The Week in Port au Prince

It's hard to believe it's already Friday, and tomorrow the Thede's and the Bailey's will return to Fauche! Chris and I will stay here for another week and hopefully return next Friday or Saturday. This first picture shows us at a little restaurant in Cap Haitian, where we stopped before getting on the plane on Monday. It was so nice! It was a deli-like place with lots of bread, and cakes, and also sandwiches, chicken, and other food available. You could order food, then go upstairs to this little haven! There was no one else up there, and it was strange having so much space to ourselves in such a crowded, noisy place. It was fun going to a restaurant and we waited there for a few hours for our plane to arrive. (It ended up being delayed about 3 hours.) Chris got to sit up in the co-pilot's seat on the way there, which is always fun. He said the pilot wasn't very talkative though. The ride was smooth until the landing, which was wobbly and downright frightening at points! But we made it. Another trip in a small plane complete!
We have had a good week here. No teams have come yet, (we will have 18 people tonight) so the week has not been very busy. It has been fun to spend time with Carl, his intern Joel who is from Canada, and the Bailey's. We've enjoyed meals together and good conversation, as well as a few movies and projects together. The men have worked on the generator, we have all pitched in for meals and clean-up and other odd jobs around the house. Today Bill and Elaine are out for a drive with Carl's brother to see Port au Prince a little more.
Darlene has been busy making bread, coffee cake, Haitian meals, and other things! She brought pictures of her 2 kids in to show us, which was nice! She was full of smiles about that. Now that Carl is back, we can trust that he is taking care of everything that needs to be said/done with she and Herold. We still are in charge of letting her know what we'd like her to do for the day, but it's not too difficult. She listens to Chris really well, and he does a great job being straightforward but nice.
This morning Chris and I spent time getting the beds made and ready for our guests tonight. There are 18 mattresses here, and now 3 big tents. There is also a bunk room outside that a few can stay in. We have been sleeping inside, in a room upstairs that has a balcony which we could jump off onto an awning if we need to. Though I think I actually fell asleep the other night without even thinking about the chance of an earthquake! We've enjoyed sitting out on the little balcony up there and reading and talking. We also went on a walk yesterday and saw a lot of people walking around and doing their normal daily activities. We personally have not driven around much, so I don't know if much has changed since we were here last time. The drive from the airport to here showed a field which had been cleared out for a tent community, but little else was different since a few weeks ago.
This morning in a devotional book I read, "It is not hypocrisy to rejoice in distress: It is obedience; for, says the Scripture, 'Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4)." Being here, it feels kind of wrong to rejoice sometimes. Every time we are having fun, sometime the thought will come that, how can we have joy when so many people are suffering right now? And in that moment our joy is stolen, but it doesn't exactly feel right. I think we are learning that no, we can't ignore the fact that we are eating well and many people nearby don't have enough, and we sleep comfortably while many sleep under the stars, but to walk around with a guilty, forced sense of gloom isn't the right response to that. We are not only allowed to rejoice, we should. And in the mean time, we are compelled by God's love to reach out to the people around us who don't have their needs met. We haven't had the chance to do that directly and walking down the street yesterday we were wondering at how we could help people living nearby. The truth is we don't know! But we're clinging to the fact that we don't have to do the exact right things to be good enough for God. Jesus has already been enough for us, and it's so hard to remember that.
Thanks for reading! I can't believe we will be home in less than 2 months. Have a great weekend.
P.S. The other pictures show Elaine in the plane, and the bunk house with tents on top, ready for people to come sleep.