In Closing.

I was told the blog needed closure. I was also told that some people had been expecting a blog saying we had all gotten home safe and sound, etc. So I figured I might as well give our trip to Haiti a few last comments.

Thankfully, we did all arrive safe and sound at the Toronto Airport - and on schedule too! Stepping outside into wind, rain, and COLD all added up to a fair bit of a shock for the team, but luckily, both rides that came to pick us up were heated vehicles. The ride home did feel a little like it had all been a dream...city lights, cars, billboards advertising the latest thing we just had to buy...it almost seemed like we had never left home. Like it hadn't been just yesterday that I was willing the rats to go away and let me sleep, or looking forward to the fact that waking up at 7:30am would be a sleep in. But I know in all our minds, we still knew we had been in Haiti for the past 11 days, and even if some of the moments hadn't been quite enjoyable, we wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

Walking inside our own homes was a bit of a shock too. Seeing everything we had...and many people we had missed. I don't think any of the team members went to bed as soon as they got home, but instead stayed up later, regalling family members with the sights and stories they had experienced. At least until they got too tired, and then simply continued after everyone had gotten some sleep the next day.

I think we all adjusted fairly well back into Canadian culture fairly well, though for some of us, we were forced to adjust whether we were ready to or not. For example, Cam still went to school on the Friday we got home. The youth had a party that Friday evening, and we were all back at church on the Sunday morning. But I must say, seeing all the smiling faces back at church was a definite treat. You never really know what you've missed so much until you see it again, and realize what it felt like to be without it.

So thank you to everyone who supported us, who prayed for us, who sent emails to us...even to you who read the blog. It was fun to write, and I'm glad we could keep everyone updated with the incredible expereiences we had. For those of you who still haven't heard enough about our trip to Haiti, we're doing a special service just about Haiti on Sunday, April 5th! Be there.

:)

Celebration dinner

Well the team has returned to Chili's for an end of trip celebration meal. Cam demolished his bacon triple-the-cheese big mouth burger in honour of his dad's recent heart attack. The rest of us certainly enjoyed our meals as well.

Passport control was about 45minutes but we all managed to pass the fingerprint check and photo scan analysis without incident.

One more flight, one more customs and immigration, one more baggage pickup and one more drive ... looking forward to being home!

I'm leavin' on a jet plane..

Don't know when I'll be back again. (But hopefully next year for some of us.) Somehow I now have a tune stuck in my head.

Next stop ... Miami Airport ...and safe drinking water ....and shopping for Megan.

Last day in Haiti!

Today we got to sleep in, until about 8am, and it was glorious. We took our time finishing the packing, and leaving behind tools and clothing. It's interesting to think that my body has actually gotten used to these early mornings, seeing as I'm not an early riser by nature (don't tell my mom that I don't have trouble waking up early now, haha).

We then walked to the "airport" and had ourselves and our luggage weighed. When the little planes both arrived we headed off to Port Au Prince. Unfortunately for me, today's flight was a fair bit more turbulent than our last one, and I was very close to being air sick.

Upon arriving we were quickly herded to Wall's Guest House, and after a bit of down time (where I napped) we headed back out on a driven tour of P.A.P. (For anyone wondering, I felt much better after napping.)

The tour was lovely, and we got a great sense of P.A.P. It's such a conflicting city, having tiny ramshackle houses on one side and Radio Shacks on the other. But there were many beautiful areas, and lots of culture to see. The whole team also took some time to stop at vendor's areas and buy some souvenirs.

When we got back we had more downtime, and as you can see from the picture of the kitten, we had some fun with the two kittens here - Koda and Ranger. No we did not put the kitten's head through the hat, Cam covered it with the hat, and it did that itself.

It's glorious to have running water here, I'll just say that now. As well as we are all looking forward to a great western meal tomorrow (as good as the food here has actually been!). I think now would be a good time for a swim! More tomorrow!

P.s. Happy 13th birthday Erin!

P.p.s. For anyone wondering about our flight schedule, we're supposed to be arriving in Toronto tomorrow around 11:15pm.

So what ever happened to the chickens?

State = presented

Last day onsite!

Today was our last day on the work site, and it was definitely a bittersweet day. The morning progressed like all the other mornings - sanding, mortar hauling, brick handling, etc. But after we ate lunch, we started to distrubute items to different people. The first to be handed out were the books for the school, and it was awesome to see how excited the teachers were.

After that, we went back to work, and that was probably one of the coolest things of the day, because we had two chains going - one of adults hauling mortar, and one of kids taking back empty buckets. We were all working together.

When the concrete was done for the day, it was time for the last game of soccer and the last craft. The craft itself went well - the kids are so excited to have a huge piece of paper all to themselves, and most of them had never seen markers and stickers before. After the craft was done they were supposed to come to me and James to get one of the bracelets or necklaces I had made. But after we're had given a few out, some of the kids decided they wanted only the nicest ones and got grabby. After we dealt with that problem, we got the new one of some children taking off their jewellery, hiding it, and then coming and asking for a second one. Since there were so many kids, James and I couldn't catch all of them, and we ran out of jewellery for the smaller, less grabby ones. So that was both frustrating and disappointing, but the craft in itself went well. Bringing duct tape before to hang their picturtes was a good idea.

While that was going on inside, outside Roger was presenting the workers with thank you gifts (things like gloves, workbelts, measuring tapes, etc), and they very much appreciated them. We also had other school items to give to the principal, and we're leaving behind clothes and tools.

Interestingly enough, while we were just passing out drinks and granola bars to all the workers, the weather turned a little nasty. The clouds came in, a huge wind started up, and it started to spit. So after saying our last goodbyes, we headed out of there just in time! It never actually did rain though, only spitting from time to time.

Now it's about 8pm, and soon we're going to be packing. Tonight is our last night in Hinche, and as of tomorrow we'll be flying out to Port Au Prince on the little MAF. That means touring P. A. P, doing a bit of shopping, and then staying at Wall's Guest House for the evening. More to come on the sights tomorrow! Goodnight!

P. S. I have now reached 500 pictures taken while here. :) woo hoo!
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13 desks in all

Well today was assembly day. After planing the last dozen boards we were ready to put it all together. Bruce thought it was almost like stuff from Ikea except it didn't come in a box ... and we needed more than an allen key to put it together.

There are 5 desks for the big kids and 8 for the younger kids.

Tomorrow we still need to attach cross braces to the front of each desk and then the sanding fun begins. Roger has intentions of doing a bit of quality assurance as well.

A satisfying day.

All tuckered out

Roger said I should use this picture in the blog (much to my chagrin), so I decided I might as well.

As you can see, I was tired on the way back. And managing to rest on roads like these is a feat in itself!

I think the reason I was so tired was because of the sun. Today was pretty hot! 33 celsius in the shade. :(

It was pretty much business as usual today, so I don't have much to report. The one piece of excitement we had was when an injured man was brought to us by donkey. I won't go into detail about his knee injury, but let's just say that somehow he fell and managed to pull back all the skin from his knee (and I mean all....we're talking pretty much to the bone here). So we arranged and paid for his trip to the hospital, picking up his daughter to stay with him on the way.

Other than that, our only excitement (aside from the puppy that loves to attack Cam's slippers) will be sorting and packing everything we plan to leave behind tomorrow, as that will be our last day at the worksite.

Good night y'all!

Looks like were having chicken for supper

There is one type of chicken in haiti and several states.

The type is "free range".

The state varies and includes "Free"
"Evading capture"
"Hanging upside down"
"Bound" (though it could still be upside down...which implies we may need a second state or perhaps an orientation attribute)
"Exposed" (as in the neck)
"Flailing"
"Still" (often alternating with previous "flailing" state. Also note that the orientation frequently changes during this time as well)
"Cleaned"
"Cooked"
"Presented"
"Consumed"

What you see in the picture is supper in the "bound" and "upright" states.

Hope you are looking forward to supper as much as I am :-)

Roger (who else would write something like this)

Bad hair day :-)

This morning was an enormous treat for us, as we were allowed to "sleep in" until 7:30am, and in me and Poppy's case, until 8am (we forgot to set our alarm). We awoke to find that the Americans had come back for breakfast, so we shared a nice time together before heading out to church.

Since the service was almost all in Creole (except the part where Pastor Philemon (again, the spelling could be wrong) asked Roger to introduce the team) I didn't understand most of it. But it was amazing to see the passion that each and every person puts into their singing here. Even nicer was that after the service many of the children came running over to take down their pictures we had done in crafts, and proudly take them home to their parents.

After a "quick" lunch, we headed out Le Jeune so that Roger could show us more of Haiti, and meet up with some people from their month long stay in 2005. I put quick in quotations because Roger had been thinking of leaving at 1pm or so, and we left around 3:15pm.

That was an adventure in itself, because the family here had food to deliver to where we were going, along with four extra people, and three goats. The goats were interesting because they were hog-tied, then roped to sit on the bumper. But what got to all of us was their screaming. When they yell they sound like little children, and that took a bit of getting used to. Once we arrived and they were untied, they were fine.

After again leaving later than planned (we left Le Jeune at about 6:10pm - 40 minutes later than hoped) we got to ride home in the dark. And if we thought the dips in the roads in Hinche were bad, they were nothing compared to some of the two foot drops on this road. But the teens discovered a fun pastime while driving - standing up in the back of the truck, holding onto the railing. Standing actually works as a better shock absorber than sitting! It was a little nerve wracking, especially in the dark, but looking at the stars was amazing. And don't worry, we all got back alive (but only after having to go down backroads to avoid the Mardi Gras celebrations going on).

As a little added bonus we got to see my extremely dusty hair, James's amazing hairdo, and Pringles at dinner. Only two days left on the work site! More to blog tomorrow!

Psalm 121

I lift my eyes up to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip- he who watches over will not slumber, indeed he who watches over Isreal (and Haiti, Canada...) will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you -- the Lord is the shade at you right hand, the sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm -- he will watch over your life, the Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forever more.

Sugar crash

Quite an evening. A half litre of pop, some sugar cane and more ice cream than any serving at home. Crash during team time - Cam was leading.

Snack time.

Today we had two pleasant surprises, both arriving after we got back from the work site.

The first was 6 Americans (part of a group with World Gospel Mission), stopping by here on their way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Christian radio station in Port Au Prince. They came in time for dinner, and we had some very good conversations (and some fun ones too, like how Canadian clear pop can't have caffeine in it).

The second surprise came back with Carl, in the form of large cups of strawberry ice cream. It was very sweet, but soooo good! Definitely one of the highlights of the day! Tomorrow should be interesting as we're going to church in Sapote, then heading into Le Jeune (I have no idea if that's how you spell it!) for the day. More to blog tomorrow, but for now good night!

On the road again

Today was a small excitement for us, as we got to ride in the Toyota today instead of the LandRover. The LandRover is incredibly uncomfortable, but the Toyota is actually a lot better. And since we can throw crazy teenagers like James and Cam on the roof, we have a lot more room as well.

The only downside to that occurred when Cam's hat flew off his head (while driving) and we had to drive back a little and retrieve it. Guess he learned his lesson. ;)

An experience for us, and one for the kids

This morning when we woke up it was a little louder than usual outside. We had been warned, but it was still a bit of a surprise. Right outside our front door had been turned into a little market.

There were about 10 women and 2 men all trying to sell the rich white people their wares. I think all of us found a few things to purchase, wanting to support the people of Hinche as opposed to just waiting until we were back in Port Au Prince.

They were all very friendly and respectful, and it was fun to look around the first time. But when we came out the second time with our money, there was a bit more aggression and desperation to have us buy something, because they knew it qould be their last opportunity. I felt a little guilty for not being able to buy something from everyone, but I was fairly happy with my purchases.

We arrived at the worksite later today, around 9:30am, and it has definitely felt a lot like a Saturday. There's been a fair bit of waiting around, and you know when that happens, the boys start thinking of ways to pass the time.

Even just them thinking is usually a dangerous thing, but when they get bored, it's usually time to duck and cover. Today however turned out to be different, and Cam and James took it upon themselves to create stilts for the kids. They made two pairs and the kids had a ball with them. But once two boys started fighting over them, and the one picked up some rebar to hit the other, the principal called the stilts quits until after lunch.

Since lunch just passed the kids have picked them up again, and all seems to be going well. Probably one more blog to come tonight!

Breakfast of champions!

Feast your eyes...
- vine ripened bananas
- fresh oranges
- Tomato (onion optional)
- hard boiled egg
- spagetti with spam and green peppers
- chadette juice

I enjoyed my breakfast. Hope you enjoyed yours :-)

Roger

"Oh rats!"

Last night was definitely the worst sleep the girls have had since we arrived. I know I only got 4 hours. The reason? RATS.

Oh I never actually saw any, and I don't think they made it into our room...but we could hear them above us on the roof, in the hallway right outside our door, and even in the main part of the house. Even just the thought that a rat could find its way into our room made it that much harder to sleep.

I think what made me even more nervous was when a couple of the ladies (who were living at the house) went into the living room and gasped, then quickly started talking in fast hushed tones. Thudding, scurrying, and squeaking quickly followed. Needless to say, I didn't fall asleep until 1:30am.

When we woke up in the morning, no one else had been plagued (haha) by these evil creatures of the night. Roger and dad however had one stinking mouse in their room. I can't say I felt too sorry for them.

More to come later in the day!

Haitian G1S

Well if you don't understand the subject then no need to read further as you will likely be bored(board?).

Reading actual planer instructions in Haiti is somewhat of a comical read. Some examples:
- little or no warpage is ideal condition for planing a work piece
- thickness planers work best if at least one side of the work piece has a flat surface
- worn cutter blades will affect cutting accuracy
- cutting wood with high moisture content may result in a fuzzy/ rough surface

So what happens if Roger tries to plane warped green mango wood that is extremely uneven on both surfaces? Not too bad in the end. The previous blog should have a picture of the first desk completed today.

So from the 7 dozen planks that were bought about 4 were deemed usable by the carpenter and I culled that down to about 30 boards that were planable(?).

So from the 30 planks we should be able to construct 9 desks in total. All the lumber will be cut to size by saturday noon and then the fabrication will begin. There is a possibility of purchasing 2 more dozen "good" boards on Saturday which would allow another 5-6 desks to be made.

If anyone is interested it took both edges of the first set of blades to get through 30 boards. This includes a periodic scraping off of the accumulated "gum" with blade cleaner. The ridgid 13" planer is holding up quite fine though you can only take about 1/32" per pass at the most on a 12" wide board of green warped mango wood. (Really bothers me to be using mango wood but that is what the bought).

Anyway, given the nature of the desks being made I decided to work towards one side planed to a somewhat decent surface while the other may be less asthetically pleasing. I call it Haitian Good 1 Side lumber. So if you ever get to Sapote I ask that you just look approvingly at the tops of the desks - not underneath :-)

Well enough wood working stories for now.

Good night.
Roger

A long day and a finished desk

Today was probably the longest day we've had so far, and yet it may be one of the easiest to discuss. We did a lot of mortar hauling, because we had to "cap" the walls (I'm not quite sure what that means...but it sure involved a lot of hauling heavy buckets). So that took up the majority of our day. Some of the kids liked to turn it into a game where instead of passing the buckets to us, they'd try to run past us and get it to the end of our line before we could catch them. It was all fun and games until one boy tripped and the mortar fell both on dad's head (thank goodness for hats), and the ground.

While all that was occuring, Roger was using various people to help him work on fionishing our first desk! That was fairly exciting. Through the end process there was a cow that watched the whole thing and would voice its comments every once in a while.

One of the highlights of my day was handing out the one month packets of prenatal vitamins that we put together this morning. The principal would bring them over, I would hand them to the women, and he would explain. But every single time they were so thankful, it was one of the first times when I really felt I was making a difference.

Another thing of note was today's craft. Poppy and I were trying to make little pouches with them, out of Starburst wrappers, tape, and construction paper. It was a craft meant for about 15 of the older girls. It ended up being a craft for kids ages 5-15, for about 52 kids. Needless to say, we ran out of wrappers for the last 5 children. As well, with only one roll of tape, the whole craft took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. We usually leave at 4:30pm or so...today we left at 5:15pm, and as mentioned in Roger's brief blog, got a flat tire.

But that about covers our day! :) more to blog tomorrow!
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Just taking a little break.

Well we're taking a little longer returning from the work site today. The great part is we get to taste the dust as each vehicle goes by.

Ready to go again. bye for now.

More time with the kids

Before I start with today, I have a few quick items to cover that occurred yesterday after I had done the blog

1. I have won the award for Most Likely To Get Malaria. I am up to 37 bites. You're probably telling me to put on bugspray and wear pants. I actually have been wearing bug spray every night. I don't havr any pants here. And they really just love my blood. I'm just praying the malaria meds are strong!

2. Carl arrived last night. James and especially Cam had been waiting anxiously for him to get here. We're not sure what his role with us will be this year, but it's nice to have his sense if humour with us.

3. I had a cockroach scare in my room last night. I made a trip to our bathroom, and while I was in there a cockroach crawled over the door and then under it into our room. I chased it for a bit before it crawled under my bed. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep with it there, so I called Poppy to kill it, and she called Carl who did kill it.

But I digress, onto the work site!

We were doing the same tasks as yesterday, although I think everyone made more of an effort to switch tasks, to give better variety. Many of today's highlights actually came from the children who are always (and I mean always) around to visit.

The first highlight came at the children's first break, when Cameron, James and I broke out the skipping ropes Roger had thought to bring. They flocked to the ropes, all trying to show us their stuff. Cam and I even jumped into the middle to show them a couple Western rhymes, and Roger jumped in...well, not to show them any skill, but they had fun watching him. ;)

An hour later Poppy, Roger, and I got permission from the principal to go inside the school and take a few pictures. I felt very disruptive, but when we got to the younger classes in the old building Poppy was interacting with the teachers, and it felt a little more natural. All in all, it was a cool experience.

Then at lunch Poppy had asked all the students to come out so we could take a group picture. The students are much better listeners than back home, because I couldn't picture our students standing in the blinding sun for about 15 minutes, posing for us to take their picture. When the picture was done, some students were told they could come back for 3pm when we'd be doing crafts and soccer.

I like the fact that I'm helping with the site, but I couldn't wait for 3pm to come around. When it finally did, it wasn't quite what I expected. We started with about 10 kids, which quickly multiplied to about 62 by the end. They loved the coloured paper, markers and stickers. Some of them had never even seen markers or stickers before, so that was cool. But I found both that I wouldn't be able to run crafts by myself because of the language barrier, and Poppy and I wouldn't be able to do any of the more complicated crafts due to the staggered nature of the children's arrival. So that was a little disappointing, but it was still fun to watch.

The only other item of note once we got back "home" was that Bruce had a run in with a cockroach as well. He was in the shower when he noticed it, and we all heard a good scream fron where we were inside. In my defense, when I found the cockroach in our washroom, I didn't scream. ;) sorry this was so late, I was TIRED last night! More later!

Providing true service to the community :-)

Just a short post be Roger. Everyone is tired and has already crashed. Megan will add the details from a full Thursday sometime on Friday.

So back to the photo. You have to picture being in the middle of nowhere and sparking up a 3200W honda generator to power some tools. Within minutes everyone in the community starts showing up with their cell phone chargers.

Anyway, I thought is was humorous. Not the community service I thought we would be providing - but meeting a need none-the-less.

:-)

Roger

Bricks and Mortar

So today was bricks and mortar in the sunshine. Three rows in place. Tomorrow will be bricks and mortar in the sunshine. And the next day will be bricks and mortar in the sunshine. Etc.

A couple of pics.

Wood Workers Ahoy!

One of the upsides of the woodworking side of the project is that you get to work in the shade. Today we were met by 7 dozen planks of wood. The hatian carpenter who is working with us culled 2.5 doz for building scaffolding and the remaining 4.5 doz were deemed good enough for building desks and benches. We will see.

The photo shows the work bench we constructed. The idea is to clamp a board with a straight edge on top of the board to be cut then run the skill saw along. I know that looks like James is just sitting around but that was only momentary. James Bruce and Cam were busy busy busy keeping up with clamping process given we had a cutting setup on each side of the bench.

By the end of the day we had trimmed the 4.5 dozen "good" planks each to selected widths.
Photo of the day's finished work.

Tomorrow we try the thickness planer and see how that goes. We are renting a 3200W honda generator and seems to be doing just fine.

That's if for today.

Roger

On the work site!

As I write this I'm sitting in the shade, trying to keep out of the sun. If you manage to find a shady spot, or somewhere a little overcast, you're fine. But as soon as you start digging in the sun, it can get very warm. Definitely not the same as yesterday!

Today has been a little rough for me, since I woke up with the cold I was hoping would stay away. My thoughts have all been a little fuzzy, and it can be frustrating to have to ask people to repeat what they just said multiple times.

That aside, we're finally working! I know the team has been looking forward to jumping in and helping out. So far we've been doing varied tasks like making mortar, hauling bricks, making tables, cutting and marking wood, and in general helping to get things done. It's very encouraging to watch the team finding spots where they can be of the most help.

I know my moment of fun came when I started taking pictures of the children. They were extremely amused with being able to look at themselves after I took their picture, and very quickly I had a mob of children and had to stop for the time being. Cam has been a big hit with the kids, since he can speak a fair bit of Creole, and Poppy has been serving as our translator. It makes me wish I had made a bigger effort to learn Creole before I came.

Roger and Bruce B seem to be enjoying themselves, having headed straight into doing the carpentry. The rest of us dive in wherever we're most needed. All in all, it seems to be going very well. However, when Cam told me the group usually went to bed around 9:30, it turns out he wasn't kidding! By 7pm last night everyone was tired, and I have no doubt today will be a similiar case!

Poppy and I will be starting the crafts soon, as the guys will be starting a rousing soccer game, I'm sure. So I had better go and join everyone now, and help out where I still can!
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Great to be here

Wow. That's really all I can say, but I will try my best to describe our day. We started out by waking up at 5:30am, practically a sleep in compared to yesterday. We then headed to the Haitian airport for our MAF flight. The experience when we arrived was probably more like what the team was expecting to happen yesterday, with many Haitian men all wanting to help us with our luggage. When we got inside, going through the metal detector was an adventure, with all of us trying to keep up with our luggage that had already made it through. I had to go through the metal detector four times. But in the end it worked out fine and after having both ourselves and all the luggage weighed, we were ready to head onto the planes.

The MAF flight was an amazing experience that we all took lots of pictures for (I know I got several videos as well)! I even got to be the "copilot" for the ride.

When we arrived in Hinche we all found to our happiness that the temperature was not insanely hot, but actually quite comfortable. When both planes had arrived our driver, Ishmael, took us to Pastor Giordani's.

We unpacked every single suitcase we had brought, sorting it into piles of tools, school things, and clothing. By the time we finished it was only around 11am. Our first lunch in Haiti was spamwiches with Sprite, woo! After lunch Ishmael came back to drive us to the worksite, and I found out that no exaggeration had been made in describing the poor conditions of the road.

I think it was extremely encouraging for the past team members to see the school they had helped to build. It looked tremendously better than their old school, and like Anne Good had shown earlier, the view was amazing. A new development was that the empty field that had been there before had been replaced by 75 banana trees, lemon and orange bushes (I was told bushes, but I think they're trees), and okra.

After looking through the school, Gaston took us on a "20 minute" walk. In other words Roger told him we had about 20 minutes, and when we got back it was an hour and fifteen minuites later. None of us minded though, as it gave us a great chance to see the people and the land ( not to mention a chance to take pictures - I'm up to 150)!

When we got back to the site, Cam and both Bruces played a bit of soccer with the children, while Poppy and Roger talked with the Haitian people, and James and I just took in all the action. The whole time the weather was fairly overcast and there was a bit of a breeze, so I don't think the temperature ever passed 26 degrees. It was glorious, perhaps God's way of giving us a welcome.

When we got back "home" dinner was waiting for us, a feast of rice, beans, meat sauce, pasta salad, potato salad, and peas and corn. After cleaning up, we had showers and journal time, where I experienced my first cold bucket shower.

I think that about brings you up to speed, and I know I for one will be ready for bed soon. Goodness knows I'll need the time to digest everything I've seen and heard today!

We made it!

I'm sitting under a slightly cloudy sky, but there are still quite a few stars visible from the roof of Walls Guest House. Looking up at the stars actually gave me a comforting thought: while the team was noticing Orion's Belt, I realized I had just noticed the same constellation this past weekend at the retreat. And that made me think, even though we're far from home, we could all be looking at the same stars - our team and our friends and family. Just more glory of God.

At this point, many people are probably wondering how our flights went. We woke up bright and early at about 4:50am, and after getting into our taxis, arrived at American Airlines by about 5:45am. We were told we should be three hours early, but by the time we had weighed the luggage, gone through customs etc it was only 7am, and our flight was set to leave at 9.

That flight was on time, and we arrived at Miami in time for lunch, and boarded our flight to Port Au Prince. That flight however was about an hour and ten minutes delayed due to a very full flight. They had overbooked the flight by four people, and were having trouble with the weight of the luggage (which may have had something to do with the 700 pounds or so we were bringing haha). Once we finally headed out, we arrived in Haiti around 5pm.

I must say, for all the warnings the team had given me about what to expect, it was nowhere near as scary when we left the airport. There weren't many Haitian people waiting to take our luggage, and we didn't have children running up to us for money. They all agreed it was a bit different from last year's arrival. When Big Boss had gotten our luggage in the van, we were off to Walls Guest House, arriving at about 6:15pm. From there the team was shown our accomodations, ate dinner, had a chance to go swimming, and just explored the house.

We had a moment of excitement when Cam ran up the stairs to tell us he had seen a rat. We sent him back down to inspect again, and he came back with the news that it was actually just a giant cockroach. Excited to see my first huge Haitian cockroach I followed him, only to find out that his definition of 'huge' was a cockroach of about an inch. Oh well, with any luck, that's the biggest I'll run into! Good night from Haiti!

Safe and sound at the airport

Well good morning!

Four teens were up and somewhat functional at 5am. Who says miracles still don't happen today :-). Check in, customs and security all were uneventful ... Well almost. Poppy had a fold up pair of sewing scissors in her carry-on and James lit up like a christmas tree in the metal detector due to the metal hooks on the bungie cord that he uses as a belt. The security guy actually laughed out load - that would be LOL for those that don't like to type.

So now it's shortly after 7:00am and the dutch blitz game is effectively keeping the youth "focused" :-).

The 85lb planer had a $125 overweight charge - slightly more than expected.

Looking forward to a rest on the plane.

Roger (for all)

Lots of luggage

Technically our trip doesn't start until tomorrow, but for everyone here the trip has already begun. We arrived safely at Hotel Huggins around 8:30pm, brought in all the luggage (my muscles have already gotten a workout and we haven't even left yet!), and had our first "on the trip" meeting while eating the delicious snacks provided by our hosts.

We knew it before we left, but having to carry all the luggage around we realized we have a lot to take with us. And even though we're so close to leaving, there are still things to be done. My dad is labelling the planer (I'm not sure what it's for, but judging by how heavy it is, it must be important), Roger and Poppy are working on our seating arrangements, I'm documenting it all, and the boys? Well, they're talking in the kitchen. But I'm sure it's about wise and wordly issues. :)

And through it all, we're learning that everything will come together so long as we remember to let God be big enough. Pray for a safe trip tomorrow, that all our luggage makes it, and that the complications are few and small. Good night.

The Highview To Haiti Team for 2009