Earthquake Reflections-Wrap up trip 1

Tomorrow the four of us will load up and drive 1.5 hours to the Cap Haitian airport. A short 30 minutes later on the MAF Kodiak, we will arrive in Port-au-Prince. [Remember normally it's about a 10 hour-rough drive. Then it will take close to 3 hours to drive West to Petit Goave.

Cory is planning on joining up with folks from ECHO and Relief International for a few days of assessing and brainstorming what can be done agriculturally to help the earthquake victims. He will be staying and traveling with the team. Food is always a concern in Haiti but more so now with the huge losses that the earthquake caused.

The kids and I will be staying on the Wesleyan campus. The field clinic is now both clinic an hospital. Will be interesting to see how it has changed in just 3 weeks time. The people staffing it will be different but I don't doubt that we'll be meeting some great folks.

Looks like we'll have a few days with Helen Jacobson who worked a number of years on LaGonave with us.

We plan on returning on March 6th, also on a MAF flight. Already having a flight back is a good thing. Many unknowns accompanied me on my first trip: not knowing where I would end up on my first trip, not knowing what I'd see and how I'd handle it, not knowing who I'd work with--not knowing how long I'd be gone. It is comforting knowing where, when, who [at least a couple of them], what and for how long.

Listening to the folks who enjoyed the Amway flights to Haiti really made looking forward to the long and bumpy trip back North hard. But I tried to have a good attitude about the whole deal. Cory was trying to set up a ride back at the same time that Pastor Dan looked into flights. I prayed for a flight. Then I heard maybe Friday-my folks had come into Haiti on Tuesday so I had even more reason to want to be home.

I remained busy and tired enough most of the time not to think about Cory and the kids to much but on Saturday when Cory told me that our pet cat had died-I really longed to be there for my kids. Compared with the folks that had lost so much it was a small thing. Rose belonged to Anna's friend who moved away unexpectedly. We never planned to have a cat but she added joy and fun to our life. But the loss of Rose was one to many losses for me-I needed to be home.

On Wednesday I knew that part of the team had to be ready to go. I believed I had until Thursday but when the drivers arrived Janice Controne and I learned we had 30 minutes to get ready. Thankfully I had packed most items up already-not that I had a lot. But I had a box of items that I wanted to leave at TiGoave for this next trip.

After overnighting at Pastor Carl's those of us leaving were brought to the airport. I and Dr. Eli had an MAF charter to the North while the others were to leave the big airport on the Amway jet for Michigan. The small airport was filled with foreigners waiting for the MFI plane to FL. We flew in the new MAF Kodiak plane-very nice.

Cory, the kids, my folks and my Northern family welcomed me with open arms. By the end of the day Cory tracked down a new cat for me. His name is Kodiak.

I and the kids will keep journals during our trip. I'll return to blogging on our return and plan on sharing some of Eli and Anna's perspectives of the trip and earthquake. Please pray for us. It is doubtful we will have much, if any Internet time at TiGoave. God Bless.