Full Day In Haiti

Yesterday was our first full day in Haiti, and it was packed with activity and getting a real look at Haiti. The morning started with a 40 min. drive through the streets of Port au Prince as we drove to church. Port au Prince Fellowship Church is an English-speaking congregation that attracts a lot of native Haitian Christians as well.

Church in developing countries is different than the church service we are used to in the U.S. ...and the number one difference is in VOLUME. People sing and clap and praise in super loud voices that, if you were to do the same thing in an American church, people would stare and wonder what the heck was wrong with you. The singing and praying go on with a level of high emotion and intensity that just seems unusual to outsiders, but from what I've seen is the total "norm" for other countries. By comparison, our churches look half asleep.

Later we took a two hour drive through the city of Port au Prince. Maybe someday I'll be able to describe Port au Prince, but right now, let's just say it's beyond anything I've seen in Bolivia, Honduras or even Vietnam in terms of the depth and scale of the poverty.

We're talking cobbled together tents that go on for as far as the eye can see in some places--with garbage and the insects and animals that feed on garbage everywhere. Garbage is piled in heaps everywhere you look--and pigs and goats that feed on the trash wander around freely and become extra traffic hazards. Pigs and goats running in the street are more common than squirrels in Briargate.

Much of the earthquake damage has been partially cleaned up in the parts of the city we were in-- mostly visible by vacant lots everywhere--buildings that have been torn down and hauled away. In other places, there are buildings that are totally pancaked--as if stomped on by a giant invisible foot. You can count the floors on th heap and tell that it used to be a four story building but is now only about eight feet tall. We saw the ruins of the National Palace (the Haitian version of the White House) and the mostly ruined National Cathedral. You all have probably seen pictures of those on the news.

On the streets, people carry their loads on their heads here in Haiti. I've tried it and found out how much easier it is to balance something heavy that way because the weight is centered on your body, not pulling you in one direction or the other. One image I will remember from today is a older lady who was balancing a three gallon plastic bottle of what appeared to be blue car window-wiper fluid on her head as she walked.

The guest house we are staying in while in Haiti is very comfortable, so don't think I'm camping out in a tent or something like that. It's a regular house and I have a the bottom bunk of a bunkbed in a room I'm sharing with three other women. The room could hold eight women if we were full here but, I have the comfort of the bottom bed without the shaking involved of having somebody on the top bunk. Our hosts, the McHouls who founded Heartline Ministries over 20 years ago and the couple that runs the guest house have been extremely gracious and kind. We had a small worship service in the guest house last night. Sundays are really stressed as days of worship here.

One thing I find extremely encouraging is the number of American young people who are staying in Haiti at the Heartline guest house. People in their late teens and twenties who are here for a month, some three months, some a year, all pouring out their lives and doing whatever needs to be done at this ministry for Haiti. There are at least three young people staying here at the house long-term, and several others who live in buildings within a block or two of here.

I wish I had more time, but it is early morning and the work of the day is about to start. The internet connection comes and goes quickly and disappears without reason so I need to sign off. More soon. Terri