Loving One More Joanna's journal in Haiti

Now matter how you look at life in Haiti is hard. Everyone has a story and every story is harder than I could ever dream my life to be.  It is easy to get jaded, angry and frustrated with it all.  In the end, it is the everyday people who are suffering the most.  Each time I get ready to leave Haiti, I have so many more questions and feel more confused than when I arrived.  I think this is good.  It challenges me to be a better person in my everyday life and it gives me so much to think about that I could never forget this place I love so dearly. 

Today was a good day.  I did have to say goodbye to my friends but saying goodbye only for a while and certain I will see them again soon. 

Gertrude picked me up at Heartline about noon.  We headed back to the orphanage and were met at the gate by the adorable kids returning home from school.  They are so precious and have smiles that can light up a room. 

There are only 3 guests including myself tonight so we thought it would be fun to go to Epidor and bring pizzas home for dinner.  Something simple and fun (or so we thought). We ventured out with Gertrude’s brother and half way into the trip on a narrow busy road our car stopped.  This hasn’t happened to me before.  After trying several things with no success to get it started, Gertrude, Rosie and I got out to push.  It was muddy and there I was with a skirt and flip-flops.  We pushed the car enough and he was able to do a clutch start (I have no clue what that means but it worked).  He got us to the site of the old, crumbled guesthouse and we waited for another ride to pick us up and continue the trip. 

On our way to get the pizza, we stopped at Venia’s home.  I first met Venia in 2005.  She has been the cook at the guesthouse for as long as I have stayed there.  She like many others lost her home in the earthquake.  She lives with her 4 grown children.  They are so delightful.  Thanks to many of your extremely generous donations, we are helping Venia and her family rebuild.  Going to see her and the start of her new home was such a blessing for me. 

Venia and I with 2 of her children inside the start of their new home

There seems to be very little progress on anything here.  So it did my heart good to see that for one very special family, their dream of a new home is coming true.  Thanks so much to all of you!

We finally made it through all the traffic and got our pizzas to go.  While we were in getting our order it once again started to rain. (no thunder tonight! Praise God!) I think this is the 4th or 5th night of rain.  So many of the streets have streams of water running through them.  I will tell you, this water is far from clean.  It just is so sad to me that people are living in the conditions that they are and still have so many challenges. 

Water pouring down the street on our way back to the orphanage

We had a fun evening of eating pizza and your guessed it, playing Uno. 

Goodnight one last time from Haiti!  May God continue to bless you richly. I know that leaving here I am feeling abundantly blessed!