Team Update and Day 1 of my trip to help.

Have spent most of the day resting and enjoying being home.

Mom packed up my Christmas items, Gerda's in charge of meals, Dad and Gene are building closet units for the guest house, Baileys are mowing lawn and Sloan's are preparing for English class. The team is also working on water for the clinic. Eli and Anna are enjoying a long weekend after completing the school year this week.

Day of Earthquake. Normal late afternoon activities turned into yelling and running from the house the instant we worked out in our minds that we were experiencing an earthquake. You don't instantly know and it takes a bit for your mind to work out the details. We knew it would be bad when the news reported that the center was near Port. I contacted family to let them know we were OK. I looked on line. I got the kids to bed late-in their clothes as an aftershock drove us out of the house for a second time.

I truly believe that the Lord blocked the thought of going to Port-au-Prince from my mind. I prayed-many of my friends from LaGonave had children in Port going to school. We know many living in Port including a young Wesleyan missionary couple. I knew that the LaGonave missionaries were OK. I went to bed and to sleep.

Waking up early the pressing thought now came to the forefront of my mind. How to get a ride to Port and what to pack. I talked on line to mom and asked her to pray. She said they would and that like Esther I was in Haiti for 'such a time as this'. At the end of our short chat she let me know that a missionary from Cap Haitian was planning on leaving at 9 a.m. for Port.

I rapidly packed a small bag of personal items and 2 large bags of medical supplies. I purposely left my camera at home. I knew that I'd return with many visual images that would accompany me the rest of my life-I would not need photographs. A quick kiss to the kids and Cory drove me to Limbe to met my ride. We waited a while in the rain wondering if the truck had already passed me by-but we met up.

The eight hour drive provided time to think, wonder and pray. Would I be able to handle what was to come? I already knew that my best friend from LaGonave had lost three of her college aged kids in Port. Word's often failed me as I tried to pray- many times I could only ask the Lord to intercede and that He pray for those in pain and intervene in the way He knew was best..

For Tolkien fans-I felt like when Pippen and Gandalf are at the wall talking about the battle to come- I didn't want to be where I was, I didn't want to face what I would be facing, but to wait was worse. One's imagination magnifies the fear of failure when being faced with the testing of one's mind, strength and emotions.