long overdue

i know this post has been long awaited ... but i just didn't feel released yet to blog when i was still covering the passages on Exodus in such detail. so for a few days, i just would jot down a little schedule of what i did that day, or something that may have happened that was worth mentioning, and have just been waiting to post! i actually even started this post a week ago, so this is all old news. but all of that to say, that i am going to try to update more frequently; especially because a beautiful 4-day weekend is upon us!

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ahhh. alas, it's the weekend. and finally some downtime to try to recoup from this week. its been a long one, that's for sure! i'm sad i haven't blogged about it yet, especially last weekend, so this will sort of serve as a catch-all entry from last weekend to this. i have at least been jotting some of it down knowing that i would eventually get to journal about it once i got through enough of the exodus!

unfortunately, i have no clue what happened last friday. at all. none. aside from the fact we sat in the office that night and decided to hike the city on a hill overlooking the base from the south. it was edward and joshua's last weekend, and edward and i wanted to go out and get some good pics of the city and the people here.

saturday, i wasn't able to sleep in (surprise, surprise!), so i got up and headed down to breakfast and hung around base and my apartment for a while waiting for 10 to roll around.... and it came, and went, and i didn't see a soul! i was hoping they didn't leave without me, or decided not to go, but after like half-an-hour, they guys finally headed down stairs and we all got ready to take off.

so me, mike, joshua, jasen, edward and dinac (our translator) headed out (first the front gate, then tried the back gate, only to head to the front gate again) for our hike through the city. we walked through small alleys, stopping to photograph kids in trees, men building caskets, babies on the street, and part of our entourage (three blancs, and two chinoix ... we're totes celebs here). it was so wonderful to finally see some of the city and get out of the little american

bubble that we've been living in. walking the main highway is always interesting: the moto-taxis dart crazily on and off the streets, weaving between pedestrians and miraculously making tight squeezes past cars and people. once we got to the base of the hill, we noticed there were voodoo flags over many of the houses we were about to hike past. and so we stood, roadside, praying for our journey and against the attack of any evil we might encounter. ya'll voodoo is a crazy real issue here and it's heartbreaking the bondage people here live in because of it. fortunately, we had no encounters, praise Him!

as we walked through the small alleyways past these humble patchwork houses, we acquired quite the following. kids would seriously come out of the woodworks as if we poured water on an anthill. we had a few boys follow us from here to the top of the hill/mountain, and back down and to the clinic. its crazy how they roam the town; it's also pretty sad.

we stopped at a quaint little vegetable stand where a few women were also frying up some plantains and what looked like fried spinach dip. i bought a few quarter-sized limes, an onion, and a couple of the hottest peppers you could ever imagine for like, 90 gourdes i think? (about $2USD)

we continued our hike and stopped about midway for some photos, once we could finally see above the rooftops and over the city. it was an incredible view, seriously.

God is so good. this place is so beautiful and the panorama is truly a sensational site to take in. we tried to find a place free of others that we could sit and have lunch together, so we decided to keep hiking up. at the top of the rocky hill, there was a clearing and four posts, markings for a future residence perhaps. the view was glorious. directly north of us was the fort we had hiked to the previous weekend; below was the city of st. marc and the ocean in all its royal turquoise. as we sat down, mike read us a psalm for the day, and it was just such a perfect place to hear God's word as we overlook His magnificent creation.

we had brought with us MRE's (meals-read-to-eat), and let me tell you. if this is what the military eats, they've got it good! i had chicken and vegetables with noodles; but it also came with a chocolate sports bar, crackers and squeeze cheese, and reese's pieces (i stored those for later). everyone had a variety of cheez-its, combos, crackers, tortillas; spaghetti to chicken to burgers, you name it!

we took some photos overlooking the city, and then headed back down the hillside. stopping before we descended through the town, we each prayed out God's love and Christ's blood over the city and spoke promise over Haiti. it was such a powerful moment to just spend in prayer as we could see all of st. marc in our peripherals.

after walking back down through the town, we hopped on the main road and kept going south to head to the clinic. it was my first trip here, and hopefully not the last. the hoop home tents surrounded the green and white clinic building, and the smell of latrines was pretty poignant. the spanish red cross was there, doing some sort of work, but we didn't really spend much time talking to them. upon entering the clinic, we were met by a beautiful and familiar face: chadnitha. chadnitha is the young girl that was paralyzed in the earthquake, but has since experienced a miraculous healing (read the story i posted a few entries ago). she posed for a few photos, but never stopped smiling. it was truly an honor to meet her. the kids all over the clinic were so loving and social. we didn't stay too long before we were on the road for about a 15 minute walk along the coast back to the base.

we definitely hit the pool once we got back, which apparently was the plan for everyone, so I didn't stay too long. i went back and baked a funfetti cake, just because really. joshua, mike, and i decided to meet up after a little while to head to the market for some fresh veggies and to experience the meat market in all of its putrid glory. the smell was beyond offensive, but they didn't have too many innards laying around in the hot, open air. i bought 15 or so tomatoes and a few more peppers (bell and piedmont- SPICY!!), 4 bulbs of garlic, and an onion to make some fresh salsa with that night.

after we got back, i frosted the cake, adding some frozen reese's pieces and crushed oreo's to the mix :) we had dinner on the base and mike and joshua and i talked for a while until mike had to go for a skype meeting. joshua and i went to get all the goods from my house and brought them back to the base to use the industrial (well, for haiti) kitchen. we chopped veggies and talked for at least an hour, and then leah, jasen, and mike joined us to fry tortillas for chips!

we slyly snuck everything around the building, so as to not rub it in that we had cake (or be forced to share it in 40+ ways), and hid out in the office watching nacho libre (definitely a napolean dynamite-esque movie). when it was time for cake, we invited amy, molly, ben, and dave in from the office and all enjoyed it together! it was the perfect way to end such a productive and amazing day!

sunday, mike and I got up early to help joshua out with making pancakes and breakfast for the entire base at 6 a.m. although i'm not a morning person, it was a pretty fun time just hanging out and talking and laughing. a good way to start the day, even if i did go back to bed :)

we decided to hit up epi-d'or later in the afternoon, so i headed to the pool alone around 11:30, but before long joshua, mike, bryan, and the DTS students were all out in full force.

mike drove jasen, leah, joshua, edward, and i down to deli mart (interchangeable with epi d'or) for a late lunch together, so i definitely skipped dinner. sunday nights are always church in the arena, an eclectic mix of american and creole worship. one thing i absolutely LOVE about church are the children that come from the community. they are always full of such love and want to sit on your lap, hold your hand, play with your hair, touch your feet even. every week, i've had a wee little one fall asleep on my shoulder as i've held them. this week, i held little baby joshua, maybe a year old, as he laid his head on my shoulder, a voodoo bracelet on his wrist. after the service, i was able to pray over him, which was a really sweet moment to me.

after church, we went to deli mart . . . again. basically, just assume we have gone to deli mart. daily.

seriously, this was such a wonderful weekend and i've really enjoyed spending time getting to experience haiti, see st. marc, talk with more of the staff and volunteers and learn their stories and their hearts, make base feel more like home, and become more acclimated to my new life.