Thursday, October 20, 2011

Haiti Mission Trip: Day 1

Hi Everyone!  Lyndsie, here.  Since we had limited internet access (first and last night's only at the Methodist Guest House), I journaled throughout our trip and decided I could write blog entries after we returned to let everyone know about our week.  Thank you to everyone for your prayers and your gifts of financial support and supplies that made this trip possible and a blessing to both our team and the people of Haiti.  God is truly present in Haiti, and we were so blessed to have encountered Christ there.


October 8, 2011

After very little sleep at Josh's parents house in northern, Virginia, Josh's parents transported us at 4am to Dulles Airport for our 6am flight to Miami.  Above is a picture of the whole team in the airport waiting to board our first flight.  The flight was late by about a half an hour, and proved to be a bumpy ride as we passed through some rain when we got close to Miami.  Thankfully we were able to catch our connecting flight to Port-au-Prince, Haiti which was set to leave at 9:45am.

The real adventure began when we landed in Haiti.  As the plane descended, we looked on as we flew low over acres and acres of tent cities.  Here are some of our first glimpses of Haiti from the plane.



As we exited the plane, we walked down an enclosed walkway that was parallel to a building in which every window was cracked and taped up.  A calypso type band greeted passengers as we waited for the shuttle bus to come and take us to customs.  The band was clothed in Western Union garb, and we later found out that they are usually clothed in Digicell garb (the leading cell phone company in Haiti).  As we departed the bus, we entered a building of chaos as we each searched for a blank immigration form (they had not been delivered to the airline to hand out on the flight), fill them out while waiting in line to go through customs, and try to keep all ten team members together.  We made it through with no problems, but then came the really fun part--collecting our checked bags.  I had been warned of the stress of this process and therefore was already having high anxiety over it.  We grabbed some of the metal luggage carts, and other team members pushed their way to the conveyor belt to start pulling off our bags.  We were pushed and shoved as everyone on the full flight tried to gather their luggage and get through the two or three counters for immigration in order to get out of the airport.  We finally gathered all of our bags and made it out, where the sidewalk was lined with people trying to give you literature, ask for money and grab and carry your bags for you.  We had been instructed to find Jackson who works with the UMVIM Haiti Response Team to carry/handle teams' luggage.  We finally found him and Jackson enlisted the help of a few others for our bags.  They loaded our bags onto a van and Eric (employed by UMVIM as a driver) drove us to the Methodist Guest House in Petion-ville where we stayed our first and last nights of the trip.

The ride was eye opening.  While only about ten miles from the airport, it took us around an hour to get to the guest house.  There are for the most part no traffic laws, lights, lanes or signs.  You use your horn to signal passing someone and drive into oncoming traffic to do so.  Pedestrians are crossing the streets constantly and weaving in and out of traffic.  It's crazy!  The United Nations presence is everywhere with armed guards in the back of vehicles driving around the city.  The poverty is evident--street vendors everywhere, people running up to the car asking for money.  Public transportation consists mostly of tap-taps--a kind of taxi that's a covered truck bed with benches down the sides.  And yet there is a strange dichotomy as the destruction and poverty is clearly prominent and then there are new billboards, fancy car dealerships and every so often a gorgeous mansion.  



We made it to the guest house where we unloaded and then Eric took us to lunch.  Lunch was at an upscale fast food type restaurant that clearly only the wealthier Haitians went to (though to put it in perspective--a cheeseburger, fries and a drink was only $3).  We spent the afternoon getting to know one another (since several of us had not met Gary, Chris and Dave until the night before) and enjoying the cooler weather (80s and breezy) at the guest house.

Dinner was fried fish, fresh salad and avocados, fried plantains, rice with chicken sauce, and green beans.  After dinner we had an orientation from Tom, the director of the UMVIM Haiti Response and Sarah, another staff member.  We learned a little more about Hinche and what we will be doing there.  Tomorrow we will have breakfast at 7am and head to Hinche where we will serve for the rest of the week.  We are looking forward to the drive (about 3 hours) which Sarah says is one of the prettiest she's taken in Haiti on the best road in the whole country.  We are all excited to meet the people in Hinche and explore the community.




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