A trip to Haiti

Visiting Haiti this past month brought back a lot of memories. There is something about being in a place and experiencing its sounds and smells that jogs the memory like nothing else. When I was a teenager, my family lived in a small Haitian community for a year. I returned there for a visit 5 years following my family's departure, but did not return for the next 15 years.

It was somewhat surreal returning to a place after 15 years of being away. I didn't recognize some of the people, while others like Pastor Paul and his wife are timeless. It certainly was a small taste of heaven being able to visit people that my family knew 2o years ago.

I also very much enjoyed seeing where my sister Bethanie works. Despite the years that she has been down there, I never had the opportunity to see where she was working until now. Although she is a very descriptive writer, there is nothing like seeing the place for oneself. After seeing the work that she does, I came to the conclusion that she is the closest thing to a saint, in the Catholic sense of the word, that I know.

Here are a few pictures from the trip....



Here we are at the MAF airport, arranged by height. The MAF pilot was wonderful, and helped us escape what would have been hours of bouncing along awful roads while moving at a snails pace.


A vaccination post with Bethanie. Not shown is Claude, the main source of entertainment for the event.
Bethanie and I at the top of the mountain. The valley below is where she and many of her patients live. They could have climbed the mountain in a fraction of the time that we did.

Here we are climbing the mountain overlooking Bethanie's house. It was a pretty steep climb. The little guy leading the way for us obviously thought that we were pretty wimpy climbers.

Here Bethanie is treating a hand wound. The man is a mason and must continue to work despite a fairly serious wound.

This picture is of Bethanie in the clinic warehouse. The clinic distributes medications and has a number of patients with HIV or TB who are given food as part of their treatment.