So I have found my first couple days in Haiti to be refreshing and quite uneventful, until this evening. Saturdays here are very laid back, the kids normally go on hikes. Sundays are church and fried chicken days and I get to play with the kids. Some have grown solo much in the last year. The real work starts early Monday morning. I'm so used to hitting the ground running when arrive that I'm actually enjoying some slow moments to let my mind get used to life here again, so it's been amazing that I have had time to even work on a blog. Had some very nice days of 85 and evening breezes and even a hard rain the last 2 nights, drives the mosquitoes in but keeps it cool. So not blistering hot yet :-). I find myself falling in love again with the sound of crickets at night, roosters at dawn and donkey brays in the morning and the cold showers.
I have to say as a whole the nation I think is showing signs of progress. I have seen more police presence than I have ever seen in my 5 years of coming to Haiti , more infrastructure being developed, more horses around - strangely :-), outlying tent cities are becoming more permanent structures w/ goats behind them and more like new villages with markets within. Things are still desperate throughout but i can see small bits of progress. I will be able to feel a better pulse after clinic Monday.
Things at Canaan are interesting, a lot of the full time missionaries have gone back to the states for the summer and the leadership just came back from being gone for a month. The orphanage kids feel a bit out of sorts, which I guess is to be expected since Pastor Henry and Sister Gladys have been in the states. It's so amazing how the kids have grown in the last year. Things feel a little strained, but on the whole things are growing. I have had some interesting dreams/ nightmares already and I'd like to blame it on the side effects of the chloroquine ( the anti-malaria medicine I take), but I'm not convinced. The new clinic has been up and going for 3 months, still needs a little more work, and even gets to have some power in the morning, woo hoo!. We had a team of 40 young adults arrive from North Carolina today, which has things bustling now, and the kids at Canaan are just eating it up.
It has been so good to see Elsie and catch up with her, I love seeing her take on this 'mom' role as she goes through the adoption process with Caleb. She is seriously my hero. And Caleb's extended family is so happy to see him in Elsie's capable hands. He's a handful but so cute and personable.
Oh cool news for all you who have hearts for adoption. Elsie has made an amazing friend here who has a Cresh. This is formal agency that is required for children to be adopted through in Haiti. And this friend has a heart not only for orphans but also for adoption and is fed up with the corruption and the high cost of adoptions, so is creating a way to adopt children from Haiti affordably. Hallelujah!!! So, if anyone is
Another fun connection actually, more of a divine appointment was in the airport on Friday. I ran into old friend and KAA kamp nurse colleague Lori Tugwell. I haven't seen her in 5 years at least ( since the last time she was at Kamp) and ran into her and her husband in the airport. She has since adopted 2 children from Haiti and then is now ministering to a orphanage in Port and facilitating adoptions there. How cool is that? In the airport of all places. I can't wait to get back to the states and talk with her more about what she does in Haiti. That is the interesting thing here, communication between villages is a little hard, with no hard lines of communication like phones, word of mouth only spreads village to village, and there are literally orphanages and children's homes and Missions everywhere you go. I think there are 4 or 5 in Montrious alone, where I am, each serving a different need. It bothers me sometimes to think how many foreign based ministries there are here. I just get frustrated thinking that the Lord should have accomplished so much more if there are that many missionaries here. Today as we were driving around looking at the town and then all the ministries around this righteous indignation rose up me, and I grumbled to the Lord that He wasn't doing enough for all the work all these people put in and for all the money American's pour into this country. And as I prayed/grumbled I was reminded that sometimes I need to be humbled as much as the people need the aid. Meaning, it's the challenges I face and the broken people that bring me to tears, that bring me to my knees crying out for justice and mercy, that force me to hope for something to the point that it hurts. It's places like this that bring me and thousands of others to our knees, as we finally really feel out of control, see things happen outside of the sphere we can fix, and realize we aren't all sufficient, He is. This place makes me realize how much I need Him, how sovereign He is. And even though it may not always look like it through my eyes, Jesus really loves His children.
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