This has probably been one of the strangest months of my life. We started off in a city that is completely different than the one I’m in now. Our ministry was completely different, and so are the people we are working alongside of.
So apparently I’m clumsy now. Let me explain. You might just laugh. I’ve been laughing at all I’ve gotten myself into this month. Although there have been some tears as well.
I guess we can start with the first incident of this month. I was hand washing some clothes of mine, and was hanging them up on the clothesline. Bucket in hand I started walking back to our place and was looking back at something and didn’t notice the ground was elevated at a part so I wiped out. My laundry water spilled everywhere as I just laid on the ground laughing.
One day after cleaning out this storage unit of the building we are working in we decided to go up on the rooftop. There are three buildings rooftops that we journeyed across. We sat up there and admired the breathtaking view of the mountains. At times it has felt like we are on a movie set and there’s a green screen.
Any way we were heading back and made it to the second rooftop and it was higher up than the rooftop we were standing on. My friend Katie jumped up to it and it looked super graceful and easy. We are the same height so I was like oh ya I got this for sure. Well I didn’t. I wiped out. Fell so hard and landed on my thigh and ankle really hard. I laughed and cried. My ankle swelled up really nice. I have the largest bruise of my life on my thigh and it’s all sorts of colors.
That same morning I woke up with my ear hurting me. Turns out I have an ear infection. The doctor that’s on staff didn’t have any antibiotics so I was using this solution and it didn’t help really. It’s been hard to hear out of my ear and it had been in a lot of pain. Woke up this morning and now my other ear is hurting and is infected, a different doctor took a look at it. A new medical team is here and they have antibiotic ear drops, praise the Lord.
Part of our ministry here has been painting offices, and houses. One day we were painting and I didn’t look down at my feet as I was walking and I stepped right into a tray of paint…
During our time here we have had the opportunity to work with Haitians that are around my age. It has brought me so much joy to get to speak some French with them and learn creole phrases. They have been a lot of fun to get to know and talk with. See I thought we were just becoming good friends.
If you know me then you know that I don’t typically receive too much attention from boys. That has not been the case since I’ve gotten here. At least four boys have flat out told me that they like me, and want to date me…what?! They call me the funny one and sometimes laugh before I even open my mouth. Multiple times they have called me beautiful, cute, braided my hair, tried picking me up, take pictures of me, kissed me on the cheek, Haitians are very affectionate people. . I used the fact that I couldn’t hear out of my ear too well and pretended I couldn’t hear what they were saying so they would drop it. It worked. Also explained that we weren’t allowed to date during the race. They stopped. They backed off and we were able to talk like friends again.
One boy hung around the basketball court outside of our dorm every day after school. When we were done with ministry we would meet up and talk. We would talk in French and English about our families, friends, Jesus and all in between. I looked forward to our hugs and talks I genuinely just want him to know God personally.
With all that’s been going on this month I’ve really been relying on God. I’ve been praying for healing over my body. I’ve been praying for the boys that we worked alongside of every day and for unity among our team. I’ve felt so close to Him through all the beautiful sights here. I found a bench swing where you can see the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. There are many hummingbirds around the beautiful flowers as well. I’m going to miss this place. I’m going to miss the people. Definitely not going to miss my injuries and infections though.
