Already there has been so much going on that I didn't want any of our friends and family to miss out on it! We are all alive and well in Haiti- some of us learning to be more alive here than perhaps even in the States. There is something about this beautiful place- the simplicity and honesty of the tropical countryside & its people- that just gets under your skin, cutting through the the superfluous things I spend my mind on in the States. When we first flew into Pignon, I was surprised to feel "home". I saw many familiar faces and am surprised at how my modge podge of communicating in creole, french, spanish and English is all coming back quickly. With an eagerness to match or even surpass my own, my old and new friends are trying just as hard to communicate with me.

I have had two days and three classes so far with the boys art club. Yesterday I arrived to hugs and blushes as I was reunited with the boys and surprised to see how much the club has grown. Wilnot, one of the boys, brought me a large painting of a huge house (by Haiti's standards) and in little letters it reads "Trinas House Haiti". Think he's trying to tell me something? There are no locks on the doors, he tells me, because everyone can just come and go out of my house. Barb and some of the boys started to pick out their bedrooms! A little later a woman came to visit with a just born baby. The mother was mentally insane so this woman had taken it until it could be decided where he should go. I asked if he had a name and they said, "no, would you like to name him?". Oh man, I was absolutely floored- name a baby and give it an identity it will carry with it for the rest of its life? I thought about it for a few minutes and named the little garson "Dieu Bon Andre"- "Dieu Bon" means "God is good" in Haitian and "Andre" after my dad (Andrew). Never thought I'd be naming someone else's kid after my Dad! Why did I pick that name? Well, I was preparing for my devotional and was reflecting on a quote by John Piper that says "Missions exist because worship doesn't". My friend wisely told me that it is not my purpose here to change things, my purpose is to lead people into a deeper worship of God. I hope this will give little Dieu Bon Andre a good start... I think it may be the coolest thing I have yet done. My first afternoon in Haiti and already I have a house and a baby! LOL! I feel more like a woman already! =P

I have started the boys on very simple excercises like drawing animals or still life objects from shapes. What I'm learning is how literal the culture is here. It is hard for them to think in abstraction, as all their education is rote memorization,and hard for them to step out with their own artistic voice as their only artistic training has been to copy the marketplace and tropical scenes the tradesmen sell in the big cities. I am giving them excercises to find their voice and examine how they "see" (sometimes with our eyes, sometimes with our heart, head, imagination, spirit, etc...). Today Chaz gave his tired muscles a break after spending a day as a rockstar hoofing heavy limestone rocks in the heat to build Zouel's house with Anthony, Don, Nai Wei & Lindsay to be my "assistant" and was quick to share with them how what they are doing reflects being creating in the image of a Creator God.

We got to give Wilnot his guitar this afternoon, which was no small thing after the Tortuga Airline debacle (I was in tears and about to give up my clothes to make sure he got this darn guitar!). I have not seen him show that much emotion. He began to play it beautifully and we know we have already given him something to lead him into deeper worship of God that will bless others.

Well, what else can I tell you? The Mompremiers now have stocked the dorm with flushing toilets and mosquito nets and Lindsay, who has what we've been calling the "princess net" found a new friend last night- a tarantula! The nets can keep out these bitty mosquitos, but how in the world did that sneaky tarantula get in there? Oh my... Chaz came to the rescue and took it outside.

Some of the team has been working on projects: painting the doors of neighboring houses to protect them from rot in the hurricane season, painting and stenciling in the worship center, Anthony has been leading the locals in creating benches to sit on in the worship center, Zouel's house nearly has its walls and roof on after only TWO DAYS, and we had our first nutrition center assessment. It was AMAZING to see the Josefs (the kids who JeanJean and Kristie had seen eating ashes) because they are so BIG praise God! They had energy and were running around keeping up with all the other kids. It was just incredible to see! The King kids even helped sort all the vitamins and pills today for Kristie and Cynthia helped her weigh and assess the children.

There is much more to say- God already is doing amazing things in our hearts. I'd say we still need prayer that God will transform us and lead us in leading others into a deeper worship of Him.

I've re-fallen in love with Haiti & its people and the space to hear God's voice.

We are all here safe and sound. However, we have defintely entered a different culture. Things went pretty smooth on the red eye to Miami. We knew something had changed though when we sat down at our gate to wait for our flight to Port-a-Prince. We were surrounded by folks who looked different than us and spoke different than us. When they announced that they were boarding everyone went rushing toward the gate It was a little chaotic. It took about three times as usual to get everyone to find and stay in their seat,which really wasn't a big deal because the plane left one hour late (we had definitely entered Haitian time).
The flight went well until the very end where the landing was a little rockier than usual, but for the Haitians that wasn't a big deal as one lady had decided to get up from her seat and walk down the aisle as we were landing. She had made her way right up to the stewardess when the plane touched down. Needless to say most everyone was up and getting their things before the plane had stopped and the "fasten your seat belts" sign went off. The crew didn't even bother asking people to sit down. We were in Haiti now.
It was hot out but there was a decent breeze blowing so it wasn't to bad. It took almost another 45 minutes to hunt down all of our bags. They took a long time coming and some seemed to be taken off the luggage belt and set aside for no apparent reason. We were in Haiti. We then fought our way through the hundreds of taxi's and luggage handlers to the bus that would take us 15 minutes down the road to another airport where our charter flight was suppose to be waiting. Of course we had to rehaggle over the price and wait for them to be ready for us. When we finally were ready to leave they informed us that we had too much luggage and couldn't take it all. At this point we just chuckled, after all we are now in Haiti. We finally negotiated that all our personal bags would make the flight and the rest would be trucked to us the following day.
We got on a small hopper plane (It had 18 seats but because some of the luggage had to go in seats, the King kids doubled up in seats). We finally landed on a grass landing strip about 4 hours later than expected. One rocky bus ride twenty minutes up the mountain and we were home. Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to a good nights sleep. Who knows what adventures tomorrow might bring. After all we are in Haiti :)

Our adventure has begun. We got all 18 of us to the airport and through security. We are short a couple of tools but all and all we got through smoothly. So far the plane looks like it will leave on time. Everyone is excited about the trip and hopeful that they will be able to sleep on the plane as we fly through the night. A note for team two: check in at American Airlines domestic flights :)

Haiti was a great experience and has had a profound impact on my life. One of the challenges was to translate that experience to those close to me, especially my family. So I am returning to Haiti this year, but I'm not going alone. Lyn will be going with me along with our four kids Brittany (9), Jesse (7), Hailey (7), and Troy (6). I'm sure it will be a different experience than last year, but I am hoping it will be just as profound. This time though, it will be a family experience. Please pray for us. You can follow our family journey on our blog site kingfamilygoestohaiti.blogspot.com

Heidy takes some really awesome photos.

I don't.

But none the less, our photos are uploaded for the world to see.

And hopefully more will be posted from other members.

Heidi's pics.

Charlie's pics.

But not until we had:

Rode in the back of 2 trucks 4 hours up-country on a rocky dirt road, which they call Hwy 3.
Never before have I seen a highway that runs through two rivers and everyone's okay with that.
This is not to say it was incredibly fun and a gorgeous drive.
It totally was.
My backside was worse for it. Especially considering that when we arrived at the Citadelle, we all rode horses up the mountain to see it.

I won't say much about the much there is to say about the horse/horseman conundrum we all experienced. Only that for a country that struggles to bring in tourists, those guys...not helping. Somebody call PETA.

If you're like me, and you've never pondered the greatest fortification in all of Hispanola, I'll give you the skinny on it. (If you're a history lover like me, you can just click here)
It was built by a crazy general of the Haitian army who was convinced that the French would attack him and he would need protection.
Alot of protection.
So he enslaved many many people to build this huge castle-like structure only to never be attacked and later killing himself.

The best part of the tour was the lack of safety.
In the US or even in Europe, if you visit a major site like this, they'll say you can't go here and you can't touch that, and they'll have all kinds of ropes and guardrails to keep visitors in line.
Not so at the Citadelle!!
All of us could have fallen to our doom several times-- and it was great.

After our full color history lesson, we got back in the truck beds and checked into our hotel in Cape Haitian.


This is what the city really looked like as we drove through town.


And then from out of nowhere, our hotel popped up, that looked like this.

Which to me, was BIZARRE.
And made me feel squidgey.

But I was tired and incredibly dirty, so I just rolled with it. I felt cowboy solidarity that day because I, and everyone else, had never had so much road dirt caked on my face and hair, and eyelashes and braces ever before in my life.

Even though, our shower didn't work and our toilet didn't flush.
No complaints.
I was happy because there was a pool.

Even though, the food took two hours to come out of the kitchen,
No complaints.
I was happy because there was food (in a country which has serious food shortages).

Even though, right after we went to bed, the power went out and the A/C turned off.
No complaints.
Kevin and I had our own room, our own separate beds (50's style!) and there was so much to be thankful for otherwise.

We all swam in the pool, hung out with Kristie and JeanJean and their kids once more and then loaded up to go home the next morning.

Funny tidbit: The airline that we had scheduled our flight with went out of business between the time we booked our tickets and the time of departure.
So! JeanJean in his infinite and amazing resourcefulness transferred our tickets to TortugAir .

(Turtle airlines, they're slow, but they'll get you there!)

We flew on the big turtle plane (19 of us, Joel went ahead on another flight, poor guy) to Port Au Prince, then bussed over to the other airport to fly the friendly skies back to Miami and then finally to SFO at around 10:45 last night.

Most of us were running low on health-angels on the final flight home. Poor Stacy got the brunt of it, but Tom and Kevin and Kacie and probably several others that I didn't talk to were feeling ill.
I was only sickened by the completely terrible and horrible movie that I couldn't stop watching.




I wish I could express to you all the internal spiritual stuff that bumped around inside of us during the week and the culmination of it all.
I can't speak for anyone else, because we all respond in different ways.
I know that I have to go out again, whether in Haiti-- or in Sri Lanka, or Pakistan, or Mongolia or Jakarta.
I know that we lived in REALITY for those 10 days. Our american lives here are a facade or illusion or scrim that keeps me out of the loop.
I wish I could say definitely that I know I'm supposed to pick up our family and be an overseas missionary
or
that I'm positive my calling is here serving who I serve now, doing what I do.

I really don't know. I'm waiting on God to give me a big sign, I guess.
Kacie said she thinks God takes volunteers in addition to those he gives big signs. And I think she's right, and I don't know what to think about that now.

But I know that it felt really right to be in Bohoc, feeding the hungry kids rice, giving them clothes, and showing them that I love them the best I can (which comes out awkwardly I'm sure).

I'll try to keep my ears and mind open, and I'll let you know...

We're packing up and readying ourselves for our 4am departure. In the process we're sorting through our clothes, deciding what to leave behind, and sifting through the choice ones to present as gifts for our dear translators. I have to shake off the societal norms I'm used to, where secondhand clothes cannot and should not be regifted. In actuality, our throwaways are of better quality then any of the clothes you can barter for at the local market. Yet I feel guilty, because what we will offer is really our worst, the tossouts of yester's fashions, at least for me anyway. I tell myself, I wish I had known these clothes would be gifts, because I would have brought clothes of finer material and design. Further down from my altruistic front, I know I wouldn't truly do so. I'd limit myself to what they would be cool with, thus bringing us back to our current sifting. I could probably fault the hefty consumerism I'm used to in the States, or maybe burrow myself in my pillow and wallow in the guilt of brutal truth. I'll settle for an appreciation for our God who doesn't hold back His best in redeeming us for Himself - a standard of giving only He can truly attain. What a blessing we can cling to eternally.