So on Wednesday, we got to begin our official ministry. Three members of our team, Leah, Kendra, and Laura, went to help out at medical clinics with a few other missionaries that have been staying here at the house this week. The rest of the team, Stacey, Jake, Rachel, and I, went to help out at the local school (hence, the several children’s school pictures that I’ve posted so far). Of course, I was thrilled to get to hang out with kids. These kids just love to be loved, to have someone play with them and hold them. It was great just to get to love on them for a couple hours. After we got done at the school, we walked down the street some to find some cold drinks. As we were walking down the street, we hear this guy say to us, “Hey, where are y’all from?” Yes, we heard “y’all” in Haiti; we knew he clearly had to at least have been in America before. Sure enough, we found out that Alex was raised in Florida and then moved back to Haiti. It also turned out that Alex was standing outside of a place that sold cold drinks; how convenient. So as we enjoyed our cold drinks, we talked to Alex for awhile. We were able to hear about some of the hardships of Haiti. He told us that before the earthquake, most people, rich, poor, and everyone in between, worked for the government. Once the government collapsed due to the earthquake, the majority of the jobs in Haiti collapsed with it. Now, people just try to sell food, drinks, and any other random thing they can sell just to make whatever profit they can. For example, a lady nearby was selling meals. He said she probably only made about 2 gourdes (that’s about a nickel in American money) profit off of each meal. While it was heartbreaking to hear, it was cool to get to talk to a Haitian and kinda see more of the “real Haiti.” So after we talked to Alex for about 30 minutes, we bought 4 meals from a local street vendor to give out to people. We wrote a Bible verse on each Styrofoam container and headed over to the tent community to hand out the meals. After we got done handing out the meals, we played with some of the kids in the tent community (every time we go into the tent community, we get rushed by kids; I feel like such a celebrity. Haha.)
So on Thursday, we went back to the school and played with the kids again for a few hours. After we got done at the school, Jake and I decided to go for a walk in search for a coca-cola (yes we were in search of cold drinks again; don’t judge. All we drink at the house is water and Tang. Haha.) So we found a street vendor and bought a couple cokes and sat down to drink them. As we were sitting there, an 83-year old man named Victor who spoke English came up to us to talk. Again, it was so cool just to be able to talk to a local Haitian and see what Haiti is all about. After we got done talking to Victor, we walked some more and then bought our first Haitian street vendor food. We at first thought it was fried chicken because we pointed to it and said “chicken?” and the guy nodded “yes.” But when we ate it, it turned out just to be fried dough, which is probably a blessing since street vendor chicken is probably pretty sketch. So we sat down in a park to eat our mystery food, and another man who spoke a little English came to talk to us. When we first got to Haiti, I was a little discouraged that our ministry wasn’t scheduled for us. However, I now am glad to have the freedom to let God lead us on our ministry. Just walking the streets is such an awesome opportunity to let God lead us. I’m excited to see how God is further gonna use us on the streets of Port Au Prince.
