5/19/10
Since the earthquake we had been very nervous about what we were going to see in Port-au-Prince. But, we were determined to go and trust in God for whatever happens. We landed in Port-au-Prince about 3:30 in the afternoon, and as usual the air was hot and muggy. They are working on rebuilding the airport but for now you deplane into an air conditioned walkway and then out the door to a bus to be taken to the other end of the building to a pole barn. Here in this pole barn is Immigration, baggage claim and customs. It was extremely hot standing in line and I was getting a little “cranky” about standing there hot and sweaty. I looked at the men and women working there. They are there all day with no air-conditioning and fans were at a premium. I was only there for a short time but, they are there all day. Made me a little less “cranky”. We were able to get through all the lines and out the door a lot quicker than I thought we would. We found the missionary and then loaded up our vehicle and left. My husband had said when we got on the road to turn on the camera and just start taking pictures. I think everyone on the team was just stunned at the devastation that we saw. You go mile after mile seeing “tent cities” and/or collapsed buildings. There were piles of rubble along side of the road or people had made homes from whatever material they could find. One really good accident would take down several homes quickly. Pictures can never capture just what it really looks like. I have never seen anything like this in my life. We all sat there quietly as we rode through the city trying to get our minds around what we were seeing and this was 5 months later. I cannot imagine what it looked like in the first few days after the earthquake
We stopped in Petit-Goâve at our translators brothers home for the night. We were really tired and hungry! The family had made us a lovely dinner and then it was time to go to bed. Apparently during the night there was a 4.5 magnitude aftershock during the night that we slept through.
5/21/10
We were up early to go to Bonados a tiny village between Cavaellon (Creole: Kav-ay-on) and the ocean. We turned off the main road and into the market place. The road looked pretty good as we started out but, that quickly changed. We eventually came to the point where we had to stop as there was a very narrow place in the road. There were cactus fence on the driver side and the river on the other and a tree in the middle of the road!! The gentleman who own the banana plantation on the other side of the cactus fence was nice enough to let us drive through his plantation. Problem being THERE WAS NO EXTRA ROAD to make that left hand turn!!!! Everyone jumped out the back of the vehicle and left me and Pastor Etienne in the front seat. Pastor Etienne suggested that I could get out of the vehicle if I wanted. Unfortunately when I looked out my window and down all I saw was river. I told him God did not bring me down to Haiti to throw me in the river!! So the plan was that he drove and I prayed. With a lot of skill and prayer Pastor Etienne was able to get the vehicle turned through the fence and around the tree and back on the road. There were times as we drove that I know the vehicle was close to 45 degree angle but, we kept praying and God kept us from rolling.
We had heard that the children in Bonados “looked bad” but, fortunately the children we saw looked good. They only thing that we found was that food was being sent for 60 children and they actually had over 100 children. Prince of Peace in Davenport, IA will be working with that.