“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building” 1 Corinthians 5:7-20
We are so excited for the new opportunities God has opened for us, and are blessed to have a lot of firsts in this trip: for the first time we have a dentist in the team, and we know that all the orphans and the people of Haiti will benefit so much from this! For the first time we have a teenage boy in our team, David Ellis, who at age 15 already has such a compassionate and servant heart. Also for the first time, we were able to send most of the medicine, medical supplies and clothes ahead in a container from Food for The Poor. We would like to thank Ed O’Brien and Food for The Poor for facilitating this amazing blessing, which has given us the opportunity to bring to Haiti much more medicine than we could ever carry in our own luggage. We also would like to thank the volunteers of the SRC Lord’s Closet for helping us sort through all the medicine and supplies and for putting together the outfits for the children by size and age.
And so our group of 13, composed of Dr. Scott Meyer and Dr. John Magnacca, two nurses: Toni James and Jackie Adames and 7 other volunteers: David Ellis, Matt Ellis, Eric Johnson, Cathy O’Brien, Ed O’Brien, Tom Turner, Cindy Cooper and our mission trip leader Craig Kindell began this journey this morning at 5 am. We met in the church parking lot and loaded up the bus with roughly 50 pieces of luggage. Pastor Tommy Kiedis was there to pray with us and see us off.
A special thanks to Jim Pingrey for making himself available at such an early time to drive us to the airport. By 7 am, we had checked our bags, gone through the security 
point, and those who had not had their coffee were the first ones in line to get their caffeine fix with a nice cup of Joe and even chocolate cake!
point, and those who had not had their coffee were the first ones in line to get their caffeine fix with a nice cup of Joe and even chocolate cake! The flight was only 1 ½ hours, and it gave us a nice opportunity to catch some z’s.
We arrived at Port au Prince at 9:30 am and as usual were greeted by a music band playing wonderful island music.
Pierre (formerly known as DouDou) picked us up and took us to the Visa Lodge restaurant with a beautiful view and even a pool. It was great to sit on the terrace, feel the wonderful breeze and eat some rice and beans, pork ribs, chicken and cake!
After lunch we embarked on what we were told was going to be a 3 hour drive from Port au Prince to Les Cayes. We drove through markets full of the normal Saturday congestion, the people buying and selling anything from engine parts to chickens and goats. It was interesting to see the city buses packed with people, their bags of groceries and their dead chickens hanging from the rails of the bus…. After a quick bathroom stop we continued our journey, and began to get excited about our arrival after we were told “we were only 15 to 20 minutes away. “ Three hours later we figured out there must be some kind of conversion between minutes and hours because we were still driving! So now our joke is to respond to every inquiry about how long something will take with……. “Oh, just 15 to 20 minutes.”
We arrived at the guest house in Cambry at around 7 pm and settled into our cozy bunk beds. Each room has its own private bathroom and the ladies even have a dresser…we feel spoiled!
Our travel coordinator here in Haiti, Philemon—who likes to go by Dr. Phil—arranged for our dinner. And so after some fried rice, rice and beans, fish, goat, chicken and plantains we all headed to our beds to get some rest to begin our early morning the next day.
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