I'm at a lack of words for how much this hurts.

I wake up at 5:40. I am scheduled to meet Mr. Max at 6:15 about ½ mile way. I brush my teeth, take a shower, get dressed, and get everything in my Nike bag. I was running late, but little did I know that Mr. Max was way behind me. I got to his office around 6:30 and Max arrived at 7:15. He said it was very difficult to find a tap-tap.

We leave immediately and meet with Pastor St. Cyr. This man speaks great English, but what I love about him most is his heart for Haiti. He has the opportunity to move to the US and live there with his family, but he chooses to pastor a church in a tent city. Now, I should be more specific here. This tent city is THE tent city. The largest one in Haiti with 55,000 people! I met Pastor St. Cyr yesterday and asked to see his church. He said whenever, so I asked about tomorrow, now here I am.

This day the Pastor’s car was in the shop so he was renting a tap-tap. This tap-tap was stripped inside was the worst rental I have ever seen. The only way for me to get out of the front seat was to roll down the window and open it from the outside.

Entering the tent city was something else. I don’t know how to describe this place. My heart hurts just writing about it. I told someone that being there made me want to cry and puke at the same time. 50,000 people who lost their homes, living in tents, with no place to go, this is heartbreaking.

Ayiti

Ups and downs

So, someone recently asked me if things are going smoothly here for me. I hesitated on that one. According to my plans, no, things are not going smoothly, but I have to roll with the punches here.

Jaumpas

After about 2 weeks of trying to get a ride up to Baptiste, we finally get one! On our way to Baptiste, the car breaks down. Perfect. We were about half way there. So we start looking at the car and it takes less than 10 minutes before we have a crowd of 20 people surrounding us. Renald our translator hopped on a bike to find a mechanic in the nearest town. We were stuck for at least a few hours and our hope of reaching Baptiste was lost.

The great part was we got to take a tour of the area. We were way out in the country and we went for a mile or so walk down to this very large lake. It was magnificent. The people in this area called Jaumpas were beautiful people. I had a great time playing with kids and talking to the few people who could speak English.

At first I was very discouraged, but I honestly had a great day. By the time the car was “fixed” we just went back home not wanting to risk it.

Teaching

During the week I am teaching 2 different English classes. Both classes are 2 days a week and 2 hours at a time. I really don’t feel like I am the most qualified, but I try my hardest. I can see they are learning and the majority of the students are very eager to learn.

The place I teach has also become Mercy League’s new office location. I go to our office about 4 times a week and I would say it is about a ½ mile walk. I love the walk though. I am used to almost being hit by cars on a regular basis and everyone staring at me.

There are two women on a street corner near the office who sell food and beverages who I talk to every time I see them. They’re very relaxed and love that I am trying hard to speak their language. They are very patient with me.

Baptiste

Last weekend I finally made it to Baptiste! We found a tap-tap driver who Shane knows to take us. We took his tap-tap pickup truck all the way there. It was a great ride. Once we got to Baptiste we immediately met a man named Pastor Hilio. He became our guide in Baptiste. The trip as a whole was excellent. I love this town. We came on a Friday and left Saturday afternoon.

On Friday, I had a bit of trouble. It was very hard to find the coffee and it turns out now I bought the wrong kind of coffee.

This trip was a learning experience for me. I did not exactly succeed in everything I did, but I tried hard. Shane even gave me a compliment that I am courageous to just go to markets with a translator and hundreds of Haitians who do not speak any English and negotiate and buy coffee. I don’t know how courageous I am, but I thanked him for the compliment.

On Saturday morning we had a meeting with coffee farmers. This went amazingly well. I will try to describe to you what the meeting looked like.

The Meeting

It was about 8:00AM and I am standing in front of Pastor Hilio’s house. The grass was still a little wet from last night’s rain, but the sun was going to dry it all up in a matter of time. “It’s time” Jemmy, my translator tells me. We walk back into Pastor Hilio’s yard where there are 2 wooden benches set up. On these benches are about twelve men aging from 22 to 60 who were owners of coffee farms. In front of these benches were four pink plastic lawn chairs. Two of these chairs were directly in front of the benches and two of them were off to the side a bit. The two chairs in the middle were for Jemmy and I. The ones off to the side were for Pastor Hilio and our Chauffeur, Wilderson. I sit down and immediately feel their gazes. All eyes were on me. We started the meeting with a prayer from Pastor Hilio. I then introduced myself and why I was there. I told them about the coffee project and about Mercy League. Jemmy then translated what I said. They then asked questions. It felt like a fairly formal meeting. They seemed intrigued by my project and said they were willing to form a co-op. I know have connections. After the meeting, I shook every farmers hand and thanked them. This is the start of Kafe Revèy, which is Revival Coffee in English.

Troubles

Yesterday I heard some horrible news via facebook. My friend Caleb Acker was killed by an avalanche in Montana Monday. I was not incredibly close to Caleb, but I would definitely call him a friend. This news hit me hard. I didn’t know what to do or say. I skipped out of teaching my English class because my heart was hurting. I felt pained. My heart goes out to the Acker family and all his close friends. I also heard from my mother yesterday that there is a surgery date. On March 7^th, my mother will be having an operation to remove a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.

I knew this day would come soon, but now I have a date. This is makes it much more real. I can’t help, but think about it.

These two pieces of news really made me feel horrible, but later last night, the 3 Haitian guys came for our Bible study and we had a great discussion about fellowship. I really feel like when we tell each other about our pains we go through them together if there is a tight fellowship.

I need to remember to keep taking it one day at a time. I cannot keep worrying about the future when the present has enough troubles of its own.

Haiti.

I am taking Creole classes 2 days a week. I cannot converse much with the locals, but I love to try. I am feeling very comfortable here. I love the people.

Almost 3 weeks in!?

Teaching English?

This is crazy. This week I started teaching English. I teach at the Institut Nouvelle Vision. Max, the director of the organization told me that if I help teach English, they will help me learn Haitian Creole. Let me walk you through my first day.

It is 3:45 pm and I am 15 minutes early. I am told to follow the secretary into a classroom. At least that is what I think she said. There are only a handful of people that speak English at this place. I have no clue how big my class will be. I walk into the room and find 2 people. Sitting on one side of the table was a boy around the age of 12, on the other side was man around 30. Oh boy. I sit down and try not to freak out. A few minutes later the secretary comes in and gives me a marker and an eraser for the board. Am I the teacher? Is this my whole class? I start opening my notebook and acted like I had notes to write. I then stood up and started writing the alphabet. I then had them repeat after me. I said each letter. I then wrote CAT on the board and BAT. They repeated again. The secretary came in one more time. I asked for Max, but she doesn’t speak English. She struggled to say “Max coming.” I sat back down and tried to relax. When Max comes, I can communicate with him. Thank God.

Before Max got here, people started piling into the room. Men and women, young and old. An older gentleman comes in and introduces himself to me and says “I am the English teacher.” Hooray!!!

Max comes in and all is well. I now understand I am just an assistant teacher. I learn that these classes are 3 times a week for two hours at a time. This class, the teacher stars with previous homework. Then he asked me if I wanted to teach. I tell the guy that I have no clue where to start. He then tells me “Start anywhere you want. They are beginners.” I teach them adjectives. Do they understand me at all? I think so.

This school is so unstructured it isn’t funny. It is a mess. The English teacher does not even speak English that well.

I went in the next day to use their internet and do some research on teaching English. Then Max bought me a coke and a nice lunch at an extremely nice restaurant. Max was just sucking me in. I am now part of this school. I taught again yesterday and I taught for an hour and a half straight. I actually think I did pretty well.

The Coffee Project

Today I am supposed to be in Baptiste, but the plans did not work. What I will be doing up there is buying fruits and vegetables and coffee in bulk for cheap and bringing them back to PAP to sell. I will also be trying to contact the head of the coffee growers and talk to them about starting a co-op. I have been talking to the head of a coffee company and he is willing to help us out and grind and roast coffee for us. I think we are going to even export this stuff to the US, so if you are interested in some high quality coffee, keep checking out the blog. I might be able to hook you up.

Things were going slow before, but I am starting to get a lot busier. Other than teaching, I am doing coffee project stuff, discipleship with 8^th graders at the local school, and Discipleship program Bible studies multiple times a week with Haitians. When I am not doing this stuff, I am making connections with Haitians. I have talked to business owners, lawyers, and directors of NGOs. I was told by a wise man that it is all about connections in the Caribbean. The more people you know, the smoother things go.

Thanks

Thanks to all the thoughts and prayers. A special thanks to Salem Baptist, David Saetre, Stacie Furia, and Andy Goyke. Music has also been helping me out along with books. Thanks to John Piper, The Afters, Brandon Heath, This Beautiful Republic, Timothy Keller, Shawn McDonald, Lecrae, and Wes Pendleton.

Shout outs

I want to give a shout out to Lighthouse Cru, Baynet, Salem Baptist Church, Grace Miner, Northland College, and my man Jacob Sorteberg.

So, this blog post is not 100% yet. I will take pictures to post on here. Check back in a couple of days.

Adventures in Haiti

I am not really sure where to begin, but here goes...

On Monday Jemmy, my main man, and I went downtown to do a few things. We took a tap-tap to Petionville and then a bus to downtown Port-au-Prince.

For those of you who do not know what a tap-tap is, I will explain. A tap-tap is like a taxi. Most tap-taps I see are small pickup trucks like a Ford Ranger. In the bed, there are 2 benches. One on each side. There is also a cover for the bed in case of rain. Now each bench is supposed to fit six Haitians. Notice I say Haitians here. I am much larger than the average person here. I have a love/hate relationship with tap-taps. I love that I am immersed in the lifestyles of lower to middle-class Haitians, but what I hate is that there is barely room to breathe. It is weird to be so close to everyone and very awkward getting in and out.

So we arrive downtown right by the palace. It looks exactly the same since the earthquake. It is weird to see their white house in ruins. So I am following Jemmy around and just gawking at everything. We come up to the end of the sidewalk to cross the road. Jemmy is still leading and he steps over the curb I then follow. What I did not see was a puddle. Now this puddle was not full of water. I am not sure what it was full of, but I kid you not it was the exact same color as the asphalt. My foot is soaked in this grey sludge. I cannot think of a time I was more disgusted. We went to the other side of the street and I used my bandana to wipe my foot. My sandal reeked. A younger Haitian than ran over to me and said he wanted to clean my sandal for me. He took my sandal and went to a faucet and washed it for me and then started to wash my foot, but that was too weird for me, so I told him to stop. I then gave him 100 gourdes ($2.50), which made his day.

So, I picked my project that I want to do while I am here. I will be working in the town of Baptiste or maybe a neighboring town. I will be working with them to start a coffee co-op. This would help with jobs, which are very few in Haiti. This area is just amazing.

The thing about Haiti from what I have seen is that things move a lot slower here. I need to work on my patience here. I want to go do things very fast, but there is much to be done. I am still in the Delmas region, but hopefully next week I will spend a couple of nights near Baptiste.

I have been doing a lot of things for Shane this week. What you all need to know is that Mercy League's ministry is just kind of starting back up again. As of now, it is not self-sustainable, which means he has to work other jobs to get income. This means he is not always doing Mercy League stuff. When we get this coffee project underway, hopefully this weekend, he is giving me a lot of room to just go and do.

This week I have been with Jemmy looking for an office space to rent in this area. It has been very interesting having to just go ask random people if they know of a place to rent.

I also hurt my foot the other day. It hurt a little when I was walking, but now hurts all the time in a different spot. I couldn't sleep last night because it was aching. It is definitely a sprain or worse, but don't tell my mother that.

I am realizing that I am only one week in. I feel like I should be accomplishing more, but there is still a lot of time, like 3 months.