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. . . .
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 stormMore about the trip tomorrow. . . .
2 comments:
Mrs. Kathy,
Sounds like an eventful day. I am on my toes and can't wait to hear more!
Your Sister in Christ,
Stephanie Deal
Mya and I went to Dominican Republic last July with our chuch team for 8 days. We Loved it. They asked Mya to consider being an intern this summer. What a blessing. We would love to hear about your trip.
Ana-Maria Klundt
Rosendale, MO
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