Reflections from Haiti- July 24th

It's hard to believe we've been home for four days already and how much we already miss Haiti and our wonderful team!

Saturday, July 24th~ We met up with our team at church at 6:00A.M. Most of us were exhausted from a sleepless night due to terrible storms and excitement for the trip. We made sure to get out classic picture outside of the airport. (You can see Josh's wet shirt... it was POURING BUCKETS!!)Once we checked-in our lugguage, we got some much needed coffee for the coffee addicts and breakfast from Dunkin's of course! We flew into Miami and from there ran to catch our next flight to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We literally made it just in time to grab a quick meal and run onto our plane... I think they waited for us! After we took off for Haiti, we had to start filling out custom forms. I successfully completed the form on the 4th attempt (I need to slow down and read directions... listen to the advice I give my students.) Landing in Haiti, you immediately notice the beautiful grassy mountains. Haiti really is a beautiful country. It was once known as the Pearl of the Caribbean, and I can see why. The landscape is so beautiful! After landing we went into the airport, down a flight of stairs and headed onto a bus (different from last year) that took us to the luggage claim. This area looked kind of like a large warehouse with a metal roof. We went through customs (I was so excited to use some Creole) and waited for our luggage, which took awhile because there were a lot of people on our flight. Once we got our luggage, we walked outside and saw our host standing there. It was so good to see him again! We couldn't believe the nice warm breeze that hit us as we left the airport... it felt so nice and refreshing. Our host said it just rained so it cooled off a lot. It felt good to be back in Haiti! A few of our team members rode in a van and some of us (me and hubby) rode with our host. He remembered that I liked avacadoes so stopped at a few places to pick a bunch up for us for the week. The avacadoes are HUGE and so yummy in Haiti!! We also got eggs for breakfast. We drove about 30 minutes to our hosts house (now remember the roads are not like roads here... very bumpy, traffic, and food stops along the way). We passed the familiar small red spaghetti hut stand on the corner of the road before our hosts house. It was nice to remember my way around... sort of! We were greeted at our hosts house by Blackie barking and another dog (can't remember her name) very pregnant! It was great to see everything just as we had left, as they had no damage after the earthquake... Praise GOD! When we got in we choose our room/ roommates and hungout for awhile before dinner. We had a great meal and were just happy to be there with our church partners! We closed the night with a team devotional time... focusing on what poverty is, what it looks like, and how we reacted to the new culture we were in.

Wow! I can't believe I just wrote that much about the 1st day... and we really didn't even count that as a full day since it was mostly travel. Hang in there with me as I recall and journal about our journey to the Pearl!