Have you ever noticed that you can see and experience the same event,or an accident, or be at the same party, or even just in the same room but see things completely different than the person next to you? One thing I like about having teams come to visit, is seeing things from their perspective. We are in the same location-drilling or interacting with the community each week-but people tend to see and notice different things. And when we come together at night to talk about the day, it’s so interesting to me to listen and hear what they saw and observed from the day.
Sometimes I notice this too when I grab photos from different team members. One set of photos tells one story, and another set tells another story. Of course, there are a lot of the same photos, but you get a different perspective based on who is behind the camera. And so I would like to share another perspective with you, from the same trip and team that came from Liquid Church. I loved Mike’s photos because he got so many candid shots,action shots, sneaky shots, behind the scenes shots. And I love these ones too, Christine’s, they are of the people, their faces, and expressions. Check ’em out…
When we first arrived at the church/drill site, we sat around talking with the ladies who lived next to the church-we had so much fun! Left to right: Christine, me, Alex, (Vanessa in the white shirt) Lynn.I took the ladies for a walk around the neighborhood. It was pretty muddy, but we had a tough group of ladies who didn’t mind at all! Lynn, Amy, Erin, Erin, Linda, AlexI’m the tour guide-minus the little flag !Cute.Brandon gave one of these little guys hit hat for a while-he loved it!Everyone from the team got a chance to meet the Living Water national staff-Pastor Jiles (pictured) who does is a pastor that works with the local church, Maragreth who is our hygiene coordinator, and Riccardo guy who gets the communities involved and engaged.Christine couldn’t get this little guy to smile all week long…But persistence paid off and he finally cracked-how cute is he???So shy !She had a way of making everyone smile or laugh.Once you take one, the guy next to him wants his taken too! 🙂Lovin’ on each other.I love this shot-he finally gave in and gave her a smirk !Check out this photo… the team brought the Canadian frisbee (there were quite a few Canadians on this trip) and the kid was wearing a USA T shirt. We all got a kick out of this-it was kind of like the team- a great blend of two countries loving on people in the name of the same God!A man from the community loved having his photo taken too.One day the team did the story about Jesus washing the disciples feet-something that is a really big deal here in Haiti for two reasons: One, just like in Biblical times people’s feet get super dirty here, and Second, someone who is a master/leader/Jesus washing people’s feet is a big deal. In Haiti, the more you move up the economic and social ladder, you just don’t do manual labor, work, or anything like that. So I think this story was huge for the community to hear and see acted out.Rowing in their makeshift boat-the kids totally get into acting things out. They loved the Biblical story of Jesus telling the fisherman to throw their nets on the other side of the boat-learning at a young age to trust in Jesus and what He tell us. Good stuff!We all sat quietly and listened to the Bible stories-the kids are so well behaved!Visiting another house in the community that the pastor lead us to. We got to talk with them, share with them, and pray with them. I love how Haitians are so open and let you walk right into their homes! So sweet.A great shot of an open well-another reason why the communities need a drilled wells. This well is shallow -meaning too many things can contaminate it-, it’s open-you can imagine what may fall/land/be in there, look at that bucket and rope-it’s lowered into the well and pulled back up-introducing lots of germs and bacteria into the well too-do I need to keep going?A home in the community.Ivenor who works for LWI, has such a special way about him. When we go and visit families in the community, he does such an amazing job relating to them, talking with them, joking with them, and making them feel comfortable and at ease having strangers in their home. I am so thankful for his gracious and kind heart.Another home in the community. I love these shots.Out wondering around the neighborhood. Even though many of the trees and rainforest has been chopped down, it’s still very green and beautiful up in the North. This is a sugarcane field and those lovely green mountains behind it.In the afternoons we simply played with the kids and loved on them. One way we did that was painting the girls nails-and what girl doesn’t like her nails painted??She was loving the bright blue !Cleynel is another LWI employee who works with teams too. One day he brought his son over to the house to meet everyone-he is such a ham!!I love this shot of this little boy watching the well being drilled.Rich really enjoyed some alone time he got to spend sharing and talking with some of the people from the community.This community was so excited and so thankful for their new well, that when they finished the dedication ceremony, they brought us some coconuts. They were so tasty!Another way the ladies wanted to say thank you was by braiding our hair. Now, I have to say, I vowed I would never braid my hair while in Haiti. I think it looks ridiculous on us white girls, with our bright white scalps blinding the world. But, I couldn’t be rude, and since they wanted to make us look beautiful, and show their gratitude in their own way, we all got our hair braided! It was so funny to see us all lined up getting fixed up. It was truly a labor of love-it takes a while to do!, but they loved doing it and we felt so loved on!Wanna hear something sweet? This team casually asked when our next team was, and they found out that when they left on Saturday, we were literally dropping them off and picking the next team up! So, they got together and gave us a “date night” and sent us out for the night to have some alone time. How sweet is that?? We had a great time going out and pizza was the special for the night-wooohoo!The citadel. It still is breath taking-even seeing it three weeks in a row!This cracked me up-and they got some serious air !You have to work for your beautiful views at the citadel-it’s a mile straight up to the top. So us three girls called this excursion, OTA. Operation tight … Well,what part of your body is that really good for?? (hint: it’s not your heart!) This woman was pretty sweet-and selling lots of fun necklaces!
Jessica Stone 
thanks for your post jessica. it’s so encouraging to see what you’re able to accomplish in haiti.
Love looking At the pictures. Can’t wait to visit again.