Mwen Renmen Haiti

Our squad arrived in Grand-Guave, Haiti on Saturday after a long day of bus rides and customs lines.  We’re all (yep, all 45 of us) camping (yep, the tent kind) on a compound/beachfront respite from real life.  I pitched my tent on a grassy knoll underneath a mango tree, and it isn’t unusual to hear them pelting my piti piti (little) canvas home throughout the course of the day.  As I write this, the sun is setting over the Caribbean Sea, and the waves are crashing on the shore about 50 yards away from me.  At a breezy 75ish degrees, the weather couldn’t be more perfect for an evening in mid-February.  A few girls are singing and playing guitar out on the beach, one of my teammates is practicing her Creole with one of the Haitian kids, and the rest of us are hanging out in the shacoon (round pavilion thingy in the middle of the property) with blogs to write or books to read or hammocks to nap in.

 

I no longer get to hear “Americana, americana!” accompanied with hissing and staring, but instead get followed around and pointed at by children yelling, “You!  You!”  I’ve finally given up my personal space issues, as they aren’t conducive to the Haitian kiddos, who have none.  They grab your hands and jump into your arms and stroke your hair as if your body isn’t your own, but it’s all good.  They’re sweet for the most part, and they even speak a little English, so trying to communicate is a little easier than last month.  The guys who help around the compound are also very enthusiastic about teaching us Creole, so my vocabulary has been expanding little by little. 

 
This month we’re working side-by-side with Mission of Hope International, an organization based here in Grand-Guave.  They run a community center sort of area that includes a church, school, and lots of drinkable water from spickets (yay!). They also partner with Hands and Feet Project and Be Like Brit, an orphanage currently being constructed.  The church, though mostly Haitian, includes people from all over the world, so they tried to disperse as many English translators (a.k.a. the youth of the church) as possible among us on Sunday.  It’s really nice, knowing that we have the opportunity to understand a service again.
 
For the last several days, our teams have been helping to construct a new school (to replace the one that got destroyed in the earthquake) in the middle of the community center, clean up their library, organize item donations, assist in their pharmacy, and cleaning/renovating things around the compound (also owned by MOHI).  It’s sweaty, sunburny work, but it’s been fun to do it with people from the other teams.  I’ve also enjoyed having a role that is a little more task-oriented than people-oriented, since I like things that are well-defined and cater to my “thinker” personality type.

 
Every World Race team is required to have a feedback session once a day.  Each teammate receives positive (stuff they did well) and constructive (stuff they need to work on) feedback from each of the other teammates.  Unlike most everyone else, it’s one of my favorite parts of the day.  With that comes the onslaught of people approval issues for me, though.  God has really been challenging me lately to remember that my worth and identity are all in Him, in His thoughts of me, in what He sees me do – regardless of what others see.  He’s been continually reminding me not to do the work for the positive feedback – it’s all for Him, not for the praise and approval of my teammates.  Keeping that mindset isn’t easy around a group of 45 people, when it’s more difficult to have a noticeable presence without doing something awesome.  But I guess the flipside of that is that you can’t please everyone.  So do it for an audience of One.
 
As always, thank you for the love and prayers and support in all the ways.  Our Internet access is essentially limited to once every 8 days, so I’ll do my best to keep up with each of your comments and Facebook posts.  Please keep up your prayers for our safety and health and overall vitality, as the heat has been taking a toll on a lot of us.  Thanks, thanks, thanks!