Howdy friends and family! It’s Max back again with another
fantastic blog! Today I am joined b one of the other adults on the trip, Lori
MacKinnon. This is her first trip to Haiti and she is joined by her niece Abby
Lawrence (also her first trip). Breakfast this morning was great as usual, but
they threw a curveball and served French toast. (Shoutout to Grace O for
helping in the kitchen this morning!) After breakfast we prepared for our day
trip to Grace Village (GV) and the elder visits in Titanyen, a small town about
an hour North of Port Au Prince. Usually an hour drive in the Tap Tap is
already pushing it but we thought to ourselves, “Hey why don’t we add 4 extra
people who also need to go to Grace Village in our Tap Tap?” All 21 of us (plus
the two guides) squeezed into the Tap Tap and hung on for dear life in the
rough roads to Titanyen. After we got to Grace Village we were once again
greeted immediately by all the little ones. The school year was already over
for the younger kids but it was finals week for the high school age students at
Grace. A soccer game quickly ensued and we all instantly got attached to the
kids. Kiki, the long term missionary at Grace Village, then gave us a great
tour of the complex and told some great stories of how the kids were reunited
with their parents. For those of you who don’t know, Grace Villages whole goal
is to take the orphans that they do have, and reunite them with their families.
The orphan crisis in Haiti is not that the parents don’t want their kids
anymore, it is simply that they can’t afford to care for the kids anymore, so
they are forced to put them into an orphanage. Healing Haiti has also been
reaching out into the community to help these families get jobs and have a
stable support income in order to successfully raise these children under their
own roofs. I personally met a little boy named Fronzy last time I was in Haiti
at Grace Village. I had brought a picture with him to GV today in hopes of
finding him, but after talking to Kiki, it turns out that little Fronzy has
actually been reunited with his family. I was a little sad to hear that I wasn’t
going to be able to see him but it gives me great hope for the program. It was
so great to hear that he was reunited with his family and was now living the
way he should be. We also heard a story about a woman who had been searching
for six years for her son after the 2010 earthquake. She had searched through
boxes upon boxes of records in order to find her son and thankfully, after six
long years, they were reunited. Stories like these give the team such hope and
the future looks very promising for GV. The team then loaded back up on the Tap
Tap and we began our elder visits. Marijo stayed back at GV to work at the
clinic. She is the GV clinic ambassador for the the Healing Haiti team back
state side so this was her way of checking up on the clinic. The rest of us
then began to visit the elders. Today we had scheduled for five stops, but only
four showed, as one of the elders had gone out for the day as we arrived. At
each of the elder’s homes, we washed the elders feet, applied lotion on their
hands along with massages, painted nails, sang songs of worship, and prayed
with the elders for their hopes and fears. For these elders who had nothing and
came from Titanyen, which is not a wealthy village by any means, they never
prayed for materialistic things. Their requests all consisted of strengthening
their faith, health for their families, and growing their relationships with God.
We also gave them a care package before we left and noted requests that would
be delivered with the next team that came to visit. There were many kids at
each of the stops. Balloons were a big hit along with some pillow case dresses
that we gave to the little girls at each of the stops. Ryan and I also painted
nails for the first time today. Ryan witnessed a miracle when the elder he had
to paint for requested the clear nail polish. I was not as lucky. The little
girl who wanted me to paint her nails wanted bright pink as her color. You can
see where this goes. Overall, the elder visits were a very intimate and
enlightening experience for all of us and we are continually amazed by the
Haitian community. After wrapping up with the elder visits, we headed back up
towards GV to pickup Marijo and tour the new(ish) Fleri Bakery and Cafe. Fleri
means “to flourish” in creole. For the returning members of last year’s trip,
this was our first time seeing Fleri in action. When we had come down last year
the walls were barren and it was just a large structure with some great ideas.
Today, the smell of freshly baked bread was in the air and business is now
booming. When Fleri first opened eight short months ago, they were using about
300 pounds of flour a week. Today, they crank out 300 pounds of flour in the first
three hours of each day. Fleri also sources all of their ingredients from the
local market and from GV. This is a great way of reinvesting money back into
the community and shows the ripple effect that Fleri has had on the community.
GV has also started having some of the high school age kids work at Fleri in
order to gain some on the job experience before they are sent out into the
world on their own. Fleri is another
amazing success story here in Haiti and we look forward to seeing how they will
continue to grow. The drive home from GV was much less cramped and was broken
up by a brief stop at the mass grave site North of Port Au Prince. This site is
the burial grounds for 300,000 Haitians who passed away during the 2010 earthquake.
Brunei, one of our drivers, shared his personal story about being in PAP, near
the epicenter, as the earthquake hit. It was a very powerful story and was
truly amazing to hear his experiences from that fateful day. Even after he had
lost so many of his close friends and family, he still has faith in God and
believes that he survived for a reason, even if he doesn’t understand what it
is. Haitian’s faith continues to amaze our team and I think we are all
beginning to draw a lot of inspiration from it. We wrapped up our day by
relaxing poolside and had some great Haitian food for dinner. Tomorrow, we have
decided that it will be water truck day part “dou” after an early 6am church
service. We then are going to take a visit to an organization Jim is very
familiar with, Healing Hands for Haiti. Stick around tomorrow to hear about
that. Thanks for reading and we will talk to you tomorrow! We will leave you
with one of the elder’s favorite bible verses.
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:14
Max Nelson and Lori MacKinnon
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