Sunday, March 14, 2010

Quick Story...

Hey again. I just wanted to write this real fast. Today, I heard of some earthquake stories. One hit me pretty hard because earlier today I watched some of the kids sing in the church here at Blanchard. During the earthquake, a church collapsed in another city nearby killing an estimated 23 children who were in there for choir practice. Another story was a man who is in graduate school and he and his professor got caught under the rubble and couldn't get out. Some other professors came and got the professor out but told the man they would come right back for him. they didn't. He spent the whole night passing the time by singing and praying out to God. The next day he saw a little girl and got her attention. She crawled down and helped in start getting out. When she got him to the point of visibility, some other people began to help as well. When he finally got out of the rubble, he asked the people where the little girl went so he could thank her. The people turned to him and said, umm there was never a little girl here sir. He said that is when He knew God was completely in control. Just two stories that impacted me today and I thought you may want to read. More to come... Keep Haiti in your prayers, there is definitely a need.

We Are Here!!!

Hello all who are following my Spring Break 2010.
We are here in Blanchard, a compound about 10 minutes away from the airport. Yes, Blair- we rode a "tap tap." In fact, we stopped at a gas station and were sitting outside and I tapped the top as I was telling my team what you told me about the origin of it's name. The driver heard me and came back there and said, "Yeah?" And I told him I was telling them why you called it a tap tap. Because, you "Tap Tap" and he started dying out laughing. The fly-in was good, a bit rushed. We didn't sleep at all the night before we arrived at the airport at 6. SO we went about 36 hours without sleeping. Anyways, we arrived... two guys right out of college from Georgia are the ones leading us this week so they picked us up excited that it was 5 college kids to hang with all week. They showed us around and then settled us in. The compound we are staying at is awesome. It's really nice from what I have seen and we even have indoor showers/pottys! The compound serves as a school and a church. School hasn't been in session since the earthquake (government decree). In fact, in one of the classrooms the date is the exact date of the earthquake on the chalk board which was a strange thing. We had a great dinner last night by our Haitian cook. Today we went to church at 6AM which was all in french and I could actually understand a good bit of it. I really really enjoy speaking to people because I pretty much understand them, especially when they slow it down for me. There is internet access but it is limited. I think we will start working today. I know we are doing alot of work on the schools trying to get them ready for when school resumes. Keep us in your prayers. We are asking for more and more opportunities to meet the people and hear their stories and try to encourage them. The culture here is very very poor. It is similar to rural Mexico and Nicaragua. I feel like with the opportunity to see many different nations, that now poverty is poverty. However, people are also people. And that my friends, is what I LOVE! So I am excited to report some stories and miracles as they come. Expectant. Tired. but Encouraged. Woooooo Hooooo Spring Break... gettin KRUNK~! Loves!!
p.s. over the doors of the church is painted, "Sortons pour Servir" which means, Leave in order to (or to) Serve or Go out Serving. I liked that.