Arrival in Haiti

Yesterday was a long day. No sleep Thursday night, travel by school bus, airplane, and tour bus. 18 hours before we arrived at Damou Christian Mission yesterday evening and were greeted with lobster soup for dinner! Arrival was chaotic as expected. We saw many familiar face amongst the crowd of children, and we were introduced to many new children at the house.

Arrival at the airport was much more organized this time, things are slowly improving in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake. More of the trash and rubble has been cleaned up, but the city is still dirty, smelly, and in ruins. The trip over the mountains to Tina's house was much improved as well. We had a good driver, plus all the people who were car sick last time made it through OK. Jeff sat in the back and got a little nauseous with a headache, but suffered well.

Mary and Erin got us all warmed up with an interactive devotional highlighting scriptures of encouragement and faith that we will need this week.

Today, the construction crew woke everyone else up at 5:30 local time, 6:30 Indiana time (Something to do with big Ed's biological clock) and we had dark coffee and Pop Tarts for breakfast. They are off to lift rocks now, while the rest of us wait to go tour and organize the medical clinic for the week. A few of the ladies will venture into town with Tina to purchase supplies.

Things here are good from a missions perspective. There are more kids in the home, recently rescued by Child Protective Services from a child trafficking ring that was running a fake orphanage. Praise God they have escaped such a difficult life and found a loving Christian environment. Thank God that he placed Tina here so long ago to be ready for a time such as this. God is good and he is Sovereign.

Please be praying that the work is safe but our hearts are not. We pray that God will stretch our faith through challenges we cannot meet without him. We pray we will have a greater awareness of how others live and a greater compassion for those less fortunate than us. That we will be brave enough to ask what our response should be to the things we see and the people we meet. What would Jesus call us to do here? Did he really mean all those things he said about the poor?

Thanks for your prayers! We're all safe and sound and God is in charge.

Jim and Laura