My trip to Haiti started off at 2:30 in the AM with my alarm going off so that I could shower and gather my things before my ride (Sonja) showed up to get me. In hindsight, I am glad it ended up this way. I would have had a much harder time leaving with telling my people goodbye. We ran around picking up Sam and Amanda before we headed to the airport. I did say a prayer or two on the way to the airport that God would just take care of our bags... and what do you know-He did! We arrived at the check in counter to an overwhelming crowd. However, up walked and American Airlines baggage man and asked what our plans were. It ended up that he took our itenerary papers and Sonja (with all our passports) and signed us in. He also took our bags, tagged them and threw them on the belt without so much as weighing a one of them. God was in control from the start and I praised Him for that! It was a huge load off of our backs to not worry about what was going to happen to the many, many bags of formula we had. We did have to pay $30 per bag, but as God would have it... exactly $120 was donated just for that purpose. You might have guessed that we had $120 in extra baggage!!!! Perfect plan! The flights were without a hitch and we were even able to join up with the rest of our team in some down time in Miami. We quickly boarded to Haiti leaving one team member behind, but praying she would be strong enough to keep moving forward alone. Steve our "Jack Bauer" trip leader did not carabean in on a wire like we had hoped but he quickly filled us full of stories preparing us for our coming adventures. You could also say that this "pep talk" scared the pants off of us, but it was too late for turning back now, we were on our way. (This may have been when my stomach started hurting). We landed in Haiti with strick instructions to stay together and not let anyone touch your bags. It was unbelievable how hard that part really was. Everyone that worked for the airport had on a red shirt, and all the tricky people who you were not supposed to give your bag too also wore red shirts. A Hatian man walked up to us holding the sign we had been told to follow. At the time I thought nothing of the fact that his sign was indeed a crumpled piece of paper with the word Heartline written on it in penciled bubble letters. We followed through a mob of people and somehow I was toward the front of the line refusing to make eye contact with anyone and carrying as much as I could hold on to. We made it to the parking lot where the real man with the real sign (would have been good to know we were supposed to look for a man from the states) grabbed us and loaded us up in this...
It was a traveling cage. We (Sonja, Sam, and I) thought we were brave enough to ride on top but our "Jack Bauer" said it was a no go. We aggreed about 15 seconds after pulling out. I have never seen a city quite like this one. I am not sure words would ever do it justice. It is something you would have to see to believe. Luckily we were locked in to our little traveling cage. We arrived at our first destination, The Heartline Guest House. We chose beds, brought in our luggage, and got ready to eat our first Hatian meal. Suddenly, I was feeling very anxious. My stomach was churning and I was mad. My head and my heart were more than ready to be there, but my emotion filled stomach just wanted me to go straight to bed. So, after a call home, a small prayer time with the group, I did just that. I crawled up in my bunk with my mosquito net and fan and curled into the fetal position hoping that tomorrow would be a new day.
My lesson for the day: God is in control of even the smallest details. That luggage that the American Airlines guy randomly put on the luggage belt for us... when we got to Haiti the exact bags that each one of us packed were tagged correctly with our exact names. He had no way of knowing which bags belonged to which person and I saw him randomly tag those bags. It was just the sweet Jesus kiss I needed to know that I was going to be cared for this week if even that tiny detail was already taken care of.
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