More Favorite or Most Meaningful Photos

I love this picture of Paul with the little boy.  Both are so peacefully happy - exactly where they want to be at that moment in time.  It says a lot about Paul.  Before this mission trip, he had been to Canada, but otherwise hadn't ever left the USA.  I had talked about previous mission trips with him at work, but I was more than a little surprised when he showed up one day to say, "My passport came, so I'm going with you on your next trip to Haiti."  It was a tremendous act of courage on his part, to make his first real overseas trip to a place like Haiti.  Paul isn't even a Methodist, he attends a Baptist Church just outside of Helena.  But he was willing to cross that barrier, too, and run off to Haiti with a bunch of people that he had never met before.  In no time, Paul was a competent and relaxed international traveler.  I was impressed on our first afternoon in Haiti to watch him (successfully!) go off on his own to order a dish of ice cream in a Haitian restaurant, unable to speak a word of the language or having any idea of what it cost.  He was a solid and wonderful member of the team, evolving spiritually and truly having a complete mission experience.

This next picture shows a shoeless little boy (4 or 5 years old?) carrying two bottles of water back to his home.  He had just filled them in the ditch that runs along the highway.  You can see how unclean the water is.  I can't imagine sending a little boy out to get the water, much less having nothing better to drink.  It reminds me that despite all the smiles and laughter and good times we had with the Haitians, most of them still have a very difficult and fragile life.

My next meaningful picture is of one of the many fabulously colorful buses that we saw so often.  Most have religious quotations or Bible verses written on the sides of them, and all over for that matter.  This one says on the flaps hanging off the sides: "Christ Is The Answer".  Around the back tire, is written: "With Jesus Everything Goes Good".   I can't quite make out the words along the top of the bus, but wish I could.  So many times during our week in Haiti we simply said to each other, "God is good!"  The painter of this bus seems to agree.  We witnessed poverty, illiteracy, dirty water, unemployment, and a neglectful government - but our overriding impression of Haiti:  God Is Good!