Saturday, May 25, 2013

All Roads Lead to...





It’s the last full day of our trip, and the sense of wonderment, sadness, spirituality, humor, adventure and fulfillment have only increased.  Our well thought out itinerary has completely collapsed during our trip, as the road we set out on has taken unexpected twists and turns every day. 

Yesterday’s loosely scheduled visit with a local priest caused such a change in our itinerary that even the director of our guesthouse came looking for us.  But what a welcome twist in the road it was.   Besides getting a tour of all the work this priest is doing in Haiti, we ended up seeing and learning so many things about his work, getting invaluable insight into Haitian culture, and we even learned some things about ourselves.   This colorful, innovative and Christ-filled priest welcomed we four strangers into his world, and we parted having made another wonderful new friend in Haiti. 

Today started out appearing to be a more “ordinary” day in Port au Prince.  We planned to hit the road early and head up to Reiser Heights to see the completion of our new roof at the school (yes it’s done!), 
but God had other ideas for us.




First, there was a delay in leaving as we waited for our interpreter to arrive.  Then halfway up the mountain, the radiator overheated.  After a stop on the side of the road that involved a couple paint cans of water and an old broken 2 x 4 piece of lumber, we were back on the road.  We finally arrived at Reiser Heights.   We are happy to report that the new roof looks beautiful!  After that, we revisited a couple of the families we’d met two days ago to ask if they would like to use some of the old sheet metal from our original roof to replace the roofs on their houses (our OLD sheet metal was even better than what was on their roofs).   The final item on our agenda was to see if we could visit the Catholic Church in the area that many of our students and their families attend.  When we asked how far away it was, the director of the school assured us he walked there all the time, but he wanted US to drive there.  So we got in our truck with the fragile radiator and set off for what I thought would be a two-minute drive.  As it turned out, the road to the church was an extremely rutty, rocky path built into the side of the mountain and filled with terrifying hairpin turns.   When we were able to steal looks at the scenery, during the times our eyes weren’t squeezed tightly shut, the view of the valley and the mountains rising above it was breathtaking.   No doubt, it was “God’s country.”  And at the end of this inspirational road was a rustic but beautiful church that was every bit as inspirational.  As seems to be the custom in Haiti, the kind priest gave us a warm welcome and all the time we needed to ask our many questions.



On our drive back, I had such a strong image of all the mountain families in the area walking down this long road to church every Sunday, leaving their one-room shacks, their dirt floors, their few possessions, and their extreme poverty and coming to worship God.   And gladly, they seem to find every step of that walk worth their while.   What an inspiration.


So that was where our road took me this week—on a wonderfully joy-filled, and spiritual journey filled with surprising twists and turns.  But the
 journey and twists and turns didn’t exhaust me.  Rather, they rejuvenated me and gave me direction to continue our Reiser Relief ministry.   And I’m certain that my wonderful uncle, Father Reiser, who traversed these roads long before I did, was helping to lead me every step of the way.

Blessings,
Ann


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