Final Days

The last two days seemed to fly by. Friday morning I went with a group to the market to experience a shopping trip. It was a group of four: a Haitian cook, Fanel our interpreter, Emily the doc's daughter, and me. This wasn't some stroll through Walmart to pick up a few items. No shopping carts either! The cook seemed to have had a strategy as she visited multiple vendors, inspected the items, and haggled for the price. Sometimes she was successful; other times she walked away empty handed. I remember she talked about bananas with one woman for 10 minutes (all in Creole of course) and left with none. How much is there really to say about bananas? My biggest concern the whole time we were there was how the heck are we gonna take all this back with us? We finished with a potato sack and an army supply bag full of goods, a big box of fruit, multiple bags of bread, and 50 eggs in cartons. We took the Haitian equivalent of a city bus called a tap-tap, not the family size suburban. Well, Haitians think of everything. There are men running around with wheel barrows waiting to help haul groceries away. Excellent! Total shopping time: 3 hours.

The weather Friday night was beautiful. Constant breeze and a little cool. Bob, whom I traveled with and the director of Hands and Feet, and I went up on the roof to get a view of the area and look at the moon and stars. He got this wild idea to sleep on the roof under the stars. I liked it! We set up cots and mosquito nets and camped out. We shared some stories and laughs and hit the sack. It was great!

Saturday, my last full day, I worked on one of the house mother's computer for a few hours troubleshooting a few issues and cleaning it up from viruses and such. I ended up taking it totally apart and putting it back together. Not sure what that did but it fixed it! And I didn't have any screws left over. Then I wrapped up my accounting project by documenting everything and writing out a step by step process. Later we ventured out downtown to shop for souvenirs. The rest of the day and into the evening we played and sang songs with the kids.

My time in Haiti has come to an end, for now. I've made lasting relationships with the staff of Hands and Feet. I don't know how or when, but I know God will bring us together again to continue His work in Haiti. And yes, God is at work here. He has not forgotten the Haitian people. In fact He has become more real to some since the earthquake. My prayer is they would continue to rebuild and in that, find hope that will allow them to persevere through theses hard times. Most of all, that they would find peace and comfort in knowing Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.