Day Two: Worship at FBC of Cap-Hatien

Well, today we went to church for two hours. It was interesting, I mean I only was able to catch a couple words out of it. Ryan was really smart and would read the verse in his bible and then try and connect it to what Pastor Voltaire was saying. I probably could have done that as well. After church we came back to the house and ate lunch their cooking was really good. We then sort of split up into two different groups, one group which consisted of Travis, Connor, Denise, Craig and Bob Kitchen from Kansas they all went to the school and stated working on the roof. Rakay, Korlyn, Lynn, Tanya, me (Kira), Janet, Dr. Mike, Morel, and Jenny all went to the beach. Tanya got a lot of great pictures today. I think we spent a couple hours at the beach, when we came back we met up with the other group that went to work at the school. We ate dinner and had a lot of conversations. We are all missing Gary, the water team only has two people. At the beach we saw these two girls and one of them saw a sea urchin and started playing with it then, got Rakay and my attention at took a rock then just chucked it down towards the ground and smashed the poor sea urchin. She tried to do it to a star like thing but, Korlyn  rescued it and just said “no”.  It was fun today, tomorrow the real work for the people who went to the beach starts. One more thing, when we were at the beach at least all of us except Morel got the sea urchin’s spikes in our feet. Dr. Mike had to help me get mine out. Rakay just decided to leave hers in and let them work their way out.

Kira Stutzman

Today, Sunday was a day of worship for all of us. We worshipped with our Haitian brothers and sisters

at First Baptist Church of Cap Haitien. The service was in Haitian Creole but the spirit crosses all languages and cultures. I gave a greeting to the Haitian people and Morel interpreted for me. The church seats about 500-600 people. It was full. The podium sits about 10-12 feet above the congregation. What an opportunity to look out over the people and speak to them.  I told them about the snow we left here and how honored we were to worship with them.  They seemed to appreciate what I said. It is a day of rest so after a wonderful lunch we went to Camp DuCroix. Our trip was two-fold. We wanted to see the progress at the camp. There have been improvements,, some of which we have helped fund. We also went swimming while we were there. The ocean at Camp DuCroix is not really a beach but we swam anyway. There are sea urchins and other critters that were fun to watch.

I am involved with the water project. We started work yesterday. We tested sand for the filters and realized we need to do some work with the sand before we can do any installations. Tomorrow we will hit it hard to get the sand ready. We also did a lot of planning with the Haitian water partners. The language difference can be challenging but we are making progress. There will be installed water filters soon! I am so thankful for this trip. Our group is an awesome group. We are a blessed group.

Lynn Ross

March 29th, 2014 First Day Impressions

            AHHHH! We’re back in Haiti! I absolutely love it here, I feel so secure here like I’m supposed to be here.  As we prepared to come I was so excited I thought about what the house was like. What the country was like. What the people were like and about the people I might get to see again. I couldn’t remember what it was like to not know what anything was like. I can feel God here 100% I know that this is what we’re supposed to be doing and who is supposed to be here. I love how beautiful it is here. Even with the poverty and how run down it is here. Its just beautiful in its own way. The last time I was here I fell completely in love with Haiti and I’m excited to watch that love grow. I cant wait to start working in the hospital and meeting the Haitians needs. I’m excited to see what God does to this team and the Haitian people throughout the week. Keep us in your prayers!(:

RaKay Gross

3/29/14

     Does it make sense that it’s hard to put into words my first impressions when I’m not really sure I knew what I expected?  When driving through the streets from the airport to Pastor Voltaire’s home, the scenes played out like all of the news footage I’d ever seen from Haiti: people EVERYWHERE along the sides of the road, overloaded vehicles and motorcycles traveling within inches of each other, garbage lining the streets and curbs and side-by-side shacks made out of any material they can find.  It did feel a bit like I was viewing a documentary except it was accompanied by the sounds of horns, and voices, and the (warm!) wind on my face and the smell of dirt and exhaust and garbage.  

  We are so blessed to be taken care of by Pastor Voltaire who has us safely tucked away in his private residence, cooking meals for our hungry group of 14, and providing interpreters and men to accompany each work group to our respective work sites.  Within in a few hours of arriving we had been fed and were on our way to work….I got to travel today to the widows home and photograph some of their progress and help with various tasks.  And that’s where I started to see some of the beauty in the Haitian people.  I was greeted on my way up the stairs by an adorable little girl, Sharma, and was soon joined by her brother and sisters.  They wanted to make funny faces and see their pictures and couldn’t stop smiling and laughing at their images.   From my third story post I had a view of women doing their laundry, mothers scolding  toddlers or doing their daughters’ hair, and of groups of people sorting through piles of trash for something, anything useful.   Haitian men were helping our crew, having a purpose for those few hours, and when I spied a young boy eating sugar cane on a rooftop, he motioned to me to take his picture (and gave me a smile and a thumbs up when I did).   The need here is overwhelming and the challenges are great.  But I am excited at learning more about the Haitians….starting with church tomorrow.

Tonya McLeod

Day One

Welcome to our blog!!  Yay!!  We leave tomorrow---so stay tuned!