Saturday, November 12, 2011

Report from Haiti mission trip, day 1

A group of missionaries from St. Andrew's is in Haiti now, presenting a workshop on early childhood education and visiting our partner school in Maniche. I've just received an update from the group about their first day in Haiti (dated Thursday but just arrived in my in-box). It's from Dr. Kathy Shaffer, the leader of our Haiti educational mission. She writes:

Nov. 10:

"The trip from Miami was without a hitch. Both the new terminal at MIA and the new jetway on our arrival in Port-au-Prince set the stage for a seamless journey. Zo [the driver] was at the airport. All 18 bags made it through customs. We were met by Pere Colbert [the priest at our partner church and school] as well; and he escorted us to the Christian bookstore, where were able to purchase a Bible for each grade (some very nicely illustrated ones for the little guys), as well as for our graduates from last spring.

"The rubble from the earthquake has been cleared to the point that traffic moves well (better than last year), but now the tents feel imbedded in the community. Where the tent people from the middle of the medians were put is a sad mystery.

"Now we are on are way to Les Cayes and 1 hour outside of Cayes, we encounter a 'manifestation' [a demonstration]. Someone was arrested, and a group of townsfolk have blocked the road in protest. We have been here over an hour, without a lot of change in the situation. Obviously, God wanted us to slow down and 'be' instead of 'do.' By chance, we were stopped at the driveway of the head of the Rotary Club of this village. Colbert is a member of Rotary in Cayes, so we were invited to wait this out in his drive.

"Chris Nazar [one of the other missionaries] says to tell you that we may still be barreling down the highway after dark, even after getting up a 4 a.m. The group is functioning well." -- Kathy

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