Haiti Mission Trip: Day 6

We were ready for a long day on Thursday. The plans included wrapping up VBS at Mission Baptist Church in Port au Prince and making a 5 hour trek up the mountains to Pastor Accilien's village church past Maissade, Haiti. We planned to attend evening worship service, spend the night, and do VBS for the children there Friday morning. Notice I said 'plans'. ;)

We finished up VBS in the city with 250 children! You haven't taught VBS until you've experienced having 90 children + the language barrier. Phew....it was quite the morning! We focused on connecting with OTHERS this day and discussed the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). 

It's my prayer that among all the chaos of the kids, music, recreation, snacks, etc. that they heard and understood the Bible lessons and will come to know Christ!

Heading out of the city, a tent city and port-a-potties:

Pastor Accilien stopped before we got out of the city and took us to a restaurant! It was air conditioned and had white table cloths. A very nice restaurant!

We all ordered chicken in creole sauce. It came with chicken, creole sauce, fried plantains, rice, veggies, and a bean sauce. It was SO good and the equivalent of about five US dollars!

Heading to the mountains, Pastor Accilien had a friend drive us up along with him driving his truck. It gave the guys a chance to ride inside a vehicle (they had to ride back to the city on Friday in the back of the truck). Before we got out of the city, that vehicle had a flat tire, but it was quickly repaired and we were on our way!

We took National Hwy 3 from Port au Prince towards Hinche. The road was actually a really nice paved road. It was VERY windy and mountainous for a decent stretch.

We stopped at a little village near the town of Mirebalais. The pastor spends a portion if his week at this new   project he is coordinating, Anatoth. A Canadian organization started this project in Sept. 2011. Their goal is to move families out of the tent cities in Port au Prince and set up a village and teach them to be self sufficient. They hope to have 8 families (including 25-30 kids) by Sept. 2013, when they move on to another project. Right now there are 4 families. 

Below is their church and school.

 The center of the village.

Inside the church/school, under construction.

This is a neat little plant called the Moringa Tree. It provides many nutrients through the leaves and is a tough, fast growing plant. You can eat the leaves right off the plant, use them in cooking, or make a powder out of the dried leaves. They had all kinds of vegetables and fruits planted....carrots, potatoes, eggplant, green beans, bananas, coconuts, mangoes, and more! 

View of the village from the church/school. The goats and chickens were to the right. 

We continued on National Hwy 3 toward Hinche and came to Lake Peligre. It was gorgeous! Haiti generates a large portion of their electricity here. Too bad, we couldn't get a dam picture for all the trees. ;)

It was looking like rain, so we pulled to the side of the road to cover our bags in the back of the truck with a tarp and took a few pictures at this scenic area.

Our team! Caleb (my favorite kid there and one of our translators) pointed out that everyone loves VBS except me. :) I was smart and changed out of my shirt after VBS Thur. morning, so it wouldn't be quite as smelly for Friday's VBS. I don't know that it helped much though...we all stunk by the time we got back to the city Friday evening!

Entering Hinche! This was our last town on the 'good' road. We turned west onto Hwy 306 in Hinche and headed toward Maissade.

Hwy 306 sounds like it'd be a decent road, but it was all rocks, pot holes, puddles, and rivers. Yes, rivers without bridges.

This is our other vehicle crossing a deep puddle. It had rained a good bit there earlier in the day. Fortunately, it never actually rained on us.

We were slowly making our way to the village church. It was nearly 5:30 and we had at least an hour to go. We asked the Pastor what time evening service started and he said 6 or 7......or whenever we get there. ha! 

We rounded a curve and faced this. The river had risen from the rain and it was flowing pretty swiftly. People were carrying their motorcycles across, but no trucks could make it through safely. 

We were tired and frustrated that we weren't going to make it to the church that night, but we went with it. We headed back to Hinche and Pastor Accilien took us to his nephew's house. His nephew is also a pastor of a Baptist church there in Hinche. 

Folks, you haven't seen hospitality until you see someone take in 6 strangers, scramble to get a generator going for electricity, draw up water from their cisterne for baths, go out to find food, allow their guests to eat first, send them to rest while they clean up the dinner dishes, and give up their beds and sleep on the floor. This family went above and beyond to accommodate us. They treated us like family. Like Brothers and Sisters in Christ. What a reminder that we should always treat our Brothers and Sisters like that, no matter if we've met them before or not!

Strangely enough, they had a dog on their roof. ha! All the dogs in Haiti looked like this...medium sized and light brown. 

We all crashed and were praying that we'd be able to cross the river early Friday morning for VBS at the mountain church. 

Haiti Mission Trip: Day 5

By Wednesday, we finally felt like we had a handle on the routine and chaos of having so many kids with so few teachers!

This is a tap-tap, Haiti's version of a taxi. This is a large one. Many of the tap-taps are pickup trucks with a camper shell on the back. They will load them down!

This was crossing a river near the church. I'm not sure if there was a bridge here before the earthquake, but there definitely isn't one now.

More sights on the way to the church:

There are very few stores in Port au Prince. Many women sell different things on the sidewalks. They have big tubs, like the one below, full of their goods. We saw tubs of soap, toothpaste, diapers, crackers, canned goods, etc. There were also sheets with fruits and vegetables for sale, such as bananas, potatoes, onions, carrots, mangoes, and more. There was also a lot of coal for sale on the sidewalks. 

Large pile of trash and donkeys.

Wednesday, we had 238 at VBS! It was also the most important day, as we talked about TRUST and taught the kids the ABCs to becoming a Christian...Admit (Romans 3:23), Believe (John 14:6), Confess (Romans 10:9-10).

By Wednesday, the kids were used to the routine and getting more brave at approaching us to talk. We got lots of hugs this day. :)

This was a sweet, sweet lady that came each day (except Thur...she had a Dr. appt. for an injured ankle). She didn't speak any English, but always had a smile on her face and was willing to help in any way.

Pastor Accilien's wife spoiled us again with a delicious meal! Fried chicken, cheesy potatoes, seasoned beef logs, rice, french fries, pasta, tomatoes, and fried plantain. It was all so good! Each day she had some kind of fresh fruit juice. Wednesday we had a cherry juice and sour-sop juice, which was a thicker creamy juice. Yum!

Wednesday was the only day that I needed a nap in the afternoon. We all crashed for nearly 2 hours, had supper, and got packed up for our trip to the mountains on Thursday!

*FYI, I'm working on these each evening and scheduling them for the mornings. I'm not doing all this in the mornings with the kids running wild! ;)

Haiti Mission Trip, Day 4

Tuesday morning, we felt a little more organized and ready for a large number of kids! Good thing because we went from 150 kids on Monday to 235 on Tuesday!

Tuesday we talked about LOVE and LIFE. We doubled up on the lessons on Tuesday. The kids really did well Tuesday morning with their listening. Much better than Monday!

Large blocks of ice on the sidewalks while we were riding to the church.

Bring on the kids!

The kids there had never played thumb war either! This is Jean Eldon, the pastor's son. He's 16 and wants to be an engineer because "Haitians don't know how to build houses." haha! He was one of the translators and went up to the mountains with us.

This girl in is Adelyn. I assume she didn't go to school because she knew no English. She just grinned really big and held my hand a lot. :) The last day, she gave me a piece of paper that she had written on. One of the boys translated it for me and it said "I love Americans, I love you, and I want to go home with you." That will break your heart.

Red-rover with the oldest group.

Jared trying to get my kids organized for recreation. It was a lost cause that day.

This little girl was my other buddy. She lived right behind the church, so if we were there, she was there. :) She looked to be around 8 years old. She had a prosthetic right leg. She had been badly burned and of course, it got badly infected. She was flown to the States by some group for surgery and nearly died in the airport. What a sweet girl!

I also realized we don't have any pictures of snack time because it was SO chaotic! We had a 5 gallon jug of kool-aid each day and some crackers/cookies that we bought there. It was a bit difficult to get them sitting and waiting for theirs, but it worked out. 

Tuesday, Pastor Accilien's wife prepared another traditional Haitian meal for us. They called it a vegetable stew...I looked it up and it's called Legume, Haitian beef and vegetable stew (found a recipe!). Accilien apologetic about what was being served, but it was delicious!! Apparently Legume is a common meal there in the city and nothing 'special'. 

On the way back from VBS that day, Jared and I took our turn in the back of the truck (it was a small 4 door pick-up truck, so 2 in the back going to and from the guest house). We got to the traffic circle in the middle of town and got stuck! No one was moving around the circle. No one follows any kind of traffic rules...if there's a hole, they honk the horn and shoot through. We sat for so long that we had to break out the sunscreen! 

It was another great day in Haiti!

Arabelle and Bo's Fun Week!

While we were in Haiti, Arabelle and Bo spent the week at Mamaw and Papaw's house!

They swam, spent time at Grandma and Grandpa's house, went to Macon to visit the Bloodworth cousins, had a playdate with Jackson, went to Albany to see Moma Love, and much more!

I'm not sure who wore who out, but I know all 4 were TIRED by the end of the week! I'm so thankful that we have family who care for them like we do! I wasn't even worried about them at all during the week and that was a blessing to me! :)