

One of the most important questions I ask as a photographer is, "Where is God's signature?"

I look for moments that define the story I want to tell, and moments that are so genuine and powerful that they will tell their own story and interpret the feeling long after I'm gone.

She has a world-class heart.  Every time I talk to her she is smiling.  While Haiti is probably one of the least friendly places on the planet for a wheelchair, you would never know it talking with Lynn.  Her eyes are always dancing and she's always encouraging.  

Once when it was everyone's misfortune and my turn to cook, I cracked open some tuna soaked in oil.  I poured in a ton of warm mayo and began to stir.  The smell was horrendous.  The texture already looked as similar as it gets to vomit, and the oil wasn't breaking down.  My stomach as turning just looking at it.

I'd wasted about 7 cans of tuna, and I didn't know what to do.  

When I showed it to Lynn, she just looked at me and smiled.   

"Well, instead of Tuna salad sandwiches we'll just dunk the bread like a dip.  It'll be great!"  

When I realized she wasn't kidding, I took the sorriest meal I'd ever made and dumped it out, far away from the house, where we wouldn't have to smell it.  I wasn't going to be the cause of food poisoning for the whole orphanage.   

That girl would have ate it.  And she would have smiled!  That's how sweet her heart is.