Our arrival into Haiti went pretty flawlessly. Three buses, one flat tire, and about 13ish hours after we started, we arrived into the main base of operations for Hope for Missions International. I really didn’t expect there to be a big change between the DR and Haiti. Granted the DR is considered to be a developing nation while Haiti is third world. But this has been like going from a 5 star hotel to a Motel 6 or something with regards to feel and look of everything. We drove through the middle of Port-Au-Prince and it was shocking. I thought I’ve seen some poverty, but this was on an entirely new level with just huge amounts of people everywhere. It’s shocking what passes for a home, plus there are all the tent cities for those people who have been displaced following the earthquake. I cannot even begin to put an accurate portrayal in writing here of how things look.
This month the entire C Squad (42 of us) is staying in the city/town of Grand-Goave outside of Port-Au-Prince. This area was affected pretty well too by the earthquake. We are staying this month at Hope for Missions International’s main base of operations area, for lack of a better term to call it. It feels like a little resort here. My tent is probably only 20 or so feet from the ocean. So cool falling asleep to the crashing of the waves at night. We also are blessed with the modern miracle of electricity and running water this month. We cook over the fire with the help of local Haitians working here too. Pretty much every day I’ve had fresh mango and coconut which the locals climb 40 feet up in the palm trees to get with a machete in hand. Spiderman eat your heart out. Five days a week we will be in ministry while on a sixth day each team will have one day that they stay back to help prepare all of the meals, clean up the facilities, take care of laundry, and so on. Mondays then will be our off day to rest and relax a bit.
Ministry will look a little different from last month for sure. We’ll be spending most of the month here at the main Compound of Missions for Hope International. Our team has been given the task of building two houses here on the compound to house incoming missionaries. The majority of the frame for the building is up, but they literally told, and I quote, “This is what we have so far and this is what we want it to look like (pointing to the homes across from our structures). So what this will entail us doing is plumbing for two bathrooms, pouring concrete, electricity, walls, ceilings, windows, doors, painting if we get that far and whatever else we can get done in this time. There may be days we help out elsewhere as well. There is an orphanage being built here called Be Like Brit. PLEASE look it up online for a moving story of its history.
Overall, things are good. Please keep us in your prayers for the month. Safety is a bit more of a concern here outside of our housing area and quite a few people have come down with flu like symptoms since we’ve arrived. So far I’ve been fine, but prayer for the health of my entire squad would be great. Thanks!
P.S. I only get internet access once a week, so the next time you hear from me will be a week and one day from today.
