Oh the stories...

If you really want to hear all about our trip, we encourage you to listen to the podcast of this Sunday's report to our church family. Each team member shared about a different aspect of our trip and what it meant to them personally. You'll really get a taste of what the trip was like (especially if you also check out our video from the previous post!). We hope you're encouraged by hearing the stories!

Video recap

Check out the video recap of our trip:

I have never...

One thing that I love about taking students on trips is watching them experience things for the first time. At a number of points on our Haiti trip, someone would comment, "I've never done THIS before!" I finally said, "We need to write down all the 'I have never's." Little did I know that once we started naming them, we'd have this long a list!We thought you would enjoy reading along with us all of the things that at least one person on our team said "I have never before..."

• been afraid of a mango
• pushed an airplane
• been to Haiti
• been outside the US
• drunk 2 gallons of water and not peed
• let it mellow in the toilet
• had Coke with a French label
• had ants crawl over me when sleeping
• sweat this much
• gone without Mountain Dew for 5 days
• slept so close to a fan
• been able to call people "black" or "white" without seeming racist
• ridden in the back of a truck with 15 other people
• been heckled when trying to buy something
• gotten something half off without a coupon
• wanted to bathe in deodorant
• appreciated a cold shower
• ran out of water when showering
• got in a wrestling match with my shirt when trying to take it off
• climbed a mountain
• been in a prayer chapel on a mountain
• seen a cactus fence
• prayed for someone who didn't speak my language
• seen a wild gecko
• taught people in another language
• been on Facebook in another country
• been in a plane
• had our pilot pray before our flight
• flown in a DC-3
• thrown up twice on a plane
• been woken up by a rooster
• seen so many naked little boys
• sang in two languages at the same time
• missed my sister
• seen broken glass used as barbed wire
• seen someone guarding the gas station with a gun
• seen people walking around with a machete
• picked a fresh mango
• painted an orphanage
• been so thankful for a Culligan
• written my own lesson plan
• had to look both ways for cows
• been to Florida
• had white sauce
• seen a Japanese butterfly
• been to a Japanese steakhouse
• eaten at Chick-Fil-A, Steak & Shake, Moe's, or Kobe's
• gotten a $20 hotel room
• had to be so flexible with plans
• seen New Tribe or Wycliffe
• had so many men ask if I'm married
• been offered money for my clothes
• gotten a stamp on my passport
• been to a 3rd-world country
• left a trip with less luggage than I came with
• blogged
• heard of breadfruit
• used high school French in real life
• had the power go off every night
• seen and smelled burning garbage
• known a woman could smell so bad
• met a professional hula hooper
• sat in the jump seat in the cockpit of an airplane
• gone to a Creole church service
• been on a trip without disagreements
• seen people so passionate about worshipping at 4:30am
• enjoyed a fully-loaded 15-passenger van
• had a play-by-play announcer for blind man's bluff
• seen such extreme poverty in person
• destroyed so many flourescent bulbs at once
• been stared at for so long by everyone around
• had so much fun overcoming a language barrier
• seen someone drive a motorcycle with a goat tied to it
• seen 5 people on a motorcycle
• seen someone so excited about nametags
• worn a skirt for that long
• had to treat water as a precious resource
• had the time not matter so much
• been on a trip with so many schedule changes
• become so comfortable with always being uncomfortable
• seen God's plan so clearly
• been in 3 countries in 1 day
• had breakfast in the Bahamas
• been so comfortable with food in another country
• had fried plantains
• been pooped on by a pelican
• held hands with so many grown men
• had strangers say, "I love you so much."

As our trip draws to a close...

Our time in Haiti has ended, but it has been an incredible journey!

Yesterday, we began the morning with a concert of prayer. Each interactive prayer station gave the opportunity to offer up praise, thanksgiving, confession, and supplication to God. We has some uncertainties about how the Haitian people would adapt to this way of worship that is foreign to their culture, but in the end we were blown away! While at first they were hesitant to come forward and participate in each station, as time progressed all of us enjoyed being in God's presence together. One activity the Haitian people particularly enjoyed was writing various names of God on the paper that we taped on their church walls. They did not want to stop! All of us enjoyed praising God together through song as well. Both English and Creole rang simultaneously in the church that morning! It was an amazing experience.

Yesterday also marked the second day of our youth conference. Though it has been a struggle to teach youth of a completely different culture, all of the translators further elaborated on our ideas and enabled the students to understand the relevancy of the material in a way we never could have. Nearly all of the translators have completed Open Door's school of youth ministry training and we were very appreciative of their partnership with us. We had the opportunity to see the heart that God has given them for this ministry. We were united by a common purpose in doing this conference... to equip the students to be disciples of Christ who make disciples who make disciples.

This morning we rose early and hiked to a small prayer chapel in the mountains. This was a wonderful way to spend some time in worship and reflection as a team. As we prayed, so did several other Haitians who were there to be in the presence of the Father. We ended our journey with a trip to the tourist market and then headed to the airport. Tomorrow we will depart for Minneapolis and will arrive home. Keep us in your prayers as we continue to reflect on the work God has done in us and through us this week. You are a blessing to us all!

Picture update

Sweating it out

A new day in Haiti: 

This morning had a wonderful start, as all the guys woke up an hour too early because none of us realized that we now had a new difference in time zones. This we did not realize until we started questioning where breakfast was and why the girls were so late to get up. It truly is a new experience being covered in sweat from the moment you wake up throughout the day and into the night. As we (Taylor, Zach, and Aaron) are writing this in fact there is sweat beading and and running down every part of our bodies (totally gross). Church in a new culture is something that is always interesting, this one in particular because it was 2 1/2 hours long, we were all seated on the stage, it's very loud, we couldn't understand 90% of it, oh and if you didn't figure already it was extremely HOT (We're talking 100 degrees plus in this building people) which was rubbed in by the fact that while we were sitting there sweating like crazy the Haitian people were in suits dancing around without a drop of sweat on their faces.

 Aaron, Zach and Scott went to get some mangos from the massive tree near the church afterward. Our failed attempts quickly resulted in a Haitian coming with a huge pole to get mangos for us! It was fun to try to catch falling mangos, because this time we were actually expecting them to come down as they randomly came close to falling on us throughout the day. Something that is noticeably different is that the whole team has a lot less sense of time partially because we don't have our phones on us and partially because it is a part of the culture. The main thing for today was that we started our equip training. In case you forgot, equip is evangelism training. The translators are great and really help the process go smoothly. We covered the KISS (Know/Intercede Spur/Serve) part of equip. Some of us taught outside and some inside for small groups.  

Tomorrow we will be finishing up the confrnice will have all of the kids making bracelets and talking about sharing the gospel with non christians in the village. Then during the evening we will be watching the third Narnia in french(Oh ya)! Its loud rightnow there is a 40 night pray thing going on and they sing like no tomorrow! 

Officially Reporting From Haiti!

Sorry we were not able to post yesterday, we had a pretty crazy day.

We woke up Friday with good news that we would be able to leave for Haiti bright and early Saturday morning! After playing tetris with the luggage we finally got all of it into the vans and headed for Ft. Pierce, Florida. We were blessed to be able to make a pit stop at the Wycliff headquarters and toured the visitors center. It was a learning experience for us all and gave us a deeper appreciation for Catherine's ministry in Papua New Guinea. Then after arriving to Ft. Pierce we were able to spend some time basking in the sun at Ft. Pierce beach on the Atlantic Coast. We then headed back to the hotel and prepared for take off the following morning.

This morning (Saturday) we had a 5:00 wake-up call and departure half an hour later. We ate breakfast in To-go bags and drove to the small Missionary Flights International airport where we were ushered onto the plane and took off for Exuma in the Bahamas. We flew through traces of the tropical storm, causing a lot of turbulence and more than one used sick-bag *ahem, Ang and Scott.* After a brief stop in Exuma to refuel and scarf a second breakfast, we completed the second two hours without the bumps. Customs in Haiti took a long time; they weren't very organized and random people took the job at different times, tearing open our bags and pawing through them before finally sending us on our way. The luggage was loaded into trucks as groups of Haitian men argued about pay and little boys begged us for dollars. It was a rare treat for us to ride in the back of the pickup with the luggage and the handlers instead of in the cab! The drive to Bouis de Lance was roughly 25 minutes and gave us an eyeful. We have never seen such a place before! You see the pictures and videos, and know that Haiti is a Third World country, but it doesn't seem a reality until you are surrounded by it. We drove at 50 along a road flanked by ditches filled with garbage. On one side were fields of corn and palm trees, cattle farms and ruins. On the other were rows of dilapidated shacks built from splintered wood or tin. Clothes were drying on the bushes and little children were playing naked in the mud puddles. All along the dirt road were vendors selling wares in their stands and Haitians rode on motorcross bikes, donkeys, and horses. When we stopped for gas, we noticed two men carrying shotguns, guarding the gas and making sure everyone paid.

After we got to Open Door church and unpacked, we ate a quick homemade lunch and went to the orphanage to do our work project, which was painting. We hadn't gotten far when we looked behind and saw a sea of dark heads in our wake. The whole afternoon the village came in waves to watch and get underfoot as we painted, but we've never had such a great time! During the afternoon we would attempt to talk to the kids in Creole and listen to their broken English, refusing their entreats to pass along a bandana or sunglasses. I (Grace) was pleasantly surprised to meet a couple guys that spoke Spanish and was able to practice with them. It was a great time of service and relationship-building.

After we arrived back at the Open Door Haiti compound we got together for a short debrief, we discussed what we each have noticed so far in Haiti. We noticed many things about the culture that are much different then our lives back at home in MN. We then headed down and awaited an amazing home cooked dinner. While waiting we all gathered and chatted with a group of young men who take part in ODH's students-in-training-ministry. They laughed at us while we tried speaking Creole and failed miserably. We then were able to eat an amazing dinner filled with food that we were unsure of what any of it was. Then shuffling off to a church service we stayed for a few minutes to see their worship, which was unlike anything we had ever seen before. We are now sitting upstairs sweating like crazy ready for what is hopefully a goodnights rest so we can all be ready for the beginning of our equip training tomorrow.

Ang & Grace