Written by Carol Olsen, MH4H trip participant

Well, we finally arrived in Haiti. Wow, Satan was doing everything in his power to keep us from coming, but God is bigger and we actually arrived an hour early to Pignon. A big thank you to Bev Brand and to Tim Van Maanen for spending countless hours on the phone and talking to airline reps to change our flights. Because of the snow storm in Atlanta, our original flight was cancelled. So 3 of us left on a rerouted flight and arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 4:30 as scheduled. Tanner was stuck escorting 2 old ladies around for the day. Poor guy. He was a good sport about it. The other 5 flights were canceled, scheduled, cancelled and rescheduled. They finally arrived in FL at approximately 2:15 AM. We were then bused to Fort Pierce where we had exactly 1 hour to shower, eat breakfast and head to the airport again.

Arriving in Pignon, we walked around the “business” area of town. All the locals were thrilled to see Tim and Tanner. Tim is so encouraging to each person he meets – telling us how he knows them and what their specific gifts are. We went to the hospital where we saw someone’s grandma with a broken leg. How is she going to raise $1800 to have surgery? We went to a church and saw women sewing (trying to earn an income), saw a cholera clinic that MH4H is going to rebuild, and the mission home where Cassidy and Heather live. All the schools have their own uniforms so the children are darling in their individual uniforms. We watched them walk home to their huts with tin roofs and cooking outside.

We then rode in the back of pick-ups to our “dorms”– nice, new dorms. Since most of us hadn’t had more than 5-6 hours total for the last few nights, we relaxed – talking or sleeping for the rest of the afternoon. I have a feeling there will be some serious snoring tonight.

My goal for my trip to Haiti is to see the people of Haiti through the eyes of Jesus, showing love to all I meet, being the hands and feet of Jesus. I hope that I can show that same love to the people I meet when I come back to Pella.

The current cholera clinic at the hospital in Pignon. MH4H will be rebuilding the clinic this month. Notice the strategically placed holes in the cholera clinic beds.