2 days ago i returned from a 11 day adventure in the beautiful country of Haiti. This experience was the first of its kind in my life. And i miss it terribly. I must admit that while in Haiti i was quite homesick, but I thank God that he choose me as one of the 14 people who got to love on the people of Haiti.
I am going to try my best to share my stories with you, here it goes:
Sunday June 6th: We set off for Haiti. I was quite nervous for many reasons: the plane ride, the unknown aspects of the trip, and everything in between. I remember being exhausted but also excited. We set down in Haiti around 5 pm, which is 6 pm here. The airport was pretty crazy, just a big room with lots of people. We had find our bags, and then head out into a large crowd of people where we were picked up by the Mission of Hope. This was our first experience of the Haitian culture. One thing in Haiti that is way different then here in America is that cars have the right away, not pedestrians. So you have to be very careful when crossing the street or you will be smushed. We were picked up in a bus and took a 2 hour trip to Grande Goave. We got to Mission of Hope around 8:30, and had Haitian dinner waiting for us. Thankfully after dinner was bedtime.
Journal excerpt of the day: "I am thinking, 'Am i truly ready?, Can i do this?' But i know the answer to both of those questions is yes. So Lord i ask you to overcome my own insecurities, my tiredness, my lack of confidence and enthusiasm. Let me serve your people wholeheartedly. "
Picture: Outside the Port Au Prince Airport
Monday June 7th: First day of work. Some of the team went to start working on the houses, Sarah, Steph and I stayed at the orphanage. This was amazing just getting to love on the kids was great. The language barrier was a hard hurdle to get over but a lot of times you didn't need words. A smile and a hug does the trick. We found out that the kids loved playing hot hands or slaps. Its the game where you try to slap each others hands. They would hold out their hands and that was your signal to play. They never got tired of this game. One of the cuter moments of the game was the kids would point somewhere and say something that sounded like "Godzilla" and that was their ploy to get you to look away so they could slap your hands. It was very funny. I was so glad to just love on the kids on Monday. Especially my favorite little one Fefe. Her smile was priceless, i would have taken her home with me if i could. After we were done working we went back to the beach. That night we experienced our first worship time as a group. It was amazing. I think worshiping under the stars is one of the best things.
Journal excerpt of the day: "No matter where we are, we can come together as a community of believers and worship our amazing creator."
Picture: Fefe and I
Tuesday June 8th: Second day of work. This time we all went to go build houses. I was not especially thrilled about this job assignment, since i am not skilled in the area of construction. But i was willing to try. This was a bit of a rough day, because we were working on the house with another team from Adventures in Mission, and we hadn't quite meshed yet. It was a small challenge to learn how to work together. The houses we built were provided by Samaritans Purse. They were 12x12 houses with a wood frame, and tin roofs. We then had to stretch a tarp around the whole house and pull it tight. We then hammered down the tarp on the top, bottom and sides of the house. It was hard work to say the least. Tuesday night was also our first taste of Haitian church. This was amazing! Most of it was in Creole, including the songs. But one song we did know. It was "How Great is our God" by Chris Tomlin. It was an amazing thing to hear it being sung in English and Creole. And just knowing that God was up their smiling down on His people while they worshiped Him.
Picture: working on tarpping the houses.
Wednesday, June 9th: This was a hard day for me. I was feeling like i wasn't doing my part because i wasn't doing too well with the construction aspect of things. I wrote in my journal that i felt like i was just checking off the days till i got to go home. This was really hard, because i just wanted to work hard in Haiti but felt like i wasn't getting the chance to.
Thursday, June 10th: This day marked the end of a year of my pursuit of singleness. It was a weird thing to experience this anniversary in Haiti. There will be another post about this at a later date. I believe on this day we decided that in order to make everyone feel like they were helping with the houses we would split into two teams. This worked out great because each team began to see how we could use each persons skills. I felt like i was finally learning how to build
these houses and i was finally helping out.
Saturday, June 12th: Today was our day off. And Lex and Renee decided to take us to the beach in Jacamel. So we all piled into the back of a dump truck and started the two hour drive up the mountain to the beach. This was rough, because i get car sick, and going up a curvy mountain road is not good for car sickness. Despite the nausea the view going up the mountain was beautiful. God's creation is astounding. After 2 hours in the truck we arrived at the beach. Here we ate at this shack on the beach. It was a crazy experience. The 'waiters' brought us plates of seemingly indistinguishable food, that we didn't even order. I felt like i was on an episode of Bizarre Foods. The first dish was fried conch and plantains. Yes, i tried both. The conch was very spicy and the plantains were surprisingly bland but good. The next dish wa
s a huge lobster. This was quite funny. The final dish was a fish of some sort. After dinner we played in the ocean and the waves. Then it was back in the truck to head back to Grande Goave. On the way back Lex and Renee surprised us with ice cream, which was a great treat.
Picture: Lobster
Sunday, June 13th; We had church in the morning. Once again it was all in Creole, but it was still a great morning. It was cool to realize that even tough i don't understand a word of Creole God does. And this church service gave him as much joy as any other service. And he understood every single word said and sung that morning.
Monday, June 14; Back to work. This was probably the most productive day. We tarped 7 houses that day. And the teams were working great together. Despite our productiveness, i started to feel worn down on this day. I guess this point was inevitable. Waking up everyday at 5:15 and working in the hot sun will do that to you. But I spent some time with God and just asked him to keep me going. I knew he would.
Tuesday, June 15th; Today was the birthday party for the kids! Since most of the kids don't know their birthday we thought this would be a great thing for them. This was so much fun and very rewarding. That morning Olivia and I went to the office to bake the cakes. This was a nice break from building houses and i definitely felt like my skills were being used. After baking the cakes the whole team went to the beach and started to decorate. We used streamers, balloons, and we made a banner that said Happy Birthday in French and English. Then the kids came. We had 36 kids join us at the beach that day. They spent the afternoon coloring, swimming, swinging, making tambourines, eating lunch, eating cake, and just playing with us. It was so amazing. At the end of the party we gave each child a goody bag that included a waterbottle, some candy, sunglasses, a glowstick and a noise maker. It was so cool seeing the kids opening up their bags. And then going crazy over the contents. Especially the noise makers!
Picture: The kids coloring!
Wednesday; June 15: Last full day in Haiti. This last day of work was good. We got about 5 houses done that day. Which is great. I think by the end of our 2 weeks we finished about 35 houses. That night was just a night of relaxing and packing up. It was cool to just sit and reflect on the week. I retreated to the hammock for a bit and was just still before God. And for those of you who know me well know that it is hard for me to be still. But it was a great time to just sit and be thankful. And just reflect on how much work God did in my life. I loved just sitting underneath the shade of the mango trees, hearing the ocean, and just really experiencing God in creation.
Thursday; June 16th; Heading home. I was very thankful for this day. As much as i was going to miss Haiti, my heart was ready to go home. We woke up at 4:30 that morning with the plan at leaving at 6am for Port Au Prince. But in Haiti time doesn't really matter. We ended up leaving at 7:30am. It was a two hour drive to Port from Grand Goave. We arrived at the airport and got on our plane with out a hitch. We landed in Miami and had a 5 hour layover there. Then we flew to Detroit. We finally got back to Akron at 4:30 am Friday morning. We were beat. But very thankful for the trip.
So that was the day by day version of Haiti. I am so thankful to everyone who supported me on this trip. Your prayers and finical support is greatly appreciated. Haiti taught me a lot of things. It taught me that i can do a lot more then i thought i could. It taught me that God is present and that he will provide. It taught me to be more patient. It taught me how to work hard despite outside issues. It also taught me how to be thankful. We are so blessed! Some of the blessing i received in Haiti: an amazing bond of community with my team, a sense of purpose, the chance to show God's love to people who need it most, a new more adventurous spirit, and a closeness to God. God is working in Haiti, and I am so glad i got to play a part in His plan for that country.
Please pray for Haiti, God is doing great things there. Also please keep the five members of our team who are still working in Haiti. They will be there for another 2 weeks.
Thank you once again for your support! If you want to hear more about Haiti i would love to tell you! If you want to see more pics from the trip follow the links!!!
