Monday morning at 2:30 am (yep, you heard me right) on June 24th: We wake up and prepare to leave. Our flight headed to Miami at 6:30 am. Running on 2 hours of sleep is not easy, but a little caffeine helped out.
2:20 pm: Flight leaves Miami for PAP. Witnessed many mission teams on their way to Haiti. Also, while waiting on our flight, there was a group of Haitian men and women loudly debating the Word behind us in Creole. Pages of the Bible were flying and more scriptures being read and pointed out. I SOOOO wished I knew Creole. I wanted to go over and join! What passion with which they spoke! Many people were staring at them. They didn't care. What mattered was what they were talking about! I could learn a lesson from them.
4:45 pm: Land in PAP. Now, I'm anxious! Get off the plane. Unsure where to go, so we follow the crowd to immigration/customs. Lots of "official" looking people! Let the language barrier begin. I so should have brought a translation book. We step up to the office, hand him our passports and our customs "card" that we filled out on the plane. We had left one area blank that asked for our address in PAP. The officer pointed to that blank. I tried to communicate that we didn't know. He pointed for us to go to a "room", which was awkward. The room was mirrored on the outside, so we couldn't see what we were walking into. Well, we barged into a ladies office who was helping another poor sole figure out what to write. I was somewhat embarrassed but she just waved us to come in. She asked where we were staying. She wrote the hotel on the card, then sent us back to the officer. All was well as we tried to find our way to exit the airport.
Exiting the airport was intimidating. Hundreds of people waiting, yelling, offering rides, wanting to carry bags. And, we were bright white so we were easy targets. We see our escort with our name written on a sign. He introduces us and another gentlemen with him, which I assumed was the driver. As we walked along, he makes a motion to a guy on a curb. The guy jumps up, then follows us. At that point, I was praying we were with the correct people! We hopped in the vehicle and took off! I was NOT prepared for this. No lines on the road (b/c it doesn't matter where you drive), no rules, no turn signals. . .just HONKING, and lots of it. I wasn't sure how they didn't have more flat tires. The roads were sort of chopped up concrete and some potholes that I think swallowed up our vehicle. If you wanted to pass the 8 cars who were stopped in front of you and get in front of them, you just squeezed through any open space. If a pole looked to be in your way, you just got extra close to the car beside you. Don't worry about the large dump truck trying to back up or that you are smaller than the vehicle that you are going face to face with. For those of you who know that I don't even like Tim's driving, you can imagine the look on my face and the thoughts in my head. I had a death grip on the seat, my eyes closed, screaming in my head "Where are the seatbelts?", and praying to God that I would live to see my children again. I did not want my parents having to try to figure out our mess of paperwork that desperately needs to be organized to find our life insurance policies. Because our driver was frustrated with the apparent back-up of traffic, he takes us on a shortcut through some back alleys. The streets alone were already more than I was prepared for. .. the alleys???? Then, back to the street, then another alley. Little did I know that this "alley" led to our hotel as we drove through a one lane walled entrance, squeezed around a 90 degree turn while our driver honked to get the security guard to open our "locked gate" to let us in. Yep, we were locked in for the night. Our escorts helped us get settled, then left. Dinner? Do we try to see the city? Well, we had to figure that out for ourselves. We stayed there! The hotel was nice. Our pictures might be a bit deceiving. The deck area was beautiful. The room worked. I was more nervous that we had two doors leading into our room from the outside and a large window in the shower. Yep, first floor and, yep, facing the pool/patio area. Why? I have NO idea!
We couldn't get many pics of the city. We couldn't see it from our walled gates surrounding the hotel. At least we were safe, but I did sleep with the light on!
Tuesday morning we were to be picked up at 7:00 for our 7:30 appointment, but 7:25 they rolled in. We headed to the Embassy where we were immediately taken to the front and into the waiting area. However, one glitch: We had to go through security. I forgot I had Tim's glucometer in my purse. Try explaining that with the language barrier. We just took it outside where we had to leave all our bags and cell phones at a folding table and wooden box of slots for phones. However, it was watched by security so all was good!
I was warned to wear a "skirt" to this appointment. Not b/c the Embassy cares but because everyone is dressed up. Well, I rebelled and wore black capris. Tim and I were 2 of 3 very pale skinned people in a PACKED, standing room only waiting room (at 7:45 in the morning). And, everyone was dressed for a very formal church service. Luckily, I don't mind being casual when everyone else is formal. I stood out more for other reasons.
After raising our right hand and promising to tell the truth to the officer conducting our interview, we answered some easy questions and some "touchy" questions. Then, we were done by 9:00 am. Then, we headed back to the airport. We could have hung out with our escort at a restaurant but we weren't hungry at 9:00. I wasn't sure I could explain well enough to indicate that we would like to "shop". So, we headed to the airport in hopes of flying stand by on an earlier flight. No such luck! Most seats booked. First class was open, but it would have cost $760 for us to change tickets.
As we drove to the airport, my eyes scanned the city. I wanted to remember all of it. I was thinking that J was probably from this area. . .since it was where he was found. Was his mother nearby? Where would he have lived? I just don't want to forget any of those images.
So, we arrived REALLY early at the airport and sat for a LONG time. We had not intended to go into our gate area so soon but people see you "looking around" and steer you that direction. Before we knew what was happening, we had gone through 3 security checks (where I had 2 bottles of water in my bag) and turned in our little green customs card that apparently if you lose you might not go home. And, lo and behold, we were at our gate. No where else to go. We couldn't turn around to find the area that we were looking for b/c our green card was gone which meant we wouldn't be able to get through customs. So, we ate at a couple little restaurants upstairs, but that's all there was. The electricity went out once, security dogs came and barked quite a bit during one flight group, a man came and asked us to take a picture of his passport b/c he overheard some of the airport security talking and he feared for his life (seriously. . kind of freaked me out), and, yep, everyone gets "patted down" at this airport. (BTW, we didn't take a pic of the man's passport).
7:45 pm: Arrived in Miami.
9:30 am the next morning we left Miami to come back home!
Quick trip! Eye-opening trip! A trip that made me think long and hard about remaining "comfortable". It made me think that while we send mission groups to Ha*ti to "help" them that they have a lot more to teach us "Americans". We could use their groups to come on a mission trip to our country in order to revive and rise up the body of Christ. While we may feel financially blessed in this country, we are spiritually poor. . .We need an awakening! Thank you God for this amazing opportunity!
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