Haiti does not participate in daylight savings time. Therefore it becomes light around 5:15am. At first I didn't know how to respond to this, but I will say it makes it much easier to wake-up in the morning.
After the rest of our crew woke up, we joined a group from Ohio that was working on homes the week prior and headed to church. Since it rained a lot the night before the roads were wet and difficult to maneuver. When there is a puddle of muddy water in Haiti, it's best to go around it since you can't safely assume that the potholes in Haiti are shallow. Many of them could be classified as craters. Church was only about 6 miles away from the Villa, but it took us over an hour to get there.
When we arrived we were escorted to the very front. It was fun to see the church already have the sound system that we gave them the night before up and running. They had us stand up, and thanked us for our hard work and contributions to the church. Songs were sang, some of which we knew the english version to, and a sermon was given. At the end of the service, communion was given. It was a piece of a cracker and actual wine. The church sustained extensive damage during the earthquake and as a result had to be leveled and will have to be rebuilt. As of right now, they hold church on the same ground the original church was, but underneath a tent.
After church, we went to a hotel for lunch. All the rest of our meals were held at the Villa for the rest of the week, but on Sunday's the kitchen staff has off to be with family and worship the Lord. When we arrived we walked into a room with A/C. It felt great. Right off, we could tell this hotel caters to Americans, even the menu's were in English. What we didn't know however was the amount of time it was going to take to eat. It became apparent that the restaurant did not have enough plates for all of us to eat at the same time. Thus, one table would eat, then the next, and so on and so forth. It ended up taking us 3 hours to eat lunch.
On our way home, we stopped by a street market so people could collect some gifts for supporters and family members. It was an interesting site, and it took a lot of convincing on my part to persuade the street sellers that I did not have any money on me. I remember one conversation with an individual who said, "You do to have money on you. You have Jesus in your heart." I was a little taken back by the comment and told him that it's true that Jesus is in my heart and he gives me joy, but the joy in my heart given to me by Jesus did not give me money to buy something from him.
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| Picture of the Street Market |
When we got back to the Villa, the rest of our team arrived from the airport. Half of our team left on Saturday with me, and the other 4 came in on Sunday. They too, had a tight connection to make in Miami, but they weren't as lucky as we were. Their luggage did not make it to Haiti. Luckily most of it would arrive the next day.
The rest of the day consisted of resting and preparing for the week ahead of hard work and sharing with the Haitian people.
