Puddles here, puddles there, there are puddles everywhere! When in Haiti, it’s important to know the system. Ya know, which puddles are harmless, and which should be avoided at all cost.

Classification of puddles are as follows:

• Light brown: typical rainwater mixed with dirt. All the roads in  Port de Paix are dirt, so these are pretty common. – little to no smell
• Milky white: “just did laundry” water.  –smell is ok, worse if it’s been stewing for a while.
• Blue/Green: bacteria has entered this cesspool. It lives here, is stoked to be here, and stays this way for a while cause most people try to avoid it. –funk smell
• Teal: literally a gleaming teal color. Not sure about this one, as we only can across once, but it was startling. –didn’t get close enough to smell.
• Black: this is where the term muck came from. Looks like death, smells like death. You would drop dead if your big toe touched it. –smell reaches you before you see it, letting you know it’s close by

This is only from ten days of analysis, so I’m sure I’ll be adding some new categories later on.

I’m not as overwhelmed as I thought I might be. I have been continually asking the Lord to fill my heart and my mind with His words, his promises.  I have been able to cry out to Him, and ask Him to come alongside me and show me what He wants me to do here. As you walk along the dirt streets, it’s easy to give an ear to the whispers of the devil- ‘what do you possibly think you can do here, look at how bad it is here, how do you think you can help a place like Haiti’. But as I ask the Lord to reveal himself to me, to meet me where I am at, He does. He directed me to Lamentations (I know, when is the last time you read through Lamentations??) but it has some great stuff in there!!. Lam 2:19b says, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children who faint from hunger at the head of every street” I sat speechless as tears rolled down my checks. He hears us when we pour out our hearts to Him.

It is a strange feeling visiting a new place, knowing that you will be moving there shortly. On the surface, we looked the same as the rest of the twelve people traveling with our group. We all packed bags for ten days, got a slew of shots, and every type of bug spray available. We saw the same things, smelled the same smells, and went to the same places-but I think our experience were very different.

I arrived in country with my modest missionary skirt, rain jacket, and my game face. You know, the one you wear when you’re out of your comfort zone, but you wanna look tough. I didn’t know what to expect when we flew into Port au Prince. But, in reality, we didn’t see a whole lot. From the plane you can see hundreds of tarps which constitute entire tent cities. When we landed we were trucked to the commuter terminal just down the street, and still didn’t see anything. Even as we flew in the small 18 passenger plane, we were unable to see the magnitude of the devastation. As we landed in Port de Paix, and drove the long bumpy ride to Northwest Haiti Christian mission in St Louis de Nord, my game face was still on. It seemed to be met with other game faces too. All along the streets and in every nook and cranny, people were peering at us. Their expressions were hard and almost menacing. I was certainly intimidated, but quickly found the solution to the stare down. A smile! A simple ‘bounjour’. They instantly lit up! They It seemed odd that so many people were out until I remembered the statistic I read before I left. Eighty percent of the population lives in abject poverty, and out of that, 90% are unemployed! What does 90% unemployment look like? People everywhere, just hanging out. And they think whatever you are doing is so fascinating-although I am unsure why really.