Eye Opening

Greetings from Port au Prince Haiti.  We arrived safely yesterday afternoon and now have completed our first full day.  It’s hard to find the words to describe what we have experienced.  The tap tap vehicle we ride in is an experience of its own.  We’re incredibly blessed and thankful for our driver Brunet who also serves as one of our awesome translators.  

We started our day visiting a school directed by Elder Morland and supported by Reiser Relief, educating students through high school grades.  The students were super happy to visit with us and play slap hand games.  

We were fortunate to have Sister Miriam, Sister Ana, Sister Liberija from Croatia and Mother Superior from Bosnia along with us today.  They run a children's home nearby that we will visit later this week.  They offered a surreal presence everywhere we went and the folks in Haiti flocked to talk with them and just ‘be’ with them.  

Hope Church and school was incredible.  It opened in February this year after a 2yr building process.  It is such an example of God’s presence in Cite Soleil, one of the most impoverished areas of the western hemisphere.  The people who live there had been asking for a church of their own for 10yrs.  The government donated the land and Healing Haiti provided the resources for the Haitian people to build “their” church.  The supports for the building needed to be drilled 80’ through garbage, sewage, etc. to hit solid ground.  Yesterday was the first day of school for kindergarten and a couple weeks ago many mommas and papas participated in literacy training, an 80yr old woman voiced she now doesn’t feel like a child as she can write her own name, God is good! Built around Hope Church to keep it safe is a tin wall.  The wall came down during last week’s hurricane and not only was the church untouched and safe but the tin, a valuable commodity for building shacks in the city, was left alone, another example of God’s goodness in this city.  

Outside Hope Church, we experienced “water truck day”.  Reiser Relief and Healing Haiti provide water 6 days/wk 52wks/yr.  It is water free delivered to people in Cite Soleil.  Older women, younger women, men, teenagers, little kiddos clothed and unclothed flock to the water truck with their buckets to be filled with enough water to use for cooking, bathing, drinking, anything they need water for.  The little kiddos especially jumped in our arms to be held, snuggled and just loved.  

Our team’s words of the day are joyful, serene, smiles, language barrier, cheerful, amazing, survivor, and eye opening.  Please continue to pray for our team and for the people in Haiti struggling to survive with so little and for the awesome initiatives of  many to bring the hope and love of Jesus Christ to a land and people who desperately need and want to know God.  Bondye Benio’u (God Bless You)

Kathy Janssen