Home Again

Home Again, Home Again!!  Praise the Lord I made it back to Wisco safely last night.  I can hardly believe I'm
home, it's great but so weird at the same time.  The Lord has done so much working and moving, in the past three weeks, I think I'll be catching up for a while. I can't wait to start sorting through everything and putting together posts, be sure to check back soon for some pictures!

WOW!

It feels like it's been forever since I've been able to blog!  The internet here has been up and down for the last week.  Partly due to the sketchy weather and partly because equipment was just in limbo for a while, Praise the Lord that it looks like everything is figured out and the ministry down here can rely on the net for there own work.  Weather here hasn't really been that bac for us, we've had some rain, more than the area is used to, but it hasn't gotten in the way of life for us.  Also, the winds that have come with the tropical storm in the area have really lowered temperatures a lot which is a blessing.  Please do pray for the families living in the IDP camps.  Rain only make living in tents that much harder.

PRAISE THE LORD!!  On July 15th I aksed that you all would pray for the release of shipping containers on the docks in Port-au-Prince.  The ministry here has been waiting for supplies critical to building projects on our compund.  Last week most of our project took a day to fast and pray for the release of the containers, and the next day 4 of the most critical containers were released!!  Two have already been transported to our compound and are quickly being unloaded and put to use.

Life here has beeen a combination of sharing the gospel at IDP camps, doing working projects on our camp, spending some time at a Christian School in Port-au-Prince sharing testimonies and loving on the kids there, fellowshipping with and being a light to Chambrun, building relationships with our own team and the Haitian students who are working alongside us, and also just building relathioship within our team-the Lord has brought some great people to serve here in Haiti and I'm excited to have a whole new wave pf project friends when I get back to the States. 

So much has happened since I've been able too post last there's so much ot share, but for today I'm just going to let you in on a journal entry from July 21. 

We just had small group time to discuss the "Weh Helping Hurts" article in our project notebook.  We had a really good discussion about how we see the results of broken relationships and "god-complexes" in our lives.

At then end of the discussion, Dana (one of the Haitian students in our discussion group) told a stroy about how she has been seeing God work in here life.  She told us that before the earthquake she was asking God to show her how she could serve Him.  She said she knew that as Christians we are supposed to serve God, but that she was very shy and didn't know how she fit into God's plan. 

After the earthquake, God brought her to this summer project.  Now she said she sees how God can use her.  Before the earthquake she never talked about God outside of her Campus Crusade firends.  She said she was very nervous the first time she went to the IDP camp to talk about God to people she didn't know.  But now, she sees how God can use her in His plan.  She loves telling God's story to people who hae never heard it.

This is by far one of my favorite stories from project.  Looking at the physical and emotional mess left after the earthquake, it is almost unimaginable to think that God can use it for good, but seeinf the spiritual revival that could be possible in our generation, I praying God is raising up a generation of leaders who love Him and are going to love and lead Haiti!

Quick Update

Hey All,

I don't have much cocmputer time and the net has been down the last couple days so here's a quick update:

--Saturday we went into Port-au-Prince to visit the Campus Crusade movement there, we drove through most of the city and saw the physical devastation of the EQ.

--Yesterday we wen to an IDP camp to share the gospel

--We have been to Chambrun, the local community a couple of times, we have showed he Jesus Film, distributed supplies, and just hung out.

Hopefully I'll get a better post sometime soon, please pray for team unity.  Our team has had some great highs, but we're definitely seeing the results of losing battles to our own pride.  Please pray our whole team would be filled with love!

Check out the team blog

Hey all,

I thought I had put together a blog before I left with this info, but I guess not.  There is a blog that our whole team is keeping at hopeforhaiti.posterous.com I got to put together a post tonight, hopefully it will be up tomorrow.

Haiti Update

Hi from Randi's Mom,
She wanted me to post for her.
Today was great, we met the Haitian students we'll be working with and spent the morning building community with them and leaning kreole, it was a blast!  After lunch we had our first work projects.  I worked with the group that was helping to make the rooms more malaria net friendly.  All the grounds are pretty new and so the rooms are constantly being tweaked, it took some doing and some time, but we were able to finish and get it all done :)  Our group even used every tool I brought so that made me happy of course :)  God is really drilling Isaiah 40:27-31 home to me, helping me to see that HE's got this all under control.

The GAIN leaders here told us today that there are over 1000 cargo loads of relief supplies sitting on the docks waiting to go through customs, some have been there for months, please pray that they would be released ASAP.

On Our Way!

Good morning from the Miami airport! Our team is all checked in and waiting for our airplane to come take us to Haiti! Surpringsly, my experience at the Miami airport has been much less stressful since the last time I has here 6 months ago :) Last night our we had a big team meeting to go over logistics and at the end we got together with the Haiti team 2 to pray for eachother as we both go out, them to return home changed forever and us to this great new adventure God has for us. Thank you all so much for your prayers, I'm not getting through this without you guys. If you can check our team blog later tonight, I think I'll get to write on it tonight! Love, Randall

CAMP!!!

I spent last week up at Crescent Lake Bible Camp-Family Camp week 1, soooo good!!  Alex and Jake weren't able to join us because they are both in Guatemala until tomorrow, so Nick brought his friend Thomas along.  The whole week was great, the speaker spoke on Elisha, very interesting, and the rain stayed away after Tuesday for the most part.  Here are some of my favorite pics from the week.

Our sunset Sunday night.

 Thomas and Nick enjoying some Frolf action :)

Nick ripping it up on the kneeboard

Dale really ripping it up on the wakeboard!

Nick, Thomas, and me getting ready for the triathlon

Me wakeboarding

Overall the week was great, lots of good fellowship with our camp family and just having fun.  More stories to come I'm sure!  As you may have notice earlier in the week I posted a blog called "Challenge by Choice" that's not up anymore.  I was really in a rush to just get it posted and I've been reading it and there's just something I don't like about it right now.  So, I'm taking it down for a little tweaking, yes T-W-E-A-K-I-N-G tweaking (please pardon the movie reference that only Alex and Mom may see, I couldn't help myself), and hopefully it will make a reappearance soon.

As you may have noticed....

As you may have noticed I have done a terrible job keeping my promise of posting this summer.  I've have a few posts that have been in the works for a while that I just haven't been able to put out there yet, but now as I get closer to Haiti I know more people will be checking to see what's new.  So here's an update and the plan:

On Monday the 12th I leave for a Campus Crusade for Christ summer project in Chambrun Haiti.  I will spend 3 weeks working on a compound near an internally displaced people's community serving and loving families who lost everything in the January earthquakes.

Tomorrow our family (those of us left in the States anyway = not Alex and Jake) leave for a week at Crescent Lake Bible Camp.  So excited to spend a week at camp!  I'm hoping that the time to just be at camp will give me some good time to spend with Jesus and will let me write and publish a couple of blogs that are in the works.

So, hopefully we'll be talking soon :)

I am not ready for tomorrow

I'm not quite sure what I'm really looking to say tonight, so I'm just going to start typing and see what happens.

I don't know if I've ever felt less prepared for a day as I feel tonight about tomorrow.  Tomorrow I will stand in a funeral for hours with my family.  I will be giving hugs, getting hugs, listening to stories, crying, laughing, and talking with people about the amazing man that my grandfather proved to be every day.  Tomorrow my grandpa's death will again be as real as it was in the hospital waiting room on Saturday.  I will be hit with emotions I don't want to experience and surrounded by a family I couldn't live without.  I will rejoice in the fact that Grandpa is in the presence of the King and mourn because I know life in this family will never be the same.

Although I've been bombarded with a million memories in the last couple days, one that keeps sticking out to me is a dinner I shared with Grandpa Billy this fall.  I had just gotten back from Colorado a few weeks ago and Grandpa and Grandma had me over for dinner.  We talked about my experiences in Colorado and what the Lord had done in my life through them.  After dinner Grandpa brought out a printout of my recent blogs.  We talked about them a little bit, one that stood out to him was a review I wrote of a book I was reading at the time, "How could a loving God...." by Ken Ham.  In this blog I talked about my struggle to understand things like death and suffereing in this world and how this book tried to alleviate that. After talking about the book for a little while, Grandpa concluded the conversation with something like "Books like these are good, but at the end of the day, we know we've got the best with God and He's got the best for us, as long as we have our faith, it's enough."  So tonight, my faith will be enough, and tomorrow I will worry about when it gets here.

Thanks so much for your prayers this week, I can't tell you hw much your love and support mean to me.

Prayer Please and Thank You

Dear Friends,

This post is going be short because I have about a million hours of homework to fit into the next 19 hours, but I just wanted to drop in and say hi!  Thanks so much for bearing with me this semester as posting has been so all over and infrequent.  I promise I've got a couple of good blogs in the making, and once I get through finals hopefully I'll be able to stimulate some deep thought :)

Today though, I would like to take a second and simply ask that you would uphold our Athletes in Action Leadership team in prayer this weekend.  AIA has been going really well this semester and I feel like God has been moving inside of our athletic department.  This Sunday we have our final Leadership meeting to really review the year and cast a vision for next year.  I'm so excited to see where God is taking our ministry and I would like to ask you to lift up the hearts of our leadership team over the next couple days.  That God would prepare our hearts to look to the future and see what He has for us and that we would all be able to continue to come together to lead His movement on campus.

Thanks so much for your prayerful support,

Randi

The End of Big Break

So the last time we chatted it was Wednesday morning at Big Break, so much has happened since then so here's a list!

1) Thursday morning: I spent some time with Jesus on the beach. I took a break from my time in Judges to hear from Christ in John 21. All week one thing that had been on my heart was Jesus call to "tend His sheep," so I decided to go through John 21 where Jesus give this command to Peter. The chapter start with Peter and some other disciples fishing, they don't catch anything all night and then they see "someone" on the beach who tells them to throw their nets over the right side of the boat. We all know how the story ends, the disciples pull in nets full of fish and then Peter and John realize that someone is Jesus and Peter jumps into the water and swims to the beach because he is so overwhelmed and excited to see Jesus, that is a passion I desire! Then when Peter makes it to the beach and has breakfast with Jesus, Jesus asks Peter if he loves. It takes Peter answering that question three times before Jesus moves on from His questioning and every time Peter tells Jesus the he does love Him, Jesus tells him to feed and tend His lambs and sheep.

I couldn't help but feel like Him was asking me the same thing sitting there on the beach.

Randi, do you love Me?
Yes Lord of course I love You.
Randi, do you love Me?
Come on Man, of course I love you, I'm at Big Break, I'm giving you this week.
Randi, do you love me?
Yes Lord, I love you with everything, everything I am, everything I have, I love you.
Randi, feed My sheep.

I sat on the beach for a little while just spending a few more moments with Jesus and I left ready to follow Him, ready to feed His sheep.

2) Thursday later morning: Since Thursday was our last day of ministry and Friday was a free day, at Thursday morning's talk Ben and Shelby challenged everyone to consider going on a summer project. I have been praying since I got home from Colorado that God would reveal what He had for me this summer. I really thought that was going to be an internship with EMi, then I didn't land that job for this summer so I though maybe God was calling me to stay in Madison for the summer with a local internship, all semester I have been filling out applications and sending emails to potential employers and nothing has panned out.

So when Shelby stated panning through project options that were still open for the summer, I was thinking a little bit about where God might be reserving my time. Then Shelby started talking about a brand new project for this summer, a project working relief in an internally displaced people's community in Haiti. Of all the projects he had introduced, obviously this one caught my attention over the others. They had mentioned this project briefly earlier in the week, but didn't really say what it was. Shelby went on to explain that GAIN, Campus Crusade's relief branch, would be running 3-3 week summer projects where students would work with people in and around Internally Displaced People's communities. Right away I knew this was an option for this summer that I had to consider, but I didn't want to jump into any decisions either. As I sat and thought about, talked the option over with God, the thing that kept coming back to my mind was the Lord's call earlier that morning, Randi, do you love? Then feed my sheep.

So I haven't heard back on my application yet, but I feel like God is calling me to spend 3 weeks at in July in Haiti! I'll let you know when it's official, but I really don't see Him closing this door. I would love it if you all would start praying that the Lord would begin preparing my heart for the experience He has for me. I know it's going to be unlike anything I've ever done, and honestly I'm a little nervous, but more than anything I can't wait to serve Him and see what He has for me!

Now we're not done yet....

3) Thursday Afternoon: That afternoon when we went out sharing, I was sharing with a girl, Shaina, from Cornell. Cornell has only had CRU on their campus for a semester, so there were only 5 people from their campus on Big Break and all week they had been sharing with us. As Shaina and I started the day I could tell she was still a little unsure of sharing her faith and still struggled a little bit with the KGP. I had her lead me through it and the plan was for her to watch me share it with a group and then have her do it on her own. Afte we shared with a group of girls from Edgewood, which went really well :), Shaina said that she was glad that the girls had asked so many questions because she had asked a lot of the same questions too. After she said that I just really felt like there was still some stuff she was struggling with so I asked her is she wanted to just sit down and talk about some of those questions with me. We slowly began to work our way through the KGP addressing any questions or hesitations she had as we got to them and 2 and a half hours she made the decision to give her life to Christ!!!

It's an understatement to say I was completely stoked! I've never seen God use me in that way in anyone's life and to really see the change in Shaina when she was able to overcomes Satan's lies in her life and truly accept the promise of John 1:12 was truly awesome. I abuse that word a lot I think, I use it too much, but this seriously was awesome.

So yeah, Big Break in a nutshell! Lot's of good stories and God moments.

quick update

So when I promised to blog everyday, I was, of course, over estimating my ability to fit a million things into one day on Big Break. In fact, I really only have like 15 minutes this morning to give you a quick update, so I will give you a lot of pictures, a little explanation, and a promise of a few deep thinking entries written on the drive home.

I have been having a blast this week and really seeing God move in BIG ways. Two times a day we get to listen to speakers Ben Rivera and Roger Hershey train us in evangelism and help us to go deeper in our own walks with God. Then, for a few hours every afternoon, we go out to Spring Breakers on the beaches and just try to start conversations that will lead to us sharing the Gospel with them. We have been using a survey put out by Campus Crusade called the Quest survey that has 6 different questions like "What are 3 words that describe your life?" and "On a scale of 1-10 rate your desire to know God personally." The questions are designed to simply help us get to know people better and then help make an easy transition to spiritual conversation. We have been sharing the amazing story of God's love and grace using the "Would you like to know God personally?" booklet put out by Crusade. The KGP (knowing God personally) is a really effective way to share the Gospel. It's four point presentation is right on and really east to follow while communicating the Gospel very clearly. If you're curious about the Gospel or just want to learn more about what our encounters on the beach look like, you can find the KGP here.

We've seen a ton of people come to Christ on the beaches and even one student who came on Big Break with his school got saved yesterday, Praise the LORD!!

As promised, here are some pics too.



Monday night all the boys put together a "Creative Date" for the girls rooms. Our guys put together a Mexican themed evening!! Great tacos and wonderful salsa music!



Here's a view from our hotel room of our amazing beach.



Tuesday afternoon we helped put together meal kits for Haiti relief in partnership with Global Aid Network and Kids Against Hunger. Over the last 5 weeks of Big Break, we have put together over 1 Million meals that will be shipped to Haiti Friday!!



Tueday night was our turn to put together a creative date for men's rooms. We began our night with aluminum foil sword fight battles and followed with pizza and of course epic music from Pirates of the Caribbean all night!

Over all, I'm having a great time this week, God's been working in my heart a lot and I can't wait to see what He continues to do this week. Please continue praying for boldness and the guidance of the spirit for all students here.

Big Break!!!

With this week comes a long awaited and much needed Spring Break! School has been so ridiculous and stressful lately, I am so stoked to have a week to have no homework or deadlines to make. And where am I spending my break you ask? In beautiful Panama City Beach, Florida I answer! I am on Big Break with Campus Crusade for the week. Over the course of the week, we will be listening to speakers, growing in community, and sharing the gospel on the beach to college students from all over the country. I've never been on Big Break before, I'm so excited to be here, but definitely a little nervous to take the Good News to the beach. There are so many college kids here just looking to be filled up with anything or anyone they can find on the beach. I pray that God fills me and everyone here at Big Break with His strength and courage and that His Spirit would guide us as we share on the beaches this week.


Today we spent some time just chillin and hanging out on the beach. What do college kids do while on the beach????

Dig holes and bury people of course!

Heading Home

I'm thinking this will be my last exclusively Haiti blog. Of course I'll probably keep writing about what God continues doing in my life through Haiti, but as far the Haiti "narrative," the story is coming to an end.

The next day we left for the airport about 9 with plenty of time to get to our plane, just in case something went wrong. While we were waiting we saw a few relief planes landing, a couple from the US, one from Brazil, and one from a country who's flag we couldn't recognize.

Getting through customs was mostly painless, so we got to our gate with a ton of time to sit, grab some Duty-Free Domincan coffee, and see some search and rescue dogs unloaded from a plane that landed while we were waiting. We met a group of people on a missions trip who were in Port-au-Prince during the earthquake, the embassy was evacuating them though the Domincan. They had been in a grocery store just before the earthquake hit, when they got out of the store the ground started shaking and they turned around when it was all over to see the store collapsed behind them. They were already running late for dinner because they had been at the store, when they got back to Wall's guesthouse (the guesthouse our group uses when they have to stay overnight in Port-au-Prince), it was collapsed too. They were traveling home with nothing but the clothes they were wearing at the time of the quake and envelopes from the Embassy stamped "HAITI EVACUEE."

Flying home definitely came along with a huge range of emotions. On one hand, I couldn't believe we were actually leaving already. Right away when the earthquake hit, most of us figured we would probably be in Bayonnais for a while and now we were getting out practically on schedule. At the same time, I knew that one of the best things in the world was going to be getting the chance to see my family that night. I had gotten the chance the night before to talk to them on the phone for a couple minutes the night before using Eyleen's skype account, but it was going to be amazing to see them for real and just wrap them up in hugs. I couldn't wait to see them. Then there were the thoughts lingering in the back of my mind that we were actually leaving while there was so much need behind us. Add all that to the physical and emotional exhaustion of the last two days and you can imagine how great of a spot I was in.

Our plane ride to Miami was pretty short. When we went through customs to go back into the US the guys who checked me in went through the basic questions, one of the last ones he asked me was how long I was in the Domincan. "One day," I said, and he just looked at me like, "Really?" Then, you could see all the dots connect. "Oh, were you in Haiti," he asked looking pretty concerned at this point. I told him I was and then we chatted for a bit about our project and he ended our conversation with one last question, "So are you ever going to go back?" Without hesitation I replied that of course I would be going back, as soon as possible. He looked a little surprised and sent me off with a smile and then headed to another desk to get a new boarding pass because we had already missed our connecting flight. I wondered to myself how the customs agent really could expect any other answer, how could I not want to get back to as soon as I could?

On our way to the ticket desk, we saw a group of people who had been coming from Haiti too as thye met their families out side the terminal. Understandably they had a pretty emotional reunion, but there was a news camera man right in their faces. It hit us at that point that there might be cameras in Chicago too, and none of us wanted that. There wasn't really anything we could do if news crews were planning on being there, but it was a worry that just kind of sat in the back of my mind anyway. We hoped that our families and friends hadn't told anyone when and where we were getting in.

Security and ticketing in Miami was actually the hardest and most stressful part of the trip home. Nothing seemed to go right and we were already running really tight on making it to our gate before departure. Eyleen had to go back to the ticket counter once we had gotten all the way through the line for security because they had printed our the wrong boarding pass, John had to like completely re-pack his backpack that he had carried onto 4 planes already because it was too big, lines were just moving slow. I got through security first and got to our gate ASAP to be there just in case we needed to hold the plane. When I got to the gate, it occurred to me that I really had no power to actually hold a plane from taking off, but if it was necessary, I was going to get it done! Luckily our group ran up to the gate as the second call for boarding rang over the loud speaker.


Finally, we were on our last leg home. Tyler, Eyleen, and I got to sit next to each other in the middle row of our 767. The ride home was a combination trying to sleep, journaling, nabbing a newspaper from the man next to us, and talking with eachother, trying to reconstruct a timeline from the last couple days. So much stuff had been packed into the last two days, we each remembered most of the the story, but the bits and pieces seemed to be scattered. The three of us put together the pieces as best we could.

Then we were landing in O'Hare. I could hardly believe it. Eyleen's parents and mine were coming to pick us up, she texted them as we got into the terminal. We walked to baggage claim together, I was nervous. I couldn't wait to see my family, Mom and Alex and Dad were all there waiting. I was so excited to be wrapped up in bug huge hugs, but at the same time, I so didn't want to fall apart. I'm not sure why it was so important to me, probably just pride I guess, but I just wanted to be strong, to not fall to pieces. We stopped when we got to the escalator that lead to baggage claim.

"Are we ready?"

I don't think any of us really were, at least I wasn't, but we made our way down anyway. I don't know if there really is a name for the emotions that seemed to be flying around inside of my heart and my head, so I won't try to put my finger on it. As we got down the escalator, our families came into view, there they were (without any cameras!!). Before I knew it, I was embraced in the tightest, longest, best hugs I've ever had, fighting tears, holding it together, but just barely. I don't know what it would have been like to not have them there. The though really just occurred to me, but man, I'm so thankful they were there!

We made our way to pick up bags, introducing the team to families and families to the team. It really was a surreal night for me. Traveling all day in and of itself presented so many ups and downs, now I was back with my family in the most intense reunion I've personally known, and then life starts to go back to normal immediately-I'm asking Al about school and exams, I'm getting updates on the boys, its like I've just been gone for a week. Not that that was a bad thing, it's what I wanted, but it was just interesting I guess.

We spent a little while at baggage claim, Eyleen's mom and picked up some food for us (so good) and then we were on our way. Jon, Michael, and Tyler rode in the van with us and Eyleen took Alysen home. For maybe the first 15 minutes of the ride, we told a couple of stories and recapped the travels home a little, but for the most part we took the ride to mostly start catching up on sleep. We got to Madison quickly and dropped the guys off and then rode back home to Portage. I told a few more stories on the way home, but right now I honestly couldn't tell you one thing I said. We got home Saturday morning about 2 AM.

The next couple days at home were good. I wish I would have had more time to just sit, to take things in and journal and sit, but my time at home was short, so I spent it as much with my family as I could. I went to watch Jake and Nick curl Saturday afternoon, I was really nervous about going to the club. I felt like everyone that was going to be there probably knew where I had been the last week and I didn't really want to be overwhelmed, but everyone was really good. People we interested and asked questions, but most people treaded pretty lightly and gave me space, which was such a blessing. Church the next day was the same, and the next morning I headed off to Madison to start school Tuesday.

Over the next couple weeks, God did a lot of moving and working in my heart. This blog is getting long and I just want to get it posted, so those are stories for another day, hopefully soon. I want to say thank you so much to anyone who is reading this. You're faithful prayers and support these last 6 weeks have meant so much to me, probably more than I will ever know. I wouldn't be where I am tonight without them, so thanks

Our Night in the Domincan

We got to Santo Domingo about 8 that night. We caught a cab from the bus station to the hotel where we had reservations, thanks to North Carolina friends in the US. Most of us expected we would be spending the night in kind of a dive, which was fine, we wouldn't be there that long anyway. So when we pulled up to a hotel that looked more like a location on the Vegas strip than the hostile we expected, we could hardly believe it.

Once we got checked into our rooms we grabbed dinner at the hotel buffet and for the first time in three days, we relaxed. Anyone sitting near us must have thought we were crazy. The longer dinner went on, the goofier we got. The stress that we had all built up was being released in roaring laughter. Then some guy dressed in a tux sat down at the grand piano conveniently located right next to our table and started playing Disney songs, and there was no hope after that, we kind of lost it, but it was fun.

Once we got back to our rooms, we were able to take advantage of two things that had been missing from the previous days--showers and internet. We were able to reply to all the emails from news stations and update everyone with our travel plans, we even got a few phone calls out to family through skype. I caught everyone at home in the living room at the same time, that was great!

Throughout the night, the feeling and mood in our rooms definitely fluctuated.

At one point, I remember sitting on one of the beds with Tyler and Eyleen watching the news, the first EQ coverage we had actually seen, and it kind of hit us that we were going home. 24 hours earlier we were in Haiti and in about 24 more we would be home and out of chaos and safe, but when Actionnel got home, he would still be in Haiti. Haiti is home for him, for his family and all the people we had lived with for the last week, they didn't get to be done with the chaos left over by the earthquake any time soon. For a while, it was like "what are we doing leaving?" When we stepped back, we knew we had to leave--staying in Haiti was not an option, there would not be enough resources, and if nothing else as Actionnel had said the night before "our families needed us home." But we were all in Haiti because its a country we love and we want to help, and now more than ever we wanted to be able to do something, anything we could. It was so hard to accept the fact that the best thing for we could do for Bayonnais was to leave them.

When we watched the 27 news coverage from a couple nights before, and all we could do was laugh. The news guy was so over dramatic as he read Eyleen's post on our travel blog "We are O K" he read, enunciating every syllable. Really, really.....

While I watched TV that night, the coverage hit me like disaster coverage never really had before, it was so real. Every picture and video they showed reminded me of Bayonnais. I felt like any of those people could have been the people I had come to love over the last week. For me, it was definitely worse than 9/11. I was so little in 2001, only 12, I didn't really get it when it happened. At that time, it took me weeks to really understand why planes in New York mattered to people in Wisconsin. But, this I understood. I knew that this earthquake had already changed the country forever and that life everywhere in Haiti had just gotten so much harder than it already was. Every once in a while, there was the glimmer of hope that maybe this relief would be the beginning of a new revolution in Haiti.

We all got a good night's sleep that night in our ridiculously nice beds and headed for the airport first thing in the morning.

Lessons on the Bus

On the bus, I really wanted to sleep, but couldn't. I thought about journaling, but wasn't up for that either. So, I wrote this list instead.

Things I've learned in the last week

Most hotel shuttles don't pick-up after midnight

Airports get pretty cold at night, even in Florida

Haitians and Americans define functioning roads very differently

Haitians cook great food

Soda out of a glass bottles is definitely the best way to drink it

Always be open to exploring a plan B

Places where people stop you on the road just to chat every time they see you do still exist

Creole for beginners:
Bonswa = Hi Sava? = How's life? Blanc = White

Surveying is way more fun in Haiti

Language is powerful

Facebook is universal

The best strategy while playing dominoes is definitely to slam the table as hard as possible

"Shower" is a loose term in Haiti and bucketing is way better anyway

Why the "least of these" will be the greatest

Never underestimate the usefulness of carrying a knife, duct tape, and a bandanna in your pack

Always fill your camelbak all the way, even if you're just planning on being out for a couple hours

Haitians are fascinated by toe shoes

Patience is a virtue

Banana trees really do yield bananas when not grown in a sunroom in Wisconsin

God prepares us for trials whether or not we realize it at the time

Haitians love like no one else

Assessment trips can turn into implementation trips at the blink of an eye/crack of a pipe

Worksites where no one is getting paid at the end of the day are the most rewarding

4" couplings don't necessarily fit directly onto 4" pipe

God appoints the leaders of His church for such a time as this

Real men cry

I am blessed

I think I know what Paul was talking about when he wrote Romans 12:15

God is sovereign

I don't understand sovereignty

Stars in Haiti at 4AM are unparalleled

Hymns in any language are beautiful

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Here's a few I have added since being home

Prayer is powerful, even across oceans

God's put some really great people in my life

January 8th was ages ago

I love Haiti and can't wait to go back

God's called me to tell a story

Leaving

Thursday morning we woke up at about 3:30 to leaved at 4. Believe it or not, but it was still very dark at 4AM. I've never seen a sky as amazing as we saw that morning! The weather had been a little downcast while we were there, so there was only one night we had been able to star gaze. This early morning sky blew us all away. There was literally no ambient light anywhere, the stars were so bright, breath taking. Any other time, I would have loved to simply stand beneath the stars and wait for the sunrise, but instead we grabbed our bags that were ready from the night before and loaded the bus.

A few men from the village were going to accompany us for the day. Everyone was pretty quiet. Even though we were all pretty awake, there wasn't really a lot to say. Every once in a while, Actionnel would start singing hymns. The words were in Creole, but the tunes were familiar. At one point, he chose "Amazing Grace."

As the sun came up, we all started to get more talkative. We weren't leaving the way we came, so the drive was new for all of us. We drove through the mountains, which was beautiful. We got a little glimpse of what Haiti was supposed to look like, the moisture in the mountains is the perfect environment for the jungle that used to cover much of Haiti.



The drive for the most part was pretty uneventful. We got to the border and got through fairly easily, there was a very long stretch of about 20 minutes when we were separated from our passports, but for the most part everything was pretty easy. The officials at the border let our Haitian friends walk us to the bus station. We waited with them for about 45 minutes and then our bus left.



As we started our long bus ride across the country, stress that had built up the last few days slowly began to lessen. You could see everyone starting to decompress. The Dominican really is another country compared to Haiti. They definitely still are in need in a lot of their country, but there is an infrastructure and access to things like building materials that is not at all present in Haiti. It's unbelievable to me how an arbitrary line in the sand, drawn hundreds of years ago separates two different worlds.

Probably the Longest Day of my Life: Part 2

So my goal is to be done blogging Haiti by the end of the weekend.

Wednesday night when we returned from the pipe life had started to resume around the house. The atmosphere was still quieter and more subdued than it had been the rest of the week, but more people were congregating and working around the house than there had been that morning. Actionnel and the other men still hadn't returned from their trip to Port-au-Prince, so we all had some time to hang out before dinner.

Most of us were just chillin in our rooms and washing up while we waited for dinner. Tyler, Eyleen, and I decided to try a couple of the spigots around the house to see if the water had made it's way to the house yet. As we got to the steps of the house, Actionnel's truck was pulling up to OFCB. The three of us were just frozen for a second, we watched as hundreds of people followed the truck to the house. We decided to give everyone a minute and just continued to the back of the house to check the spigot.

As we had kind of expected, the water still hadn't made it's way to the spigot. We started to head back to the house and while we were a few steps off the gate we heard screams erupt from the crowd in front of the house. Right away, we weren't really sure what to think, were those good or bad? We kept walking back toward the house and as we made our way though the front gate, women were running past us throwing their arms in the air and screaming in Creole. Tyler and I looked to Eyleen for something, any kind of translation, but she had nothing.

It didn't take long for us to figure out that this was not good. There was no way that this was a celebration for the homecoming of their students. We made our way to the front of the crowd and Demielsant was trying to quiet everyone down so he continue giving them the update from Port-au-Prince. Eyleen interpreted as best she could for us; he said again that they couldn't find either of the students, that their school had collapsed, and even though they were only able to take their truck down a couple of streets, from what they saw the city was 90% destroyed and would take years to rebuild. With every statement, the wails from the community got louder and more desperate.

The three of us just sat there on the side of the house, while the community continued to fall apart around us. At some point, Michael joined us too; right before Actionnel had made it home he had walked down to the pipe crossing. I don't really know what else to say about that night. At the time, I had no idea what to think, and I'm still trying to figure it out a little.

Honestly, I just sat there, going between watching what was happening around me, taking everything in and closing my eyes with my head in my hands. What do you do, really what do you do? What are you supposed to pray for, what is there to say? I was desperate for God to do something, but felt like there was nothing that could make it better. At one point, I know I asked God just to end, seriously, I have never anticipated Heaven, never truly desired an end to the suffering of this earth, more than that moment. I don't want to sounds over-dramatic, but that's what I truly felt in the moment.

I think we sat outside for about an hour. Once the crowd thinned out enough for us to get through the door to the house, we went inside and talked to the North Carolina guys. We decided that it would be best to get out as soon as possible. The longer we stayed, the more resources we would use, the odds of us getting home timely went down. It was such a blessing to have the support and help of the North Carolina churches and the leaders in Bayonnais. We decided that Actionnel and some other community leaders would drive us to the border of the Dominican the next day. We would leave at 4AM and catch a bus at the border to Santo Domingo.

So that's what we did. We all left the NC guys room to pack. We had a plan for travel, but we didn't really think travel would go as planned, so we packed in such a way that we could drop bags if we would have to. Most of us left what would help at OFCB and put the essentials in our backpacks and things we could afford to lose in the rest of our luggage. It was so weird getting ready to leave.

Probably the Longest Day of My Life: Part 1

Ok, before you even say it, I know I did not blog every day or every other day last week. This is taking a little longer than I expected, so rather than hold onto this post until it's done, I'm posting what I have and will hopefully finish soon

Wednesday morning was pretty surreal, I think that's a good word for it. I woke up a little later than I had the previous days, but that seemed to be the norm for everyone. When I finally made my way out to the main room, the activity that normally accompanied the morning wasn't present. Some of the Carolina guys had left early that morning for a hike they had planned at the beginning of the week, so they weren't around, most of our team was sleeping a little late and none of the Haitians seemed to be around either. I went out to the front steps to sit and watch the kids come in to school like I had the two previous mornings, but by 7:45 no one had entered the school gate. I found out a little later that school was canceled for the day.

Eventually the morning started to move forward. Even though the kids didn't have school that day, they still began to roll in to hang around the guest house. Most of them still didn't really get what was going on. The adults walked around with sad faces that reminded me of the days following 9/11, while the kids sat at the dominoes table trying to be as intimidating to eachother as their dads did every night. They were just having fun.

Pretty soon the North Carolina guys came back from their hike and we all sat down for breakfast, without Actionnel though, Yoland told us that he had gone into Port-au-Prince with some other leaders to look for two students from Bayonnais studing there. After breakfast we headed out for what we planned would be a pretty short day or surveying, it seemed a little futile to go out an survey while the country was in an official day of emergency, but it's what we came to do, so that's what we did. We only had one survey station left, so we figured we would be back at the house early.

As we walked to the pipe crossing, Tyler tried one of the water spigots along the road, just to check that the pipe was maintaining its pressure since being fixed Monday. Instead of water shooting out of the high pressure nozzle, a few drops dripped to the ground, bad sign. We got a little closer to the crossing and ran into a couple of the "sub-contractors" who had been working on the pipe earlier in the week. We started to talk with them, communicating mostly through Eddy, one of the NC guys who was born in Haiti and spoke Creole fluently. The men said that the pipe had broken some time during the night. They still had a lot of steel pipe left over with threads didn't match up. They were going to try to fix the pipe with that, but they didn't know how they would do it. We told them that we had brought a coupling with us that might be able to help them get around the problem. Eddy had been thinking about staying Haiti for a couple more weeks, so he said that he would keep the coupling and help the guys fix it later.

We got to the pipe and saw the break. We were pretty disappointed to see the pipe broke, we knew this meant no fresh water for 10 miles of community, just another thing to go wrong. But, we still went on to finish our surveying. Alysen, Michael, Eyleen, and surveyed while Tyler finished his scouting around the river for other projects we are working on.

As always, we had plenty of helpers with us surveying.

We got done surveying a little about 1ish. When we walked past the pipe on our way home, the sub-contractrs were back. They had taken down the broken PVC and had hauled the steel pipe back to the crossing. We stopped to ask them what was up. They told us they had decided to try to fix the pipe that now rather than wait for a while, so, of course, we decided to stay at the crossing and help.

Work at the pipe looked like the 6 of us brainstorming, planning, and making plans, while the men implemented the plans. Having Eddy at the crossing was such a blessing, communicating without him would have been rough. Eyleen did a great job too, her Creole just keeps getting better. Finally, after a few hours, we had a plan with all the bugs worked out. We were going to be able to use the coupling we had brought and the fix would be the most permanent fix the pipe had seen yet.

You can see in this picture the local men who were working with us.

Check out the homemade "scaffolding" they're standing on!

Finished Product and the whole team:We walked home from the pipe SO excited! We had left the house that morning feeling almost useless, we went out to survey because there was nothing else to do, but felt like it was nothing. Now we felt like we had all been part of something so much bigger, like we had helped bring a solution to a real problem.

Tuesday--Post -Quake

Once we got back to the house, it was just about dinner time. They took care of us so well in Haiti, Actionnel's wife, Yolande, is such a great cook! So we sat down for dinner with Actionnel and the North Carolina guys. We all traded stories of the day, not the least of which was where everyone was during the earthquake. Actionnnel confirmed that the community didn't experience any structural damage. He did say that the two-story school shook quite a bit and the kids bolted out.

After dinner John was the first person to grab his computer and check the headlines for the day, nothing was the same after that. John went to the NY Times website, the front page story was the earthquake in Haiti. Most of us were still stalling at the dinner table chatting when he came in and told us the EQ was at least a magnitude 7, it's epicenter was really close to Port-au-Prince, a hospital in Petionville had collapsed. When John stopped reading the article, Actionnel brought his hands to face and asked out loud, "God, haven't we had enough?"

From this point on, time began to crawl. It seemed the hours just kept going. I don't know if we really noticed it at the time, but looking back, we couldn't seem to understand how 3 days seemed to last 3 months. Also from this point on, details get a little shaky. I remember just about everything that happened, but a few things may be a little out of order.

Once we realized that the EQ was a much bigger deal than we had first realized, we got online, sent out some quick emails and updated blogs. Internet had been spotty all week and we figured it would be even worse now, so we conserved the time as much as we could. It got dark pretty quickly after dinner.

Normally nights around the guest house were full of life. There was a table under the overhang of one of the school building that the men always played dominoes on. You should see Haitians play dominoes. It looks and sounds awesome. They don't just set the dominoes on the matching numbers and keep going quietly, it all about intimidation. They're slamming and sliding dominoes, hitting the table, shuffling tiles in their hands and on the table, and making sure everyone else at the table knows who's boss; I think it's probably more fun to watch than to play. Normally groups of the high school kids would hang around with us trying to practice their English by just making conversation. I spent most of my time at night with the littlest kids, I loved playing clapping games with them, you know life Miss-Mary-Mack, of course they sang sweet Creole songs I couldn't understand, (man I really want to learn that before I go down next).

None of that really happened Tuesday night. Dominoes was the last thing on the men's mind as they gathered around Actionnel's big, white pick-up truck, with the radio blasting the only news available being broadcast from Gonnaive. The station was pretty much just broadcasting phone calls they were getting from people close who had information about Port-au-Prince. Most of the high school kids stayed at home that night, but a couple of the older boys had come out to Actionnel's truck too. Most of the young kids didn't really get it. They seemed to notice something was up, they hung around the guest house just a little less active than usual.

That morning we had planned to do a hand washing clinic with some the kids. It didn't really seem like high priority any more, but we figured it would at least keep the kids out of the adults hair, so Eyleen and I did that. I got to take pictures and hang around watching her work while she taught in Creole. After the kids finished the class, they all got a sweet Bucky Badger magnet. They didn't quite understand the concept of a mascot, but they had fun.

Quick side note: That night it was really windy and really unseasonably cold. As soon as we went inside, I put on sweats and a sweatshirt. None of the kids we spent our time with that night had that option.

Once the kids all headed for home, Eyleen and I joined everyone back in the guest house. We talked with the North Carolina guys for a bit. We still didn't really understand the extent of the earthquake yet. We had been able to see some pictures of structural damage, but we didn't have the live video feeds you were all getting. At this point we were still hoping that American Airlines was going to open up flights on Thursday and we would be leaving Thursday out of Port-au-Prince exactly as we had been planning.

As if got later, numbers in the computer rooms dwindled. Eventually it was just Tyler, John, Eyleen, and me. Tyler decided to check his email before we shut down the computer for the night and waiting in his inbox were 3 emails from news stations who had figured out that we were in Haiti. We were pretty amazed, honestly. We worked together to reply with something short that wouldn't be able to cause much of a stir on any news report. We hung around together for a while and eventually got to bed late.

How to Blog Haiti

Hey Everyone,

It's been almost 3 weeks since the earthquake in Haiti and just over 2 since I've been home. I am on the brink of being done recoding everything that happened the week we were gone in my journal, and I'm contemplating the best way to blog it all.

Here's what's gonna happen, the thought of telling you everything all in one post seems overwhelming and like it would never get done, so I'm going to try to blog a little bit every/every other night this week until I get everything I want to say out. I'm going to probably mix up a little what happened with what's going on in my life/heart now and what was going on in my heart/journal when I was in the moments too.

So here's a post I had started the night of the earthquake in Haiti (Tuesday) and finished tonight. When I started, we had just gotten back from the field and I thought I would try to post quick before dinner. I only got through the second paragraph or so before dinner had been put on the table, after dinner everything changed and this post seemed pretty insignificant.

Last night the internet was down so I wasn't able to blog, so get comfortable and get ready to read a lot :)

Yesterday (Monday) morning Alysen, Michael, Eyleen, Tyler and I set out to do some surveying right after breakfast. it took us a little while to figure out the specifics of the equipment we are using, but we figured it out slowly but surely. We were able to take a lot of points before we went back to the house for lunch, but because it was raining after lunch we weren't able to take any more data the rest of the day. However, there was an upside to staying in for the afternoon, Actionnel ( the Pastor of the the church down here) held a meeting with some staff from the church and school and with the missionaries who came down from NC. We got to meet many new people and hear the plans on both sides of the ministry to improve organization and communication.

Tuesday started out just like Monday had. We woke up about 7ish and watched the kids all flow in from the community for school. The school is right next to our house, so we get to see everyone come in with their uniforms and books, ready to learn. The kids are so eager to go to school here. After breakfast with the North Carolina guys I joined the North Carolina guys for their morning devotional. It was such a blessing. Up to this point on the trip I had really been struggling with hopelessness. As we drove from Port-au-Prince to Bayonnais, the need in Haiti was so apparent, there is so much to do, it's overwhelming, and here I am surveying, really. But through Psalm 27 and some things the guys said, I really found a peace and hope in where God had me. I was doing what He's calling me to do and He's in control of the rest.

Something I had forgotten to mention about Monday, was that when we were at the pipe crossing Monday, the pipe had been completely repaired. We really had mixed emotions over this, it was good to see that there is at least some infrastructure developing in Haiti, enough that as needs arise they are being dealt with, not necessarily in a quick matter, but dealt with at least. At the same time it was kind of a bummer to see the project we had been designing for months done for us, it made us all feel a little irrelevant, and the project had been finished with PVC and not steel pipe, which presented, in our opinion, a lot of problems, not the least of which was durability.


Anyway, we went to the pipe to continue surveying Tuesday. We figured that that was what we had come to do, so we were going to finish it. We knew that even though the pipe was fixed now, the information a topographical map created without surveying could be very useful in later projects.

Tuesday when we came home for lunch about noonish, the pre-school kids were just getting out. As I walked up to the house, a whole group of them just engulfed me. It was great, they grabbed my hands and walked me right up to the house. When I told them I wanted to talked a picture and I needed a second to get my camera out (of course not so eloquently because neither of us can understand the other) they started singing to me! Loved it!!! Not a huge important detail, but this is one of my favorite pics from the trip and I really wanted to share it.

An average day for us was each of the six of us spread out working on something else, normally Alysen, Michael, and I would be at the pipe surveying, John would be working his Electrical engineering magic at the house, while Tyler and Eyleen bounce aournd from surveying to researching the area, to talking with the locals. Normally we would all get together at the end of the day at the pipe to walk home.

Tuesday we all got together about 4:30, we had a little surveying to do so we were all chillin and finishing up work for the day together. about ten to 5, the earth started to shake. It was really weird, I was standing behind the survey scope and all of the sudden, I felt like I was shaking. I had been only feet most of the day, so I though maybe my legs were just tired or something, then I looked at one of the girls who was watching/helping us (we never were out in the field without at least a small crowd watching) and I could see they were shaking too. All at once we began to realize we were going through an earthquake, it was kind of like "Hey are you shaking, because we're shaking" back and forth.

The earthquake was pretty weak by us, from a map I found I'm thinking what we felt was somewhere between a 4 and 5 magnitude. Consequently, it was more amusing right away than anything else. None of us had ever really felt an earthquake before, so as we packed up and headed for the guest house, we were all a little excited to have felt an earthquake and surveyed through an earthquake and had a new story to tell when we went back home.

This is where I'm gonna wrap up tonight, I really hope I keep this up tomorrow, I'm going to try really hard!

Back Home

Most of you know this already, but I thought I'd officially post it, I'm back home safe in Portage. I got back to our house Saturday morning about 1 in the morning.

I know there's a lot of our trip you still haven't heard about yet, so much happened the last few days we were there and while we were leaving, but it will probably be a few days before you get the updates. I'm still working on sorting through everything myself. On our plane ride home Tyler, Eyleen, and I just sat and ran through the last few days, checking facts and working on a timeline of some stuff that just all seemed to run together.

Thanks so much for all your love, support, and prayers.