Haiti Relief Trip day 5

Four days in and the tent cities still shake me. I’m not sure what the estimate is as to the number of people that are in them across Haiti but I’m sure it’s astounding. We hear that the town nearest the epicenter is 90% destroyed; I can’t comprehend that. The first day we were here we were approached by a man on the sidewalk who tried to talk to us in broken English while we were stopped in traffic. He saw the boxes and sledgehammers and asked, “Have you come to help,” with a smile. I said, “yes,” he gave a large toothy smile and said, “thank you, Haiti is broken,” and gave us a thumb up, I asked him what his name was and he said Simon and I gave him my name and we drove off while I returned his thumbs up sign. The next morning we were driving down the same road to the place we were to start working and I heard, “hey, Jon!” and I looked and saw Simon waving and giving a thumbs up at me and I yelled back, “Simoooon,” this has happened on the way out and the way home everyday until today, I missed Simon today.

Today we started work on a third building that had a lot of interior walls destroyed in the quake. It was a metal building on the outside so it held up really well. By the end of the day we had broken up and filled 4-5 dump truck (I forget exactly) loads of concrete and blocks by hand through a back door, we’re tired. We only got half of the building cleaned and swept out before quitting time. Large trucks here have to be off the road by 6pm or the will get fined so being that we’re working a good 45 minutes commute from the compound where we’re staying, we have to be off by no later than 5pm everyday.

Tomorrow was originally planned by our hosts for us to be a day off to see the city, but we decided tonight as a group to go the extra mile and go finish the building that we had started and were unable to finish instead. I think they were a little taken back, but seemed genuinely appreciative that we’d actually opt to work instead of exploring the area.

I think the plan for Sunday is that we’re going in the mountains to experience one of their services, half of me is excited the other half is thinking, “Um, I’m not going to understand a single thing that’s said/sung,” but you never turn down an invitation from your hosts, especially hosts as gracious as the Hansons. We should have a few hours of down time to sight see Sunday afternoon and grab any souvenirs for our ladies back home;)

Laura went to her first opera tonight without me and I’m wishing with everything that I could have experienced her first opera since I love it, but I wouldn’t trade this opportunity for anything.

This trip has reminded me vividly of life’s brevity and beauty.

Please visit the host ministry’s website at www.imohaiti.org