There are a million different things going through my head just being back in Haiti. To go along with those thoughts, I am feeling many different emotions. I don't know if I could pick just one word to explain what I'm feeling, but ecstatic seems to cover the biggest. I am more than excited to be back in this country working along side a great teem to serve the Haitian people in the ways that God intended for us. I am more than excited to see all the familiar faces of the people that touched my heart and my life 3 years ago.
Flying into Port-Au-Prince you see all of the devastation and loss that the country still holds. It is sad too see, but to me, I see somewhat of a challenge. The challenge that I saw as I looked out the window is to touch as many lives as I can while I'm here. I plan to share god with as many people as possible. I will try to help anyone that I can. I will work with the team to go the extra degree in effort to do as much good here as possible, to help as many people as we possibly can. Challenge accepted.
It seems that we are all too connected to home still. Myself included. The first thing we all wanted to do when we Got to the guest house was connect to the wifi and talk to our loved ones back home. My hope for this week is that we can all find a way to disconnect a little bit more from our reality in order to be able to fully accept the reality that we are currently in. That is not to say that we cannot talk to people at home, it is just that we are so caught up in that that we may not be fully accepting what is going on around us and what god wants us to do.
As we were sitting in our room last night with the air conditioning on, and in our nice comfy bunk beds I was struggling with whether I should feel blessed or guilty. I am blessed with these living conditions in a country that has people struggling to find food and shelter every day. Although they are nowhere near the conditions in the United States, I am staying in conditions that are 20 steps up from how the people right outside our walls are living. I am blessed to live in even better conditions than this everyday back in the states. At the same time, I feel guilty that I have all these things and there isn't anything I could do at that moment to share those blessings. After all these things went through my head I stopped for a second and thought "I am blessed to have these feelings of guilt so that I am able to realize just how lucky I am to have the things that I do. This is God's plan. He has done this for a reason."
The team that I am here with this trip is much bigger than the last time. Prior to the trip I was worried that it would be much less personal, and I would not be able to get to know everyone on the same level that I was able to last time. It is the first night and I can already tell that that will not be a problem. After pit tim we say in the living room and just talked about anything. It was a really nice start to getting to know everyone, and it will be interesting to get to know each other better and to see how each person works while we are out doing our thing outside the gate.
While we were sitting in the living room talking tonight, one of my teammates was talking about the couple that she sat next to on the plane ride from Miami to Haiti. She was talking to them about the work we are doing here and they were telling her about the mission work that they have done. She told us that the woman told her "if I could give you any piece of advice about mission trips, it is to find God I every little thing that you do. It will make the trip so much better and you will get so much more out of it." All of us that were sitting there talking thought that was so awesome and that we need to try and do that on this trip.
One cool thing about this trip is that we have a team member that can play guitar. While we were doing our devotional and praise time tonight we sang a couple songs. I suggested we sing "Glory to God" or as it is said in Creole, "Glwa pou Bondye" because the back of our team t-shirts say that, and because every time I've ridden around in the tap-tap that is what the Haitians wanted to sing. It was so awesome to all praise together through music.
I've been back in Haiti for one afternoon and I am already so excited for the week. I cannot wait to see what is in store.
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