We have arrived safe and sound in Haiti! Bags and bodies!
From SFO, to Miami International.
From Miami International, to Port Au Prince.
And finally from Port Au Prince to the Momprierre's place near Pignon.
The final planes were unnervingly small. I'm talkin' one propeller, 5 seat'ers. We had a few barfers, but luckily, not on my plane! We landed on a grass airstrip. I admit, I was gripping the fiberglass door upon landing.
The Momprierre's UCI "compound" is such a jewel-- beautiful buildings that are so well suited to their purpose of serving the community and making all of us visitors feel welcome. Tomorrow I will try to post photos, tonight it didn't work for me. As we were listening to our orientation this afternoon, a dramatic thunderstorm rolled over the mountains and poured down onto the tin roofs. And as Kris and Jean Jean were opening the packages we bought for them, some of us scampered outside to drench the afternoon heat. I wanted to see them open the tetherball sets, so I stayed inside.
Today's theme seemed to be "just when you think you can't go on on 2 hours of sleep (which is about the average amoutn of sleep that we got on the flight down), something amazing happens and you wake up." It happened over and over in the last 24 hours.
I have a feeling that this theme may continue throughout our stay here.
Doubtless, we've all been scurrying around preparing for the trip.
I look at everything in my home and at stores through the lens of "can/should I bring that to Haiti?"
I've been fighting the very American attitude of buying and acquiring = preparedness.
In my packing and readying, I needed to pull out a few songs for our team's worship sessions.
It seemed like a passionless, route part of my to do list: copy the songs, and play through all of them once for practice.
But I found myself crying as got to the words of this song...
But the harder I try the more clearly can I feel
The depth of our fall and the weight of it all
And so this might could be the most impossible thing
Your grandness in me making me clean...
...So here I am, all of me
Finally everything
Wholly, wholly, wholly
I am .... wholly Yours
'Guess it wasn't just part of my to-do list.