Haiti Trip – Day 1 and 2

Today is Wednesday, and it is hot in Haiti.  Our hope is to put a post on the Genesis blog every day or two to give updates, share prayer needs, and let everyone know how things are going.  A recap of our first couple days, which have been an adventure.  Genesis Haiti team arrived at the airport at 4 AM yesterday.  Our arrival, trip through security and first flight went off without a hitch.  But that is pretty much where normal ended on Monday.  We boarded the plane in Miami at the correct time, about 11:20 for a noon flight to Port-Au-Prince, which was supposed to arrive a little after 2.  Just about the time we were supposed to take off the captain came on the intercom to let us know there was a little problem with the plane, they found a hole in the cargo hold.  At the time he said he didn’t know if the fix would take a short time or a long time, so we just sat.  About an hour later he came back and told us that they had fixed the problem and that we might be leaving soon, but just a minute or two after that a big thunderstorm popped up, so we sat.  Then they informed us that because of the delay, we would have to get a new captain, the current one had been on for too long.  That took some time, so we waited.  When the new captain was arriving, they informed everyone on the airplane that we had been sitting too long and they were required to offer people the option of getting off the plane and booking a different flight.  Well, of course someone chose to leave, and they had to find their luggage, so we waited again.  The captain then came on and said they had been unable to find the luggage needed, so he decided to de-plane, so it looked like after all that waiting we were going to get off the plane.  But as everyone waited in the aisle, he came on again and said that the luggage had been found so we would be leaving in about ten minutes, which we did, but after sitting on the hot plane bound for Haiti for 3 ½ hours.
And believe it or not, that wasn’t even the worst part of the flight.  As we were landing coming into Port-au-Prince the wind got very bad, and when we were just a few hundred feet off the ground the plane started swerving in a crazy way.  The pilot pulled up and we lifted off again, circled the city and countryside again for another crack.  Needless to say, we were a bit worried, but it all ended well, as we came in from the other direction with a good landing and an ovation from the passengers for the pilot.
The trip through the airport and customs went smoothly, and then we jumped into a couple “tap-taps” (Haitian taxi which is basically a ride in the back of a pickup truck) and made our way to House of Hope.  Being four hours late, we pretty much had time to get our stuff settled and dinner ready and eaten before bed, which we all welcomed.
Day two today began with one of our group, Allison Satchell getting sick. Pray for her, she is feeling a bit better this afternoon, but what a bummer to look forward to a trip like this and get sick on the first morning in country. We hosted a kids club for the girls in the orphanage and other children in the neighborhood.  We had about 60 kids.  The language barrier was tough, be we had some wonderful young men who love Jesus and know English serve as our interpreters.  They were so helpful.  This morning our group read Acts 2, and as I was reading about the gift of tongues, I thought about this.  While God did not give me the gift of speaking in tongues, especially Creole this morning, He did provide.  In Acts 2, tongues was God’s way of crossing cultural and language barriers with the Gospel.  This morning we were able to see this happen as well.  We are using the images (arrows, cross, empty tomb) that we have used at other kids clubs to explain the Gospel.  It was amazing to hear kids recite in Creole, “It is all about Jesus, He came and live a sin-free life, he died on the cross for my sin, He rose again three days later, He ascended into heaven, and one day He will return.  We played games, sang songs, did a craft, taught them a Bible verse in Creole, and told them about Jesus.  Great morning, deeply affected us.
This afternoon we are painting the inside of the school and moving a bunch of stuff either to be donated to others, to trash, or to burn.  All is good here, and our group has already been so blessed and God is working deeply in our hearts.  Keep praying, and thanks for sending us.gym