Haiti Day 1 & 2 - "High's & Low's" (Courtney Stoner)

As I sit here reflecting on the past two days, I have come to realize that God often uses the unexpected and unplanned moments to teach us something. Yesterday, we were planning on arriving in Port-au-Prince, Haiti at around 11 in the morning, but because of several delays, we didn’t get there until almost 3 in the afternoon! This means that we spend an extensive amount of time in the Miami airport. This time allowed our team to bond by just being together. We all had to work on patience as a community and once we got on the plane to Port I think we were all ready to tackle what we were about to witness as a team.






We witnessed the poverty immediately when we left the airport. When we were loading the bus, there were tons of people outside the gate begging for anything we could give them. It was so difficult for me to ignore them especially because they called me by the name of sister, and best friend. When we left the airport we drove for hours on our way to Jacmel and that is where we witnessed the severe poverty Haiti is suffering from. For instance, the Haitians use the streets as a market place. This means that there is garbage everywhere which makes driving on the roads a very difficult task. Recently, a pavilion was made for these people, but it is left unused because no one is able to pay the taxes it takes to use it. This was a hard thing for me to take in. Also, there were concrete houses along the streets that were completely open in the front. They were like this because the houses were not supposed to be there, so the government came and bull-dosed the fronts off of the houses. It was weird riding in the bus and having everyone stop what they were doing to look at you. We were the minority.





When we reached the Haitian Children’s Home, we were greeted by Leann and their children. We felt very welcomed by everyone, even though we couldn’t understand each other very well. Magdaline approached me and I started to spit out all the Haitian phrases I knew (this didn’t take long). When I no longer knew how to communicate with her, we were both silent for a moment. Then, she looked at me with her eyes wide and ran off. She returned with a comb and I immediately knew what she was after… my hair. I allowed her to yank and tug on it all she wanted and when she finished, it looked great!



Today was a very different than yesterday. When we woke up, Danny met us at the hotel and we went to the church together. I thought I would enjoy the beginning of church but I didn’t think I would be able to tolerate the entire two hours of Creole church (I guess I was able to be patient because of what we went through the day before). Actually, church this morning was a MAJOR highlight in my day today. I loved watching the community in their own environment worshipping in their own way. Church is a very different experience here but I loved every minute of it. I’d have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed church because of the people I met there. I was sitting across from a young girl who I became friends with just by making faces at her and so on. Even if you may consider this “goofing off”, it brought joy to this young girl and showed her that someone cares about her. After service, a song was played as we exited the church, and the two of us danced together.





There are so many horrid sights that can be witnessed as you are walking through the streets in Haiti, yet God’s presence in this place is even more

- Courtney