Thanks for all the many prayers, support and love you have given me for my minstry in Haiti and with Christopher's Hope Ministry. The team arrived home on Friday night around 9:30pm in Wichita and there at the airport to pick me up were Mom and Dad and Deanna and Les. I had forgotten only for a moment how cold it was here and I have a cold or something now. Of course I always get something when I fly as the togetherness on a plane lends that.
What a great experience to serve God with 9 other people on the team. Kirk Day is an awesome team leader and made sure that we were safe and taken care of the whole time. He has a passion to serve the Lord with Jan in Haiti and did a marvelous job. I especially praised his driving abilities in Haiti. Mike and Jane Dauwer were from Oxford Kansas and were the senior members on the team. You wouldn't have known as they were serving as hard and long as the other members. Other members of the team were Barbara Day, who is Kirk's Mom and a co worker at Butler. Her daughter Angie and husband Dr. Marcus went and they own Art of Life Chiropratic in El Dorado. Stephanie McCreary was from the Augusta area but lives now in San Diego, California. Jodi Bailey is from El Dorado and she and Stephanie are friends and also nurses. It was such a blessing to get to know these brothers and sisters in Christ and see the talents each one gave. Shelby Humig also traveled with us from El Dorado.
When we didn't arrive the first day and had to stay in Miami because our plane had mechanical problems in Dallas, I was so disappointed but at the same time I knew God had a plan for us. We flew American Airlines going and coming back and they placed us in a hotel near the airport and we had a nice meal in the Doubletree Hotel.
We arrived at the Port Au Prince Airport and what an experience. There were so many baggage handlers that wanted to "help" us get our 20 tubs and luggage to the vehicles. They had made some improvements to the outside pavement so it wasn't as hard to push as I had anticipated.
Our translators for the trip were Jiffy, Nahomie, Victor and Jay. They are Haitian and really worked hard to help us understand and be understood. Shelby, who is Jan Thompson's daughter, traveled from Kansas with the group and also translated for us. After living in Haiti she had the insight and knew some of the people we were ministering to. She is expecting Jan's first grandchild and this trip was really rough on her especially in the mornings.
We started for Gonaives which is a 3 hour trip from Port Au Prince. The city of Port Au Prince was alive with traffic both in vehicles and people on the street. People everywhere selling everything from oil to food. There were goats in the State Agriculture yard. I was sadden to see all the tent cities and mass burial grave from the victims of the earthquake. In a lot of places it is just like you see on TV. They use whatever they can find to build "shelter." Some used blue tarps, some sheet metal and others wood. There were some that used gray tarps with UNAID stamped on them. The road was very rough most of the way to St. Marc where we stopped for lunch at a place that is equivlaent to our McDonalds. It was up the stairs above a store. There were cakes and pastries that were in baker cases. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and Sprite. They acutally had ice for the drinks which is such a luxury in Haiti. While we were there, young people arrived after school to "hang out." Of course these young people have much more than the children we would soon see. They were dressed very nice and clean and one even brought his laptop. We sat where we could see the van with our luggage on it so at this point I knew we were in a danger area. There was a lady selling rice and beans sauce. A big helping of the rice with sauce would cost about $2.00 US money. After eating we went down to the store and looked around. There were many American items such as cereal, Valentine items and even a big TV. We bought some Haitian chips to take to the beach for our lunch the next day. While waiting for the team to gather we stood outside taking in the sights of the streets and being yelled at and waving back, I realized that you can't be "friendly" as we would at home. Culture shock had set in. We traveled on to Gonaives and I was so overwhelmed with the way they "drive" in Haiti. Since my degree is in organizational leadership, the whole trip I was trying to put this chaos into some form of normalcy but gave up the second day there. They have no road rules so the motorcycles, big trucks and tap taps were all moving and honking at the same time in many directions. Kirk was an excellent driver. The only time I was afraid was at checkpoint outside the headquarters of the police station when someone was waving us down to stop and he asked Jiffy if we should. From the back seat driving I was doing, I yelled NO! It was so different. From that point on, I just looked out the side windows of the van instead of the front window. After getting to Jan's house, I was tired and ready for a break of processing all that I had seen. We unloaded all our stuff and the food that was in the tubs still was frozen so that was good news. I helped unloaded the frozen and other food in the kitchen before settling into the room where I stayed with Jodi and Stephanie. It was the Faith Room and welcomed us with quilts on the beds which made me feel right at home. This area wasn't attached to the house it was a seperate area in the back of the house. It had a cubby with shelves where we could store our personal items and 2 fans. The concrete floor was painted.
God blessed me to meet some children of His in a foreign country. They are beautiful people. The little girl I am holding is Sarah and her brother beside me is Eziekel. They were children living at the orphanage in the mountains. The road was very hard and rough to travel. For those of you who live in El Dorado and have ever experienced Towanda Street, I will never complain again. Some of the boys were waiting to greet us and when I stepped out of the van, I was so excited to see them that I hardly noticed the swarm of bees. We quickly went in and were introduced to the children. They sang for us and then we colored with them and blessed them with shoes, bubbles and jumpropes. Outside the neighborhood boys were playing frisbie with Kirk, Jake and Jane.
I will post more later when I get my strength back, I'm still trying to recover from the trip home and my cold. I really enjoyed the warm weather there!
