1st Day

Today was a reminder of all the things that the Haitian people endure in order to get by. As we were pulling into the airport after leaving our hotel, I noticed a guy standing in a ditch of muddy drainage water with a pitchfork. He was standing in a spot where a chain-link fence crossed perpendicular to the ditch causing empty plastic bottles and other random trash to pile up. This man was knee deep in garbage filled water as he was trying to clear out the trash that piled up. Just then I was a bit relieved to see that he was fortunate enough to have rubber boots on. It was a reminder of how much room they have for improvement and how appreciative I am to have garbage pickup in the States.

After some time of waiting around at the airport we finally took off and ended up at our destination in Port de Paix. It wasn’t but an hour or so later and we were all sitting down at Roger and Norma’s place for lunch which consisted of red beans and rice along with avocado, fresh baked bread, and sweet cinnamon bread. Norma’s cooking is one of the luxuries we have which helps smooth over the difficulties of living here.

Upon arriving I began to find out what some missionaries go through that I have never seen while I was here for short term trips. For starters, I was told that we spend our first few days here getting our house in order as well as setting up our classrooms. This seems easy enough because we have all moved at one point in our lives and it isn’t rocket science to unpack and set up your home. However, in my case we didn’t know where we were staying when we got here. Once we arrived, we were told that an apartment was negotiated and agreed upon, however it did not have ceiling fans or air conditioning and they were requesting this before we moved in. In the interim, we will be staying in an apartment which is vacant until November. In one regard, it can be a little frustrating because you want to move in and take advantage of the time you have in order to get set up, but you don’t want to empty out all of your boxes in a temporary apartment which you may be packing right back up in a few weeks. On the other hand, I am grateful that we will be getting air-conditioning and ceiling fans! So, if I have to live out of a suitcase and dig around in my boxes for things when I need them in order to have better living conditions down the road, then I have no problem doing this! In Haiti, there is always something that will surprise you. Well, I pulled back the curtain of the dining room window and noticed a fern sticking out of the window frame. At first I was a bit confused and then laughed to myself because I realized that a fern could not be growing through the aluminum window frame and figured that there must have been a hole there where someone stuck a fake fern branch. I leaned in really close because I wanted to take a second look because this thing looked so real. It was then, that I realized that it truly was a real fern because you could see where parts of a few leaves had died and browned. I was completely baffled because as I said, the window frame is aluminum. I felt around the frame and noticed that there was a soft feeling of caulk where there must have been a small nail sized hole where it had come up through. I have no idea how this thing is growing through this small of a hole considering that the other side is only concrete let alone how this thing got started! It is very strange, so strange that I am not going to pull it out. Here’s a picture:



You’ll notice that it is quite dirty around the sill, but not enough to support a plant. This thing is growing through a hole in the aluminum!


Other problems:
We also found out today that the larger of the two generators stopped working recently so they have been running power off a smaller backup. This generator works fine, however it cannot handle the normal load of electricity that Sonlight requires along with all of the others who rely on it such as the hotel across the street, a few UN houses and other residents. Since all of the missionaries arrived today the load jumped quickly causing the engine to overheat. To compensate, we had to shut off power to others in the neighborhood which then in turn caused many to show up asking why this was. So, if you want to pray for something, pray that we can fix the generator quickly which will allow us to have steady power not only for ourselves, but for everyone else in the neighborhood who relies on it.