Helena-based Team Members Reunite for Haitian Potluck Dinner

The Montana Haiti gang and spouses gathered for a reunion dinner and sharing of stories at Gregg and Wendy's last night. It was wonderful to be together again, and we missed each of the out-of-staters!! We all brought a Haitain dish (or two), and had a feast! It really did bring back memories of our trip and the fantastic food we had - but best of all, the friendships we gained, with each other as well as with our Haitain friends.

It was a lovely evening!! Gregg and Wendy, a thousand thanks for hosting us all in your lovely home!! It was great fun!!!

Here's the evening's menu, with links to some of the recipes:

• Ceviche (Marinated Fish)
• Kibbe (Meatballs Wrapped in Couscous)
• Sitwonad (Haitian Limeade)
• Red Beans and Rice
• Spicy Pork
• Shrimp Creole
• Pikliz (Spicy Pickled Coleslaw)
• Tropical Fruit Salad
• "Guest House" Dinner Rolls
• Haitian Coconut Pie
• Carrot Cake

Blog entry by Dee (with assistance from Gregg).

Where in the World is La Tremblay?

La Tremblay is located east of Croix-des-Bouquets, approximately 10 air miles northeast of Port-au-Prince.

In the Google Earth image above, the placemark to the right is the Methodist Church; the placemark to the left is the school. The image was taken before the church was damaged in the earthquake (and, obviously, before the mission team removed the entire church). View in Google Maps

On the Road to La Tremblay

Although the team was looking forward to staying near our work site, we instead ended up commuting daily from the Methodist Guest House to and from La Tremblay, which gave us a glimpse of Haitian life in Petionville, Port-au-Prince and along the highway.

As we passed through the heavy gate of the security wall surrounding the Guest House complex and entered a narrow alley men were repairing and recycling electronics and building wooden furniture. At the corner where we turned onto the road in Petionville, a women were baking and selling fried plantains and fried chicken. From that point on the sidewalks are packed with vendors selling food: fruits (including grapefruit, oranges, guava, watermelons, etc.), sugarcane, nuts, roasted corncobs, live chickens and rabbits, flavored drinks; clothing (some sent over from the States and resold) and shoes; furniture; fuel (generally watered down); pills (probably expired); mattresses; charcoal; ...

Behind the street vendors are small shops (many painted in bright pastel colors), such as beauty shops and barbers; lottery sales; food markets; construction materials stores; …

Both women and men balance loads of produce, buckets of water and other items on their heads atop a wrapped towel (chapeau).

There are a few gas stations, but most vehicle repairs take place out in the open with limited power tools.

People waiting for tap-taps (taxis) peered at us as we drove by. Some saw our wheelbarrows and other work gear loaded on the top of the van, smiled, pointed to the top of the van, and called out "Thank you!" (Maybe they were actually thanking us for the commode we also had strapped down atop the wheelbarrows!?) We felt very welcomed by all the Haitians we met and received much joy from the many smiles and waves we received.

In addition to passengers, many of the tap-taps were loaded down with products headed to market. On several occasions we saw live goats trussed to the tops of tap-taps.

Children walk to and from school along the shoulder of the busy highway. We also saw mothers carrying small infants bundled in a blanket as protection from the sun walking quite a distance to a hospital.

The traffic on the highway, which is the main route to the Dominican Republic, included armored UN vehicles, dump trucks hauling rubble, flatbed trucks loaded with rebar and bags of cement, inter-country buses, tap-taps, hand-pulled carts, tractors pulling multiple trailers loaded with harvested sugar cane and workers, and motorcycles. Sitting in the front of the van was quite an experience--sometimes there were four vehicles abreast coming at us on the two-lane highway. Virtually at the last moment, after much honking of horns, one of the vehicles would give way (or overtake) with everyone proceeding with very little room to spare between each vehicle. Motorcyclists frequently drove in both directions between oncoming traffic.

With the hot, dry weather we experienced, there was quite a bit of dust and haze (from cooking over charcoal fires and some smoldering trash). We saw agriculture, including plantain trees, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Mountains rise steeply from the flat valley floor.

People obtain filtered drinking water from a variety of sources, ranging from small, sealed plastic bags (not bottles) of packaged water sold by individual vendors to large Culligan jugs available at gas stations and other stores. A few community pumps provide unfiltered water.

At one point we made our way past a slow moving funeral procession with mourners walking behind the hearse. It was another reminder to us that life in Haiti, like elsewhere, comes to an end. Unfortunately, life can be particularly short for many Haitians, due to limited access to clean water, sufficient food and adequate medical care.

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!

Favorite, or most meaningful photos

These are some pictures selected by team members as among their favorites.  This blog is full of information regarding what we did and what happened while we were in Haiti.  These pictures show a little bit of "what happened to us in Haiti".

Dee

The children, so eager to be with us, and so fearless.

Dee

Good times, new friends, an awareness of the grand breadth of the "Body of Christ"

Gregg

50% literacy rate, 70% unemployment - Haitians work hard to survive.

Gregg

Eager Haitian men, delighted to have a day's work, working alongside us.

Kathy

The only thought that comes to me is both images seem to be asking………..

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

   (what is left of it)   Mary Oliver

Kathy

Paul

We went to Haiti to build a church and built beautiful relationships with the wonderful Haitian people. This first picture shows Don with some Haitian children. The girl in the foreground is looking off into the distance but has her hand on Don’s leg wanting the closeness and security and comfort of being close to him. We felt this kind of easy closeness with the Haitian people all week long.

Paul

The second picture shows some of the Haitian work crew the afternoon of our last work day at La Tremblay.   I had brought a University of Montana Football hat and one of the workers wore it.  Before we left I had the interpreter tell him that I went to that school and asked if I could take his picture.  The reaction I got is more than I ever could have asked for.

We had several people who were really good with the children but I do not have the free spirit to play. Play is a hard thing for me to do. What I really wanted to do was build a relationship with the men I worked with.  I wanted to show them that I would stand with them on whatever needed to be done, to take my turn on the sledgehammer.  I didn’t just give them water;  I shared a water bottle with the men I respected.  Saying good-bye that day was an extremely emotional time. They asked if we were coming back the next day.  They were sincerely sorry to hear that we were not.  Even though they knew that another team would be coming to continue work, we had built a bond of companionship and respect that men develop by working hard together for a common goal.  I think about this every day and the depth of a relationship I had with men that I did not share a language with except that of being brothers and sisters in Christ.

God bless the people of Haiti.

Wendy

Wendy

We felt welcomed by the entire community.  They were happy that we came to work and visit.

Presenting at St Paul's UMC

At the 08:30 service and again at the 11:00 service on March 13, our Haiti Mission will be presented in 10-minutes.  You'd better be wide awake and pay attention!  The first minute or so will cover "where we went and what we did".  The next 9 minutes will cover "what happened to us", or possibly "what we felt and experienced". 
Each team member who can be at church that day will be able to display 1 or 2 favorite photos, and explain why the photo is meaningful to them.  In this way, our congregation can (hopefully) see and understand why this mission trip was such a powerful spiritual experience for us. 
We know that it's impossible to convey the full and remarkable impact that a mission trip has on a person (heck, we don't fully understand it ourselves!).  But perhaps we can touch the hearts of a few people, open the eyes of a few, and give some the courage to take that bold step and volunteer for a mission.  There's nothing like a mission trip to make you understand how blessed we are, how much God needs us, and how phenomenally rewarding it is to serve Christ by humbly using our spiritual gifts to make His world better.

(Photo provided by Kathy.)

Haiti Touched Me Deeply

I did not think that when I got back to my home in the country I would miss Haiti. Somehow the experience touched me more than I ever thought it would. At the risk of being repetative I need to say how I had serious misconceptions about the people of Haiti. I thought that they would be beat down from years of oppression, poverty and then the earthquake. But they have not given up in the least. I really don't know if I would show that kind of courage in the face of the trials that they have been given. I saw a number of tap taps with verses on them, most of them familiar like Romans 8:31 or John 3:16 but I then saw one with Daniel 3:16. Jon and I looked up the verse and following is how it reads in the King James version. Here are verses 16 thru 18:

Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

God bless the people of Haiti.