Friday, July 6, 2012

Haiti in Review: Final day

It's been over a week since returning from Haiti so I'm long over due for a post describing and processing through my first international ministry opportunity. Here are previous posts about day 1work day 1work day 2, and work day 3.


Well, this last day of work started out a little different than the others. Pastor pulled up (late for the first time ever) to get us and I immediately saw the flat tire. Normally this would get everyone down, but I think we were all a little excited to get a few more minutes of rest before heading out into the heat and work.


Too quickly, we had a new tire and were ready to go. We loaded up and were back at the job site. Thankfully Grace was feeling a little better and was able to join us. 


The day started much like the two days prior with song. It was so great to sing with these guys! Although, I don't think our team contributed all that much to the joyful noise.

 I had been pestering Tyler to teach me to weld every single day, but it just didn't seem right for him to stop teaching someone else in order for me to play around. Finally, it was my time! I figured, I'm good at a lot of things surely I can weld. Well... I am good at a lot of things, but welding isn't one of them. Although, to give myself some credit, I wasn't horrible, just need some practice.

This day was a little slower than the others as we were tired and had handed off a lot of the work to the Haitian volunteers. We got some time to joke and play around. James broke out his phone and showed off his family at home. He asked the guys if they had any siblings and one of them responded, pointing at the other guy "he is my brother; my brother in Christ." then pointed at James and said "you are my brother." This moment accurately described how each one of us on the team felt. We had come so far to a place we had never been to meet people very different than us, yet we found family. There is a unmistakable and tangible bond through the blood of Christ. It's mysterious, but real.

I think the heat was getting to Tyler because late in the day he looked at me and said "wanna weld this?" And, I said "heck yea I wanna weld that!" Big mistake! Actually not horrible, but maybe he simply responded "you mind if I clean that up" after I had finished.


Remember how on the first work day I mentioned the digging beginning?! Over 3.5 days Jim and Travis dug the entire time! We decided that we had time and people to dig the hole for the cistern. It's crazy how much work they got done all by hand.

Our day slowly came to an end and Pastor brought us all some sugar cane to celebrate the end of a job well done. Of course, something new meant multiple photo opportunities even though we classified sugar cane as an unattractive food to eat.

Before leaving we had to take a few more pictures of our team and friends we had made.



That night we spend one last night with the congregation in the tent city. This was a special night, not only because it was our last worship service, but because Tyler got to preach. 


Earlier in the week Pastor had learned Tyler was a seminary student and said he needed to get some practice. This service was bittersweet. We were so thankful to get to go home and enjoy our family and air conditioning, but sad to say goodbye to people we had grown to love. At the end of service each person came up to us shaking our hands and giving us hugs. Once back at the guest house we decided we wanted to end our night all together on the roof. Tuesday night we had spent a couple hours on top of the roof just talking and hearing our guest house manager's story. It was extremely peaceful.  


Finally it was time to head home. I was amazed the time went so fast. Friday morning we got up especially early in order to get to the airport on time. We made our way through all three security check points and were hopeful for a smooth flight home with no delays. Unfortunately that's not what we got. The team got delayed about 8 hours in Miami, but thankfully made it home around midnight to their own beds and neighbors without roosters!



No comments: