Arrival Day

After waiting in the Myrtle Beach airport for 4 or 5 hours and 4 or 5 hours of sleep in a Florida hotel I was more than ready to get to where we were going, feet on the ground and still. But there was no way I was ready for what I found in Haiti.

Romans 15:5-6
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Over the past few years one of the things God has taught me was to take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. Take it all in because you may not have the chance to do it again. I had no expectations going in, had no background knowledge of Haiti. As I seat in the front set of an over packed van, I looked around at my surroundings and took it ALL in, every bit. I didn’t want to miss a thing. I didn’t even take out my camera.

The most ghetto of ghettos. Trash, piles of trash lined the roads, in the medians, trash everywhere, like it was a trash landmine. So many people and vehicles they were on top of each other, literally, horns blaring, people yelling. Trucks and busses over flowing with people, evidently they don’t have seat belt laws. Rubble of buildings collapsed on top of themselves from the quake. Tarp tents that look like a sea of stick tents. So much STUFF it was over whelming. Incredibly hot, like l can’t even describe.

Job 5:7-8
Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward but if it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him.

It seemed we had been driving through Par De Prince for an hour but in Haiti time goes by a lot slower than in America. It must have only been 15 minutes or so and I was looking for the exit sign, an escape away from the crowds of people, the filth, the hurt, the heart ache, from it all. There was nowhere to run. I was stuck. Sandwiched in the front seat of a stuffed van, I was stuck. So many sites and memories, just in the drive to St. Marc, over flowing in my head, there is no way to take it all in. For 3 hrs I looked out at Haiti and the Haitian people.

1 John 3:17
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother is in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

On the way to St Marc, in a small town, a sweet mama with a young baby burned a scar on my heart. As we stop in the mist of traffic for only a brief moment, a mama with a little baby girl on her hip comes close to the van window. I don’t even think she said anything to me, and if she did I wouldn’t have known what she was saying, but her eyes spoke more than her words ever could. I didn’t know what to do. My heart broke for her. I would be there one week and she would be there her whole life. I had an escape she had Haiti. I reached out my hand and handed her my half drunken water bottle. It was like someone grabbed my arm and pushed it out the window. I didn’t know what else to do. Again her eyes spoke indescribable words to me. It broke my heart. I looked around for a place to run and hid, to escape from it all but there wasn’t one. I could only sit there and cry. After we arrived at the hotel, too nice for us to be staying in, Victoria tells me she saw the whole thing. The sweet mama took the bottle I had given her and put it right to the baby’s mouth.

1 John 3:18-20
Dear Children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we set our hearts at rest in his presence, whenever our heart condemns us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

I wish I could describe the feelings but there are just too many. I feel like a snow globe sprinkled with emotional confetti, over turned, shook, turned back up and asked “How do you like that”. I’ll let you know when the confetti settles. Rocked my world? Totally!

(Photos above were taken by members of our team.)