Haiti Trip 2013: Monday & Tuesday

Here's the final post from last year's Haiti trip. I'll be posting about the 2014 trip shortly.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Seth on the kitchen roof

Our final morning in Ti-Rivier was going to be one of dividing & conquering. I had another bike class at Millenium, a group was going to do school photos, Julie was going to get a tour and spend some time helping at the clinic, and Seth, Brent, and Taylor were working on putting a new roof on the mission kitchen.

For the clinic, we covered brake cables and brake pads. The cables and housing allowed the students a good opportunity to participate for those that were interested, but presented a bit of a challenge for me as I was dealing with three different brake types between the two bikes and the pads that I had were V-brake pads which would simply have to do for the cantilever and center pull brakes that were on one of the bikes. My biggest concern was that I would have to go over the brake work myself before I would trust the students to ride them. Somehow we managed to get through all of it and they were in good enough shape for us to do a drawing among the students to give the bikes away. The clinics were a definite highlight for me and I hoped that I had done enough to equip a few students to do some of their own work.

We headed back to the mission house where the guys were still hard at work laying new tin on the small roof of the kitchen, did some chores, packed some bags, ate some lunch and said our goodbyes.

We left just after lunch and planned to spend the night at Ronald's house with is usually less than an hour's drive to the airport. The house is one that Mission Haiti built to house teams in transit and to give Ronald a base of operations closer to Port au Prince and shipping ports in the north of Haiti. The ride itself was fairly uneventful with the exception of Taylor feeling absolutely miserable. All of us had dealt with digestive issues to one extent or another given the drastic change to our diet over the previous week. I had been bound, bloated, and miserable for a few days, but Taylor had self medicated a bit and things had kicked in with a vengeance, so I guess our team experienced some gostrointestinal extremes.

Ronald's house was down a narrow side road with a tall wall and large gate enclosing it. The front yard had a large area to congregated and there were showers and a toilet along one side of the house. Inside was a main living area & kitchen with a few rooms for Ronald's family on one side and two bunk rooms on the other where team members could stay when in transit.

Taylor has the look of a man committed to his art

We gathered in front of the house for a time of worship and sharing. The worship time was especially sweet as Aubrey shared "Your Ways" with us which was a song she had recently written. Taylor also shared a song which was especially cool as I had no idea that he even played. We ended our worship time with Revelation Song and the Spirit's presence was especially strong as we dwelled in an attitude of adoration and moved into a time of prayer.

I felt especially urged to speak some words of encouragement to both Aubrey and Julie. I told Aubrey just how proud I was of her and the growth I had seen in her life. We have known Aubrey since she was a student of Amy's in high school and she is definitely dear to the Morrison family. Watching her grow in her faith, calling, and artistry has been an absolute joy. With Julie, I shared how much I appreciated her heart, both for Haiti and for her friends grieving at home. I knew she was still struggling with not being able to be there for them and encouraged her to trust that God was working in her absence to minister to those that she was burdened for and that she did not need to feel the weight of that burden anymore.

We hung out, enjoying each others' company and Pam shared with us the story of the guy who had ridden with us for security. When Mission Haiti had bought the new bus, they bought it in the US and shipped it to Haiti. When it arrived in Port, they sold the old bus and went to get their papers for the new bus as they had a team coming in. Without these papers, if the bus was stopped, they would be subject to having it taken away from them. When they arrived for the papers, there was no power to have them printed and they were told to come back the next day. They arrived first thing the next morning and ran into the same problem and were told to come back again the following day. Because they had a team coming in, they absolutely needed it that day. They were in a tight spot and decided to see if the police would write up temporary papers for them so they could travel that day. They were told no and left dejected.

Shortly after they left, Pam received a call from a gentleman claiming to be with the police who could get them papers. It sounded a little iffy, but they really had no other options. When they picked up the papers, the officer asked to ride along. Pam was reluctant, but decided they would need to do so in order to secure the papers. They eventually found out that this was one of the highest ranking police officials in the country and one of the most famous faces in all of Haiti. He was better than any papers that they could carry and would keep the team from any roadside delays where the authorities were concerned.

He told Pam that he was more than happy to ride along anytime she had teams traveling from Port to Ti-Rivier and this was the same man that had ridden security for us the entire time we had been on the bus in Haiti. We were absolutely floored by this story and felt even more secure after hearing it.

One final incident sums up my journaling of the trip pretty well. I had been writing constantly at any opportunity that I could and was many pages, but only a few days, in by the time we reached Ronald's house. Seth needed to relieve himself and the facilities were occupied. He decided to pee by the bus and as he did so, he said, "Put that in your novel." Pretty much sums it up.

Tuesday, February 26, 2003

Public transit on our way to the airport.

We got up fairly early and were on our way in the bus by 6:30 for what should have been a 45-60 minute drive to the airport. For whatever reason, traffic in Port was especially slow. There were places where it took us ten minutes to travel a city block and we began to believe that we might miss our flight. Traffic was so tight that Ronald actually made contact with another truck as wheat had been four lanes, merged into three. They did little more than yell at each other as we kept crawling along.

We arrived about 25 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave and I'm sure they had already begun to board. We gathered everything quickly and headed to check in. I was the first to arrive and the lady at the counter said in a very amused voice, "You are late." I told her, "I know." and gave her a smile as I gave her my passport. Thankfully, things moved quickly and we were able to board. We took off for Fort Lauderdale thankful beyond words that we had made it.

This tap tap pretty much sums up our trip

The only other thing of note from the travel home was that I got hit on by a drunk, deaf guy at the airport in Fort Lauderdale. An interesting experience, but I only mention it to remember how funny it was, not to etch it into my memory. ;-)

We arrived back in Sioux Falls at about 10:30pm to a welcoming party of family and friends. We were much relieved to be home, but much changed by those we had met and by the start of a beautiful new mission for us in