Haiti Journal, part II

by Kathy

First, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to continue this blog. I'm a novice at this and fight with the technology every time I tackle it! Please forgive my slowness!

On to day two in Haiti. . . . .

Tuesday began for us at 3:30 a.m., and the couple hours of sleep were precious to both Sterling and me. We freshened up and had our bags packed and down in the hotel lobby before the 4:30 schedule demanded. Our taxi driver raced us back to the Miami airport where we checked in, went through the boarding process and finally had the time to get a decent breakfast. (It was airport food, but it tasted great!) We had missed a great dinner scheduled at the Port-au-Prince hotel the night before.

The airline had chartered a special flight back to Haiti, and it was scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. The flight went very well; on time, peaceful and smooth. Haiti's airport is known for luggage-napping and passport theft, so we were alerted to keep our passports close and pay attention. Sterling and I had been advised to pack lightly, so we each had very heavy backpacks and one carry-on piece of luggage. We avoided the possibility of lost luggage by keeping everything with us. Others on our trip were not so fortunate. All the luggage of those from Nashville was lost en route to Haiti! We waited a couple hours as the authorities searched for it, but were forced to continue on with our trip without it.

Our itinerary was completely amended due to the flight changes, and we flew a chartered small plane to the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien. We missed our first project visit, and after a hair-raising drive through the streets of Cap-Haitien, we arrived at a Compassion Project. We were not prepared for the grand welcome that we received! Mothers of the project's children met us at the van doors with handmade corsages for each of our tour members. They were wearing banners that read, "You are Welcome!" Everyone was gathered around, smiling and waiting for us to join them. They had a program planned that included songs and speeches and testimonies of how Compassion had changed their lives. It was a very big deal! The children crowded all around our group, pressing close and holding hands with us all. It was so precious!

This project included a Child Survival Program, which includes pregnant ladies and ladies with children up to age three. Every baby was wearing a hand-made hat that said "You are Welcome", too!

The program includes teaching for these young moms on early childhood development, nutrition, cleanliness and health. I was so impressed by all the smiles.

We were invited by one of the mothers whose child is enrolled in the project to visit her home. I wish I could take you along the road we traveled and then the paths we walked to see this home! It had rained for two days, and there is no drainage system to take care of the run-off. The cement block homes, most with leaky tin roofs, fill with water and flooding is widespread. Below is the home of a man and wife and their TEN children. They were forced to go stay with friends during the storm the night before, the same storm we encountered as we attempted to land in Port-au-Prince.

Below is our group walking to the home above. Those are family homes behind us.

We enjoyed our first full-sized meal of the trip al fresco at a quaint cafe' in the city of Cap-Haiten. Always mindful of what we were eating and if it would be safe for our American digestive systems, we passed on the fresh salad, and ate fried chicken, french fries and corn. Many of our group would suffer from traveler's digestive reactions as the week wore on. We were strongly warned to eat only hot, cooked foods and to drink only bottled water or bottled beverages.

The day ended at a beautiful hotel overlooking the city, and far from chaos and crowds. We lodged high up on a hill where it was quiet and peaceful. Each day ended with a debriefing meeting and a time of group sharing and fellowship. I found it very challenging to process the myriad of images of the day, from the intensity of Port-au-Prince to the abject poverty of the slums of the cities. The roads were beyond description. Drivers were weaving from right side to left side in their attempts to dodge the craters of potholes in the roads, horns constantly blaring and vehicles barely missing pedestrians on every side. Venders lined the narrow streets and garbage was everywhere. U.N. trucks and Humvees patrolled the streets. Motorcycles, commonly with four passengers, zipped between and around traffic incessantly. It was dizzying!
Truly, the pictures are worth a thousand words, so I'll end with this for today.

Blessings,
Kathy

Haiti Journal

by Kathy

Sunday, March 1st

It's hard to know where to start as I attempt to tell my story of our Haiti visit. When the opportunity came up to have one family member go with Sterling to visit Haiti with Compassion International, I told the Lord, "Pick me! Pick me!" But then when I started learning about Haiti and the instability of this island nation, I changed my prayer to, "I would love to go, but I must know that You are sending me." It didn't help to hear stories of armed guards, UN occupation, American hostages taken in 2008, and civil unrest.

As a family, there were several who volunteered to go, but it became apparent that the Lord would send me with Sterling. (Sterling was going as an official representative in the Independent Artists Program with Compassion, where he works alongside Compassion as a child advocate to get sponsors for children in poverty across the globe.) I received an undeniable peace about going - the peace that passes understanding - and Jim's encouragement that I go with his blessing cinched it for me. I made last-minute plans to get my passport in Milton, Florida, and all the necessary inoculations from the Savannah Department of Health, as our family was traveling in the southeastern states right up to the week before we left for Haiti.

Before we left, Avery and Havilah made lap-quilts for each of the three children we sponsor in Haiti, and Sterling and I bought backpacks and filled them with special gifts to give the children when we got there. We were so excited about meeting the children!

Our flight left Omaha at 6:05 a.m. on Monday, so Sterling and I spent the night in a hotel in Omaha, and arrived at the airport by 4:45 a.m. The flights from Omaha to Dallas and Dallas to Miami were uneventful, until the last one from Miami to Port-au-Prince. We were delayed from the beginning because of a fuel container issue on the plane, and waited on the runway for over an hour, only to disembark that plane, wait hours for another plane to be readied, and then reboard that evening. After two hours in the air, we flew into a terrible storm centered right over the Port-au-Prince airport. The pilot had the landing gear down and was within 10 feet of the runway as the lightning flashed and rain was pouring down in sheets. The plane was shaking and rocking and at the last second, the pilot brought the plane back up and aborted the landing. It was a very tense moment, and the plane was full of praying and cursing (depending upon your eternal perspective) and screaming and all sorts of commotion. It was too stormy to make another go of landing, so foregoing the option of landing in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, we headed back to Miami, a two-hour flight.

The day's flights were Sterling's first experience with commercial flying, so he asked the male flight attendant if the attempted landing in Port-au-Prince was sort of normal in the flight industry. After 13 years of working as a flight attendant, that near-landing was the first and only he had ever experienced so close to crashing. He said it was highly unusual and he had never had a pilot get so near the ground and abort the landing. When we landed in Miami, the plane was filled with applause and shouts of rejoicing. It was a time for thankfulness!

As I had prepared for this trip, I felt a very powerful sense of my own mortality; that the possibility that I would not come home was very real. I can honestly say that at the moment that a crash seemed very likely, I was talking to the Lord and asking if in the next few moments I would be seeing Him face-to-face. He had given me the thought before I left that "If you are walking hand-in-hand with Jesus, what difference does it make if the next step is on earth or in heaven?" I was calm; my heart didn't even race or flip during those intense moments. Somehow in all the heart preparation for the trip, I have acquired a sense of continuity with earth and heaven - - with life here melting into life there - - and I'm so comfortable with it all. It's hard to explain. I'm so content to be in His hands. . . .I don't know how else to articulate it.

There's a glitch in the international customs law that says if you close the doors on an international flight, you are technically out of the country, so when we landed back in Miami, we had to go through Customs, filling out the paperwork and claiming items brought into the country and go through the baggage check as though we were returning from out of country, even though we had never left the plane. It was a long process for the couple hundred passengers. We were given some food vouchers and our tour leaders made hasty accommodations for the Compassion group. We were taxi-ed to a hotel, waited for our rooms to be prepared and finally settled for the night. It was past 12:30 a.m., Tuesday morning. By the time we made the phone calls to loved ones about the journey, it was 1:40 a.m. when Sterling and I turned out the lights. We were scheduled to be in the lobby at 4:30 a.m. for the taxi ride back to the airport. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.

Port-au-Prince after Monday's rain storm

More about the trip tomorrow. . . .

A Year Ago Today...

We watched sadly as our two barns and shed were engulfed in flames and burned all the way to the ground. Our emotions were mixed with thankfulness that our horses were all safe and the flames had been stopped before reaching our house, and overwhelming disappointment that we had lost our historical barn built in 1909, along with our milking barn, shed, and all our tack, bikes and tools.

Looking back on the past year we have been so blessed by the dozens of people who have donated tack (we now have more saddles than we started out with!), time, money and resources to help us clean up and reconstruct the barn. We were able to settle with the insurance company for enough money to build a smaller but adequate barn.



And now, a year later our new barn is up and on its way to being completed. We have been so blessed! Just as Romans 8:28 promises, God has caused the barn fire to work together for our benefit. We count it a BLESSING that the fire happened, and praise God for the way He has "caused all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."

To God be the glory, great things He has done!

They're Home!

Mom and Sterling arrived very late last night and we were up until 2am listening to stories and looking at pictures. They had a wonderful week and are still getting us caught up on all that went on. Watch for a picture journal of their trip soon!

Update

From what we've heard it's been an intense last couple of days for Mom and Sterling. Their flight to Haiti was filled with broken airplanes, extended waits and shifting schedules. They were supposed to fly into Haiti on Monday afternoon but we got a phone call from them Monday night and they were back in Miami, Florida. Their plane made it all the way to Haiti and was landing in Port-au-Prince when a severe storm hit Haiti. They were ten feet from landing on the runway when the pilot had to abort the landing. Mom and Sterling said it was very scary as the plane shook and the passengers were screaming and praying. They had to fly back to Miami and spend the night in a motel. They said goodnight to us at 1:30 am and had to be back at the airport at 4:30 so they were going to be very short-rested!



Since then we haven't heard from them, although we weren't anticipating that we would because of no cell phone reception and very limited or no ability to call from the motels in Haiti. So, we are assuming no news is good news but please keep Mom and Sterling in your prayers! We are looking forward to their homecoming on Friday, and sharing pictures and stories of their time in Haiti.

They're Off!

Their bags are packed...

...Loaded with treasures for the Haitian children and parents...

They're on their way to Haiti!

Mom and Sterling flew out of Omaha early this morning and are soon to board a flight in Miami. They'll be in Haiti this afternoon!

If it comes to your mind please pray for:

• Safety in the dangerous country of Haiti

• Time to get to know our sponsored children

• Mom told us this morning that the luggage they were intending to carry on the plane wouldn't fit so they were forced to check the luggage and it went all the way to Haiti ahead of them. Please pray it makes it to Haiti and is waiting for them when they get there!

Project: Quilts for Haiti

Mom and Sterling have the incredible opportunity to spend a week in Haiti on a missions trip sponsored by Compassion International. Since Sterling became a spokesperson for Compassion in March of '08 he has helped find sponsors for over 100 children. Because of this, Compassion International wanted to send him and one family member to Haiti to meet the 3 children we sponsor there. So, a couple days before they were supposed to leave Havilah and I (Avery) decided to make quilts for the children.

Lots of sewing...

...and then tying.

The finished product.

We are looking forward to seeing pictures of the children receiving their gifts!