Thanksgiving
2012
We returned for our 4th trip to Haiti over Thanksgiving 2012,
with another team, willing hearts, and again so much to learn through our
service. Each team is unique and special in so many ways. Regardless of who is on each team, it is
always so special to return to communities where we have worked and established
relationships with people. Our Haitian
friends are always so excited for the return of Avondale; they now there will
always be so many new faces, but they know the Avondale family and our kids’
hearts are so special that they can’t wait to connect with the new members of
their extended family. We have some
special Haitian friends and translators who speak into the lives of our teams,
open their lives, and teach our teams so much about Haiti and the Haitian
people. We spent an amazing day working in a mountain village named Frettas, and were able to experience a culture very different from our typical experiences. We also returned to Leveque again to see over 300 homes and a community with trees and gardens dwarfing many of the homes. It was an amazing site, knowing what the area once looked like and the role we were able to play in its development. To see a vision for this community come to fruition was amazing. The number of tents that once housed people and heated to 120 degrees during the day had shrunk tremendously. We stood on the top of walls of a church that was being built on a hill and looked out on an incredible community that was transforming lives. We painted many more homes in Leveque under the hot sun, and did our best to love Haitian families through our service. It’s always special when you can work in a community and connect with families and children. Even while writing, I know I can never fully capture the depth of emotions and the true experience, but I hope it may give you a small window into our experiences and what we have been part of in Haiti.
We returned again for a special visit to those precious children in Barbancourt; every visit is so important yet so incredibly emotional, especially knowing we have to say goodbye. We left once again stung by the sad reality that those orphans, who were so starved for love, would be back to sleeping on a cement floor again that night and for every night thereafter. Fortunately, a missions organization had built and nearly finished a new orphanage building for many of the orphans, but there would still be no beds. As I stated earlier, one of the most painful aspects of leaving Haiti is the feeling that you want to do so much more and either don’t have the means or don’t know how you can truly have a significant impact. Those emotions inspired us to reach out to all of our past Haiti team members and their families with a campaign we called “Bunks for Barbancourt”. We were able to connect with an organization out of California that was working in the same village and had worked at the Barbancourt orphanage. It was incredible to experience the response to Bunks for Barbancourt as we raised over $7,000 to purchase 16 beds and 32 mattresses, and we had money left over to finish the construction on the new orphanage building. From Auburn Hills, Michigan, our Avondale family was still able to bring change in this world and ensure that those precious children would now be able to sleep in their own beds at night! I tell you these things not to celebrate what we’ve been able to do, but to celebrate the reality that lives are being changed when our kids open their eyes and hearts, experience the realities of this world, GO, and take action to impact people’s lives.
Thanksgiving 2013!
Well, we are finally caught up to our present trip. We have our largest
group ever with 24 people embarking on a life changing journey on our 5th
team to Haiti. We have an amazing mix of
students and for the 1st time, half of our group consists of Summer
Staffers from Upper Peninsula Bible Camp (a camp where I volunteer in my
summers). We arrived to Mission of Hope
Haiti around 6:15 last night, as our team got their first taste of Haitian life. As they were hit by the heat and smells of
Haiti, they tried to capture the myriad of images and realities of Haiti
flashing before them on their drive to the mission. We visited the village of Source Matelas this morning and jumped into a soccer game with the Haitians from the village. After the game, we walked deeper into the village and visited the “garden” of the grandfather of one of our friends, Villarson. Villarson climbed a coconut tree to pick coconuts to share with our team, followed by some of our team members making their attempts to climb a coconut tree themselves. We had three successfully make it up the tree. While we had fun with that experience, one of the most valuable aspects was the experience of walking through the village. One is quickly immersed in Haitian life, seeing their homes and interacting with people along the way. We concluded our time in Source Matelas (pronounced Soos mott lah) by spending time at the river helping women wash their family’s clothes. I hope one of our team members will share more about this experience later this week. It’s amazing how quickly our team members gain perspective on both Haitian and American life when they experience washing clothes at the river.
We visited the village of Minotre (pronounced Minnow tree) after lunch and took along rakes, gloves, brooms, and machetes. We were asked to clean up and cut down the weeds and thorns that had grown up around their basketball court. Our kids jumped in, swinging machetes, and tackling the growth with ½ to ¾ inch thorns. Despite the heat and extremely sharp thorns, our team attacked the project without a complaint. After working in the hot sun, a number of us challenged our Haitian friends to a basketball game, unfortunately the Haitians carried the day. We followed the game with a visit to the home of one of our translators. It was a special visit because Delmonte’s house was built with funds raised at Avondale Middle School, it is the 4th home in Haiti built as a result of the efforts of the Avondale Community. Delmonte’s smile beamed as he shared his home with our team, introduced us to his smiling and grateful mother, and explained how their life changed dramatically after living in a tent for two years after the earthquake. The finish to an amazing day in Haiti was dinner at a small restaurant of Villarson’s mother. It was a wonderful Haitian meal and another glimpse into Haitian culture. Well, it has been a long day and I will leave you with some word’s from one of our team members.
"Today, I had an intimidating, yet humbling experience. We visited a couple of villages today, played soccer and basketball, and seemingly everywhere we went, people stared at us. We would walk through the streets and you could feel their eyes following us, being obviously foreigners. As I interacted with people and tried to make conversation, it was very frustrating at times to carry a conversation, given my extremely limited Creole vocabulary. So many times I was at a loss for words, and the person I was talking to would just look at me, waiting for an answer. I just wanted to be able to communicate to them with lots of words, still I knew so few. However, as we kept walking, as I came in contact with people, I discovered the impact of a simple “Bonjou” and a smile. Many times, the people’s stares were intimidating, but when somebody went out of their way to greet them and show them they care, it can go a long way. It brought a smile to their faces because a foreigner they didn’t know cared enough about them to go out of their way and say hello. I was really convicted by this because I could definitely do a better job of this at home. Why don’t I say something as simple as “hello” when I pass somebody in the hall, or go sit with someone who is sitting alone? You will probably never know the impact you have on that person; a little bit goes a long way no matter if you’ll never see the person again or you see them every day."
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