Haiti Worktrip

Rev. Joy Anderson's last post, Wednesday, March 16 -

We left our worksite about 11:00 this morning and came to the UM Guest House, went to a resturant to eat a fast food lunch, and then went to the top of the mountain overlooking PAP. This was our sightseeing outing. We saw portions of PAP that I have not seen before. We went through a section that had a banner out that read "Family Market" and there were hundreds of vendors selling everything that you could think of and people were curb to curb. It was chaotic and unbelievable - words cannot describe the scene. This evening we have some down time before we are up early Thursday morning to leave for the airport. We have had an amazing week of hard work, hot weather, very different living conditions, wonderful relationships with our Haitian colleagues, and play time with the school children. We made great progress on our project and as we left the Haitians were continuing to work hard on the work site. We are all tired, hot, and have resorted to thinking about what will be the first thing we are going to eat or do when we return. However everyone of the team will say that this has been one of the most amazing and meaningful experiences that each of us has had. Our living conditions were hard, but we realized each day that the Haitians live under these same conditions all of the time and so that put our 8 days in perspective. I hope that we will have many opportunities to share this experience with the congregation of FUMCR in the weeks to come. It will be difficult to describe all that we have seen and experienced here in Haiti, but we have a lot of pictures so maybe that will help convey the message of the Haiti people that we have had the opportunity to know and work with during our short time here. See you Sunday.

Work trip team members: Rev. Joy Anderson, leader, Keith Baker, Kathy Anderson, Pat Hatinger, Frank Clem, Marie Tinnin, Geoffrey Sloan, Homer Cary, and Judy Cash.

For more information about the trip, please read their BLOG and attend their presentation on April 17 at 11:00 in Ogden Fellowship Hall.