Haiti Bound?

Courtney and I floating in the salt water!

Our church is very involved and invested in missions work in Haiti.  This is the reason for my second trip to Haiti, Spring 2007.  We have more teams and trips being organized for 2009.  Our focus has been construction, medical attention and education.  For construction, our church has assisted in building an orphanage, school and medical clinic.  For medical attention, our church has sent teams to do checkups and other trips for surgical needs.  The education part of the focus has been in the form of vacation bible schools and supporting teachers in various villages.  All parts of the efforts seem to overlap.  The teachers we support use the schools that we build.  The medical staff we send use the clinic we built and so on.

The church bulletin is calling for more people to come forward to go on one of the trips.  I really would like to go.  The last time I went, over a year ago, I financed the trip on my own. Since I haven't been working steadily, that will not be possible.

I was not sure in what capacity I would serve but it soon became evident.  Arriving at the Miami airport and waiting to go to Haiti, I met Haitians everywhere.  Even boarding the plane, I was saying "excuse me, pardon me" in French and English while trying to get around people to my seat.  Haitians all around the plane started asking me questions wanting to know what my nationality was because of the rarity of an American speaking French.  It went on from there to be similar all around Haiti.

What was interesting was that I spoke with the Haitians without the use of a translator or interpreter because French is so similar to Haitian creole.  The first day I spoke with various people in French and had some neat discussions.  The next several days, people approached me and said "You're her!  You're the French speaking American!"  It was odd that people knew who I was without having seen me before but a white woman speaking their language would stand out, I suppose.  

For several days people came to talk with me because there was less distance between us because we could speak to each other without a mediator.  I finally asked someone how they came to know who I was and how they recognized me.  They all told me that the whole village and surrounding villages were talking about it. How odd!  I signed on to be a part of the vacation bible school team geared towards children but ended up speaking with local teens and adults.  It was like being a rock star being known and approached like they knew me but I did not know them.  I felt like I was contributing in a way that was not planned.  I was also put with the medical team to do some translating, too.  

We'll see what is in store for this trip.  Hopefully, I'll get to go again.  Time will tell.