Last Update from Haiti
Well, we have made it!! We had the last VBS on Friday in the morning instead of the afternoon. It went very well. We were so excited that they learned the memory verse (Luke 19:10-look it up!) and they sang this special version of “Jesus Loves Me” in English! We had them make Wordless Book bracelets on Friday which was really special as we had taught pages from that book all week. Every day, we invited children to pray with us if they wanted to be saved from their sins. Friday was no exception and several of them came to us and prayed with us. I was thinking again after our final VBS of the day in heaven when we see some Haitian people coming toward us reminding us they were in that VBS we held in 2011. We won’t know til we get there the fruit that was grown during this week!!
After VBS, we had the rare privilege of touring one of the “tent cities” here in Haiti which sprang up all over after the earthquake. The missionary “mom” of the orphanage has made real inroads into this community and has gained their respect and trust through helping them with health issues and a number of other things. This tent city is amazing in that it has organized over the last year and half and actually have rules and regulations, some sense of governance and policies for distributing donations that arrive in Haiti.
As mentioned before, our church, Immanuel Baptist, in Iron Mountain Michigan, got together a team to make little dresses and shorts for the Haitian children. We were able to give the 175 dresses and the 170 shorts and 80 t-shirts to the leaders of this tent city. They, in turn, have a system for distributing them. It was so exciting to see some of the children who would indeed be getting these gifts.
While we were in the tent city, we got to see the first building they put up which was a school. It was so important to the families that there be a place for their children and things for them to do. We also saw the clinic that is open every day for their needs. They are especially watchful now for any signs of cholera and send any suspicious cases out of the community to another facility while tending to the family so as not to spread the disease through the city. There are 2500 people in this tent city (down from the original 5000!!). You can’t imagine how crowded it still is with tents no more than 3 feet apart on all sides! Whole families are crammed into these tents which were intended as temporary shelters and now have been used every day out in the hot Haitian sun for a year and a half. You can see that the tents are way past their life expectancy.
The high point of our visit was being able to see a 2 week old baby girl. One of the leaders came to us and asked if we would like to see a new born baby. He lead us to this tent and we were allowed to go inside and visit with the mom and see this precious little 2 week old girl. Only a few of us could get in at a time and none of us could stand up. It was dark and hot inside with no furniture that we could see other than the mat the woman was sitting on with her baby.
As we walked through the city, we noted their “stoves” which were nothing but a couple of rocks over which they cooked their meals. Some cooked right on the bare ground.
Yet, throughout the visit, there were so many children that tagged along with us wanting to hold our hands and be with us. They are happy and smiling and laugh easily, are quick to try to talk with us and seem genuinely glad to have us there. We saw into several of their homes and marveled that anyone could survive under such conditions. Toby, the orphanage “mom”, had us look at the children’s hair and explained that the orange tinge we would see on the ends of the hair was a sign of long-term malnutrition. It was heartbreaking to see as those same malnourished children seemed so happy to see us.
After lunch, we again went to work scrubbing floors on our knees, hauling boxes to the new Orphanage, painting door frames and cleaning up the area. All of us were glad to see the work week end as we had all worked physically very hard! When we were finished, we surveyed all that we had done for the glory of God and for the 20 orphan girls and their missionary mom and dad. It was with a sense of satisfaction that we left work at supper time that night.
Today was a totally fun day! Right after breakfast, we got into the van and headed for a beach a couple of hours away (depending on the traffic) and spent the whole day there. Driving in Haiti is a real experience and riding with someone driving in Haiti is even more of a challenge. It was amazing to see a dump truck coming straight at you going 50 miles an hour and think there is no way we can get by each other and yet they do, both vehicles laying on their horns. It is almost chaos on the roads of Haiti. Tony, the missionary here, was driving and, for the first time, got stopped by the Haitian police-just random and routine, but added some excitement to our trip as they are very well armed and don’t smile at all! The beach we were at (WaWo Bay) was phenomenal! White sand and aqua water. We spent the morning in the Caribbean swimming and messing on a raft whle Haitians rode around us offering anything from snorkeling trips, to boat excursions, to live crabs they would cook for us for lunch (they even had the live crabs right there in their boats!). We declined all their offers and ate at the resort restaurant instead. We spent the afternoon by the beautiful pool. By God’s grace, I was able to share Christ with a gal from Chicago who was doing research on a special filter a company has put in to help people have access to clean water. She didn’t make a decision today, but seeds were planted. We had just a little rain today-first we have had all week.
At our final team meeting tonight, our missionaries, Tony and Tracy, asked us to share what we have learned and how it has changed us being here in Haiti. Everyone cried as it was a very emotional time as each person shared how their hearts and plans are changed as a result of being here. Kaye and I plan to have a follow-up letter as well as a presentation at church relative to this Haiti trip as a way to give you a more thorough idea of all that we experienced here. We hope to have a power point presentation and a video at that time.
One final adventure was made available to us as we sat writing this update. Tony offered to take us outside with a flashlight to find Haitian TARANSULA spiders!!! We found 2 HUGE spiders in just a few moments. What a way to end the day!
We will go to a Haitian church tomorrow morning, have a quick lunch here at the compound and then head for the airport in Port Au Prince at 1:00 PM. We fly out at 4:15, land in Miami and have about a 3 hour wait. We then fly to Tampa, arriving around 11:30. The rest of the team will then head for Ocala while Kaye and I spend the night in the airport until we fly back to Wisconsin at 6:45 Monday morning! May you have a great and wonderful 4th of July. Keep us in your prayers as we make the final flight home! This has been an adventure of a lifetime and has assuredly changed us in the process! God bless, deb and Kaye