The House of Laughter

By Rebecca M. Baker

"She gives America a good name.” This simple accolade from a local co-worker in the Balkans describes N.H., the young American who administrates the House of Laughter, a vibrant humanitarian ministry there.

In June, 2001, N.H. and her young daughter, Lydia, arrived at the site that would one day house this ministry, but found only the rubble of recent bombings from Kosovo’s civil war. The “school” N.H. had been asked to supervise was still nothing more than a promise.

Now, however, the House of Laughter serves over one hundred children who have lost at least one parent during the war. N.H. has also organized the mothers and other women into a widows’ support group, which has begun various business ventures to provide self-support and the opportunity to donate to the needs of others. Last Christmas, the widows’ group sold needlework and raised hundreds of dollars for Aids-related orphans in South Africa.

The name House of Laughter was inspired by verses in Psalm 126. “We were like them that dream... our mouth filled with laughter. ... The Lord has done great things. ... They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” How did this beacon of hope rise out of the rubble of despair? At its heart is N.H., a young woman who delights in the joy only God can give. But the laughter, in this case, was sown in N.H.’s own tears.

In 1990, N.H. and her husband, Ed, had been married for just eleven months, and Ed was serving as interim youth pastor at his home church. On June 6, N.H. hurried to her husband’s office with lunch, just as she always did. But that day, she found him sprawled on the couch. He’s sleeping, she thought at first. He’s been staying up too late with the youth group, planning their bike trip. But Ed wasn’t sleeping–he wasn’t moving or even breathing. N.H. performed CPR until the emergency squad rushed Ed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, at the age of twenty-six. On that same day, N.H. felt their baby move for the first time.

For a time after Ed’s death, shattered dreams were all N.H. could see. Even after her daughter was born, she struggled to understand God’s plan. Then, a few years later, she and Lydia found themselves before a door that seemed to have their names written all over it–a door of ministry to widows and orphans, women and children who were just like them. “For the first time since Ed died,” N.H. wrote in her journal, “I knew why I was still here.”

Mother and daughter walked through that open door. On the other side were women who had been forced to watch their husbands or fathers beaten to death, and children who had been carried across the river on their mothers’ backs to escape the violence of war. One such woman recently professed Christ as her Savior. One such child, who had come to the House of Laughter acting out violent hatred toward everyone in authority, wrote this poem about the school for last spring’s “Parent’s Day” program:

I love it a lot
When I go there
I feel happy
The teacher teaches and we change
All her words we understand
There we play
There we learn
From this happiness
We want to live

N.H.’s life desire is that others will have life, love, and laughter—and know that these gifts are from God.

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