"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified: do not be discouraged, for the LORDyour God will be with you wherever you go. " - Joshua 1:9

Friday, March 9, 2012

HAITI Week


Haiti.....ahhhh my new found obsession. I love anything and everything about it. I wish I would have sat down and wrote this blog as soon as i arrived , but better late than never.

So we left Crossroads Fellowship to head to Haiti on February 5th. We met at the church, packed up in a van and Jonathan Yarborough drove us to the airport. I was so crazy nervous, one...i was going to be away from my husband and children with no communication whatsoever. two...i had no idea what God had in store for me. and three....I'M SCARED OF HEIGHTS!!!! haha I always freak out on planes so I was really not looking forward to having a layover in Florida and waking up the next day to face my fears ....2 Timothy 1:7 becomes my favorite plane scripture. haha So we flew out of Houston and arrived in Florida about 7:30pm. We had a 12 hour layover so we had to spend the night at the airport. There is NOTHING fun about sleeping on the floor in a cold...VERY COLD airport, if you could even sleep . I finally figured i needed body heat, so I snuggled up next to Shawna while she was asleep hahaha.
So the next morning we woke up and boarded the plane to Haiti, I sent out my final text message goodbyes, and made my last phone calls. I actually was not that scared on the plane because it happened that I sat next to Jacob from Masters commission and well he is the biggest teddy bear ever and I learned so much about this young man on my way there. What a BIG heart for GOD he has.
Then it happened, looking out my window I got my first glimpse of Haiti. There was a lot of Debris still in the water, but for the most part, absolutely beautiful. I had landed in paradise haha. We got off the plane and it was kinda cool to experience an airport where you don't exit into a HUGE building, we were transferred by bus to te building were Immigration and our luggage awaited. There I first saw the beautiful people of Haiti!! It was getting real. Creole was being spoken , luggage's pulled left and right. We were instructed to grab our luggage and just follow...and DO NOT LET GO haha. So we all loaded the Acts 29 Bus waiting for us and headed to the office.
Once we got to the office , we had a potty break and headed to the market to buy food for the widows of the villages. I was on Henry Claude's team. Our goal was to buy Spaghetti and Cooking oil. We walked through the market. Nothing like our farmers market. It was packed, food everywhere, even meat and fish that had been sitting out all day in the HOT sun. not my most favorite smell in the world. but I survived. Now we get to the vendor that we need to buy from. I start feeling a little nausea's....then all of a sudden I feel like I'm going to faint. I look at Shelly and Kate and tell them that I feel like poop. Kate takes her only water that she has left and hands it to me. I'm thinking its either a) I have not eaten any real food all day , and B) I had taken my malaria meds....BAD COMBO. So the more I drank the water, the more I wanted to puke my brains out. But like I said I was in the market, where these people buy food to eat. How am I going to puke here. Henry Claude then tells me to go behind the house....but to get to the back I have to climb over plantains and through a barbwire fence. I was like awesome, I'm going to puke and I'm going to get tetanus haha. But Henry CLade held it open for me and I went through. So I went to the back only to find this is were they throw the spoiled food and meat. That totally helped me get going in being sick. Afterward I climbed back through. I felt sooooo much better. We walked back to the bus and headed back to the office.
Once in the office we made widow packets. The packets included, toothpaste, cooking oil, spaghetti, hand towels...etc. One cool job me and Shelly received was to look through a box of underwear and find the most widow like underwear we could find haha. Oh boy did we find some haha. After that day was complete we headed back to Calico to go to sleep. There we were greeted by an amazing beach and food. I ate till I could NOT breathe anymore haha. That was day one and ministry work had not even started yet . haha