I'm getting ready to fall asleep to the sound of whirring fans attempting to curb the heat of another sultry tropical night in the coastal town of Petit Goâve. Donavan and I are planning on heading to Port au Prince early in the morning to spend an exhausting day buying the monthly medicines and supplies for clinic and I'm already missing our mission and the cool, fresh air of the mountains. I'll explain a few things about the process of meds shopping so you can better understand why I chose to use the word "exhausting".
First of all, driving anywhere in the bustling city of Port au Prince is a combination of honking horns, billowing clouds of putrid exhaust, hair raising close shaves with fellow motorists on the pot hole ridden streets and traffic sitting bumper to bumper for hours at a time waiting on random busses and trucks to turn around or enter from a side street ahead. We have several wholesale pharmaceutical distributors that we order from each month and everything would be very simple if they actually would have everything listed in their product catalogues, but of course there are always several things on each order that are not in stock and it's up to us to find an alternate source which is often more expensive. Add to that trying to talk a language that I still do not find coming to me naturally and picking up the main monthly groceries for the mission as well as quite a few other random errands followed by the 4 to 5 hour trip back home (remember the streets!) and tired is an understatement to describe how one feels. Anyway, enough complaining.
There are many things of beauty, life and joy to be thankful for. Beautiful ocean waves along the shore next to the highway with an ancient looking patched up sailboat here or there on the glistening surface of the water. Children and young people playing along the streets despite the trash strewn around. Just the simple fact of having most of the meds we need available and being able to use them to help further Christ's Kingdom is a huge blessing in itself.
Life isn't generally easy in Haiti for anyone, but it is still life, and life is always beautiful. May our lives be a proof of the life and power of Him who created us that we can draw others to Him so they too can know that source from where life itself originates.
For the team,
-Hans
