Learning

This morning I'm sitting in a pretty quiet house with only myself, Darlene, and Herold here. A team from Canada and another team from San Diego just left this morning to try to get back home, and Chris and Joy went to the airport to see about flights. Right now getting into and out of Haiti is nothing simple. You can't just go online and book a flight...you have to drive to the airport, talk to someone, who will write your name on a list, and then maybe you will be able to fly. So you have to go back the day of your scheduled flight and see if you make it on the plane. As you can imagine this is stressful for team leaders and workers in Haiti who are trying to keep clinics running and people coming and going. But someone people are still coming and going everyday! This picture is the back view of the guest house.
These last two teams were full of interesting people and different responses to what they had just experienced. I have learned these past few weeks the blessing and difficulty of hospitality. Yes, it's great meeting new people and hearing about their lives. It's fun talking to them over dinner and having sweet moments of fellowship and shared faith! So encouraging. Being the ones who know what's going on and making them comfortable is fun. But those same people also eat all the food that took a long time to prepare (well, duh...but the hoard-er in me just wants to save it all for some crazy reason!) they make things messy (not that I clean the bathroom...Herold does) they eat the food that's supposed to be for breakfast, and inevitably, at a very early hour in the morning, at least one person is talking very loudly! haha. It's been such a good challenge, though revealing about how far I have to come. I'm so thankful that Chris is here with me, he is so cool in general and natural with people, and we have become a team.
Yesterday we were sent out to the grocery store to try to find some meat and other stuff for cooking. I hadn't been down into Port au Prince yet...just to the airport and back which is about a 30 minute drive. Wow, it was strange. Some of the way it looks is just Haiti, last time we were here there was concrete rubble and trash and all that too, before the earthquake. But seeing random buildings totally in pieces, that was different. And hard to describe.
Back at the house, we cooked, along with Joy, a yummy casserole, some bread, coffee cake for the morning, and baked beans for the people coming back from a long, tiring week at Ti Goave. This picture is of the first bread I made...don't be fooled by it's appearance, it was rock hard!! But a new recipe helped with that issue.
We are now trying to figure out how we can help Darlene, who works for Carl and Maya Gilles, the missionaries whose house this is but who are in Canada right now because they have two small girls, have a better report to Maya when we go. Right now, none of us are feeling very ready to give her 5 stars! She's a nice lady, but as far as working goes...she just doesn't like to do it so much! We all have stories about funny encounters with her and her attitude, but yesterday it occurred to us, wait! We can't be nice to her and try to be chummy and Christ-like to her face but then give her a terrible report so she gets fired without even seeing it coming! So now we are in a dilemma! Do we tell her she needs to step it up a notch? Do we not say anything to Maya? (even though I found her outside fast asleep the other day, and she is really hard to work with?) Ahh! Since we are younger, the talking-to would need to come from Dan or Joy, so we will see. Oh the complications of running a guest house :)
The picture below is of Wilber. He drives for the mission and goes on various errands and trips everyday. He sleeps here everynight and eats all his meals with us. He also has gotten showered with gifts from team members who are looking to give things away. He has, in the last week, gotten a new watch, new shoes, new sunglasses, cash, and more! He has a family, but in the Haitian culture, people often are away from their families. So while we may think it's strange that he sleeps here every night, it isn't to them. He's a nice guy, and is good about speaking so we can understand him. I often wonder what he, Darlene, and Herold think of all of us Americans.
We still appreciate your prayers. We are hoping to return to Fauche early next week. We'd love prayer for our transition back there. And continued prayer for the complex and really difficult situations that each Haitian family is facing these days. Everyone has a story. Pray that they'll somehow have peace in the midst of this storm!