(May 2010, Part 1)

It had been 4 months since my experience with the January earthquake in Haiti, and my daughter Abby and I decided to meet up there. She worked as a photo-journalist for World Vision in Seattle, and it seemed like a great time to get together. We spent several days in Port au Prince documenting relief and recovery efforts, as well as visiting some friends. Our plan was to spend a few days with our friend, Pastor Val in a small rural community near Loegane where he cared for 50+ children and a small church community.

Sak pase? (That's what you say to people on the street as an informal greeting, meaning, "What's up?") Abby and I had a lot of fun asking this of people, and then watching their reaction as they started prattling on in Kreyol, with a blank stare washing over OUR faces. We don't speak Kreyol! We just know a few words, enough to greet children.

I arrived on a hot, sunny afternoon in early May, just a few months after the earthquake. As I exited the plane, the reality of what I was going to live in for a week hit me full in the face - hot and humid. The airport was the calm before the storm...soon I was leaving the sauna of a temporary customs building with my baggage cart piled high with heavy trunks, hands 'resting' on them as many porters laid claim to my belongings. How would I pay all these guys? I had to put on my tough girl and tell them all "no," as I desperately searched the sea of dark faces for a familiar one. Finally Pastor Val's toothless grin peeped out from between some elbows, and I saw that familiar cap he was wearing the last time I saw him. A wash of relief that now, he would take care of everything.

He raised an umbrella over my head to shield the brutal noon sun, as he guided me through the maze of people to the street. Driving through the streets was a strange feeling: the last time I was here, the whole country was in shock of what had just happened a few days before. Everyone was just started to dig out, to locate the dead, and rescue the trapped and wounded. I remember thinking it was hard to leave them behind and go back to a normal and abundant life. Being back in Haiti now provided some closure personally. Life has gone on here, I thought. Four months later and life is back to normal to some degree.

The sounds of a Haitian morning: roosters, barking, pots and pans banging, children talking, singing, water splashing. The sun is not quite awake, but the sky has lightened, and it's still cool - better not miss it! So up we are at 5:30 or 6 am. That's the best time of the day in a hot and humid place, especially if it rained a little the night before. Fresh.

At 6:15 am, we were late for church, and that's a little embarrassing when you are seated up front as special guests. But we weren't the only ones, and although worship had been going on for at least 45 minutes already, there was lots more to come and people kept trickling in. Pastor Bataille's church is an open structure with the sky as a ceiling. There were some "seats" - concrete blocks turned on end, and a few benches. Abby even tested out a "pew" of sorts: four folding chairs that were missing their seats, but a board had been spanned across them to make room for 5 or 6. It's a dedicated parishioner who sits on the end of a concrete block for hours! But most people who came in after us, brought their own chairs. And the shaded spots went first. During a 3 or 4 hour meeting, the sun makes its way across the floor, and it's hot by 7:30! I'm amazed that the women are wearing panty-hose and the men, suits and ties. We were dying in our sundresses, which, by the way, seemed entirely inappropriate. Next time, sleeves.

The mayor of Delmas, an area of Port au Prince was the guest speaker and although I couldn't understand what he was saying, it was passionate. Junior translated and we realized he was preaching a very practical post-earthquake message: work hard, take responsibility for your own family, help others, and don't wait for the aid workers to come and take care of you. It's the message the Bataille's have been preaching. It's what Haiti desperately needs, way more than foreign aid.

Later, my Dutch friend Coby, met us for a visit. By this time, Abby and I were thoroughly wrung out by culture shock. We'd only been in the country for about 27 hours, but with the combination of the heat, dirt, smells, chaotic traffic, and some idleness, we wondered what we were doing here and could we handle it for a week? Visiting with Coby was the grace of God for us at that moment. She asked if we wanted to go to her home and with no shame we readily took her up on her offer. She lived up the mountain, where it was calmer and cooler. While we were there enjoying a delightful visit, it started to rain, hard. After a few hours of refreshment, she and her husband took us back down the mountain, back to our tent on the Bataille's roof, in the dark, in the rain...it was crazy ride. It was a reward at the end of the day to sit with friends and talk; a good detox time, we downloaded all that we had experienced, and we worshiped together.