Friday, Day 1, 26 Apr

Friday (Day One), 26 Apr

711a...

Bonjou (Good morning) and Beljou (Beautiful day)!!

On behalf of Team Haiti 2013/April, I want to let everyone know that we're well on our way and no worse for the wear!!  Right now, we're somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and headed for Miami.  The flight time should be only about an hour and forty-five minutes.

This morning began very early as all fifteen of us were up and about, probably sometime between about 230 and 3a.  Kudos and mega thanks to Steve Adler, who met eight of us at newhope's central campus so that he could shuttle us to RDU (and save each of us about $100 in airport parking fees).  The other seven members of our troop met up with us at the airport at around 5 this morning.

Check-in at the AA counter went fairly well.  Except for AA coming down with a case hiccups as they attempted to distinguish between Benjamin Wesley Kelley (42-year-old male) and Benjamin Cole Kelley (13-year-old male), the whole process was pretty uneventful.  Perhaps if Pastor Benji were to go ahead and legally change his name to PBK this won't happen again. 

As far as confiscations at the security checkpoints are concerned, out of fifteen of us I think we lost only one jar of peanut butter, a can of insect repellant, and a bottle of conditioner.

Okay...I'm going to get back to enjoying the flight, drinking coffee, and working on my Haitian Creole.

Peace to all of you!!

Nap we' pita (See you later),

Dave

620p...

We made it to Bohoc!!  It felt great to step off the bus and to feel the cool breeze of the mountain air here in Bohoc.  It was also great to see our friend Jedlain Greffard, our fearless 410 leader.  Jedlain is a native of Bohoc, and we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have him as our guide, our interpreter, and our friend.  I think we're getting ready to eat dinner, so I'm going to sign off for now and go hang with the team.

More later...

Dave

7:51p...

We just finished dinner and a time of introduction to the week provided by both Ronald and Jedlain.  During this time, we learned that the Leadership Council will be paying us a visit at eight tonight.  As such, I have very little time to write much about the day.  I suppose I'll just have to catch up with things tomorrow morning.  I would like to write this though...

For those of you who know Ronald, he was recently promoted (within The 410 Bridge organization here in Haiti) and is now in charge of Team Hospitality, which means he's no longer leading teams.  As such, this change is giving him a little more regularness in his schedule so that he can pursue formal training in theology and Biblical studies, work on his English, and, ultimately, pursue opportunities to teach.  In addition (and you ladies may like this), he's "saving money" for a future family.  :o)

Okay...I need to run.

Bon nwe,

Dave

453a...

Even though it's the next morning, I still wish to write some about yesterday.

Our travel went really well.  We landed in Port au Prince (PaP) at around noon and, after claiming our luggage, linked up with Ronald, loaded on to our bus, and began what ended up being a rather long drive to Bohoc.  Because of the traffic, it felt like it took us almost an hour and a half to make it out of PaP.

Before I share a little about our time with the Leadership Council last night, I'd like to share three things from yesterday.  The first involved one of our teammates who, while she was in the bathroom in the PaP airport, accidently dropped a certain item of clothing from her carry-on bag only to have a woman in one of the bathroom stalls reach out, grab the item, and pull it into the stall with her.  Needless to write, our teammate is now minus one item of clothing as she was not about to go into said stall to retrieve such an item.

The second story involves the Kelley family.  After landing in Miami, we all sort of scattered in order to use the restroom, get more coffee, get something to eat, etc.  During this time, PBK, Amy Lynn, and young Benjamin went to eat lunch at a place that serves sushi/fish bait.  When the waitress brought them their bill, PBK, wanting to teach Benjamin about tipping, let Benjamin have their envelope of around $400 in small bills so that he could pay the tip.  Fast forward to about fifteen minutes later, and all of us are on the plane getting ready to leave for PaP, when the following announcement comes across the loud speaker:  "Will the individual who just ate sushi at Wan Han San's House of Sushi (Note:  Yes, I made up that name as it's a little before 5a, and I can't remember the true name of the restaurant.) please come to the front of the plane?"  Pastor Benji, realizing that he and his family were the ones being identified, went forward only to learn that they'd left all their money sitting on the table at Wan Han San's and that their waitress had run the length of the terminal (probably about a quarter of a mile) to catch them before our plane left.

The last story involves the Kelleys once again as, while we were in the airport in Pap, Benji went into the bathroom to change into shorts, only to set down the bag holding his ipad, and to leave it right there in the bathroom.  For those of you who've never been to Haiti, the airport in PaP can be a mad house of people trying at every turn to help you with your bags so as to garner some kind of tip from you.  Because of this, keeping track of things can get a little harry at times as some people will just walk right up to you and literally take your bags out of your hands (in order to "help you").  This is, I think, a little of what happened in Benji's case.  In trying to keep track of things, he got distracted and, as such, left his ipod bag right there where he'd set it down.  What's really cool about this story is that Benji didn't realize this until after we were on the bus.  I walked back with him to the terminal, all the while listening to his thoughts on how his bag (with his ipod, cell phone, etc.) was now long gone.  Uttering a quick prayer, I asked God to let us find his bag.  As it turns out, one of the cleaning people had found it and was looking for the owner of it.  Isn't that all just kind of cool?

Before I go have some coffee in just a little while, I want to do a recap of last night's meeting with the Bohoc Leadership Council.  For those of you who may not know, the Leadership Council (LC) is comprised of thirteen members of the village.  Many of them are pastors and teachers; a couple of them are business men.  I've slowly gotten to know these folks over the last few years, and I think they're an amazing group of people.

Okay, here's the recap...

In addition to the newhope team, the following people were present:

Ronald Formilus (The 410 Bridge, Haitian Staff, and our interpreter for this meeting)

Jedlain Greffard (The 410 Bridge, Haitian Staff, and our leader throughout the week)

Adias (LC)

Jerome Greffard (LC and Jedlain's father)

Destruel (LC)

Pastor Desum Isaac (LC)

Madam Sufras Filli (LC)

Ronald

The LC has come to welcome all of you.  Thank you for being willing to listen to them.

Jedlain

I'm very excited to welcome you and to meet with you and the LC.  Before the members of the LC introduce themselves, we want all of you to feel at home.  Once again, my name is Jedlain, and I am the community coordinator for Bohoc.  We have five members of the LC with us tonight.  I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves.

Adias

Good evening.  We welcome you to our community.  My name is Adias, and I am president of the LC.

Destruel

Good evening.  My name is Destruel, and I am a member of the LC.  Welcome to our community.

Jedlain

Destruel's wife is one of the women who will be cooking for all of us throughout the week!

Pastor Isaac

I am very happy to see all of you here in Bohoc...so excited to be with you.  My name is Pastor Desum Isaac.

Jerome

It is with great joy that I welcome you to our community.  Each time when I know you're coming, my heart can't wait to see you and to meet with you.  May name is Jerome Greffard, and I am the vice president of the LC.  I'm also Jedlain's father.

Filli

Welcome to Bohoc!  I am so excited to see the two young people you brought with you.  I am the treasurer of the LC.

After this, each member of the newhope team introduced himself or herself to the LC.

Adias

It's a great privilege to be with you tonight.  I am so excited to have you in our community.  It's a great joy to have a team come visit us in our community.  We are blessed each time.  Please feel at home.  I hope God blesses your time here with us..  There's nothing to be afraid of.  We don't have security issues or violence here in Bohoc.  I hope during our time together that we'll all be able to work together, learn from each other, and just have a great time together.

Thank you to the first-timers for coming!!  And a great big thank you to those who are returning for the second, third, fourth, and fifth times!!  I pray that you won't stop coming to be with us.  Thank you for coming!!

Jerome

It's a great blessing to be sitting together tonight.  We are very excited and happy to welcome you to Bohoc.  We want to put our heads together to work for this community so that the work will continue after we die.

Our hearts are breaking with joy.  Even if we had money, we wouldn't have enough to pay you to become our friends.  We are grateful that there is no reason to have to do this as you have come to just be with us willingly.  You have a place in all our hearts.  And we want to say thank you to Dave, the grandfather of the team.

We are always so very happy to see you.  You are our brothers, our sisters, and our children.  Whenever we see you we feel we are blessed.  And we want to have a place so that Dave can come live here with us.

Adias

Even though there are only five of us from the LC here tonight, we are standing in for the entire LC and are speaking on their behalf.  There is a church service going on in town tonight, and several of our members are there at the service.  I promise, though, that before you leave you will have the opportunity to meet all or most of them.  Our people thank you for coming to share our life here in Bohoc.  We so appreciate how when you come, you work hard, play with and teach our kids, and try to be a part of everything.  Thank you, and God bless you for your help!  We know your efforts--thank you!!

Haiti is a very needy country.  It is so needful of Christians.  Some of us will be with you throughout the week, and, of course, we will meet with you again before you leave.

Jerome

Open your eyes while you're here!!  Thank you!!

Pastor Benji Kelley

On behalf of newhope church, I bring you greetings from thousands of people who send their love, their greetings, and their prayers.  We are grateful to be able to partner with you in the gospel and in this community.

Okay...I'm going to break for now, post this, and go have some coffee before breakfast.  I will, at some point today, try to write a little about our visit yesterday to The 410 Bridge offices in PaP as well as our meeting with Pastor Chavion, the Haiti National Director of 410.

Peace to all of you...

Dave